Xiaomi keeps lifting pages from the Apple playbook, and frankly, I’m here for it. Their latest Sound 2 Max speaker dropped last week, and it’s perhaps the clearest distillation yet of the company’s design philosophy, channeling that peak Jony Ive era when Apple was still making products that looked like they belonged in MoMA. Remember when Ive was literally mirroring Dieter Rams’ work for Braun and nobody cared because the results were so damn good? Xiaomi’s doing the same thing here, and while western companies have mostly abandoned this aesthetic for fabric-wrapped nonsense and rounded plastic blobs, Xiaomi’s carrying the minimalist torch with zero apologies.
This thing is a statement piece in an era of forgettable speakers. The die-cast aluminum unibody, the perfect symmetry of those three circular drivers, the complete lack of unnecessary bullshit – it’s all there. Put it next to Rams’ Braun LE1 from 1960 and you’d swear they were related. Even the buttons on top are practically invisible. This is what happens when you follow Rams’ “less, but better” philosophy to its logical conclusion. No stupid fabric, no quirky colors, no meaningless design flourishes. Just pure function made beautiful.
Designer: Xiaomi
Inside that gorgeous shell sits actual serious hardware. Xiaomi packed in two 4-inch 30W woofers, a 4-inch 30W midrange driver, and a 1.5-inch 10W tweeter in an MTM layout. That’s 100 watts total with a frequency response from 47Hz to 22kHz and 101dB SPL. Translation? This thing will fill your living room with sound without breaking a sweat. I’d bet good money it sounds better at 60% volume than maxed out, like most well-engineered speakers.
On the connectivity front, you get Bluetooth 5.2, dual-band Wi-Fi 6, analog RCA, and USB-C. The big miss? No AirPlay or Google Cast. What the hell, Xiaomi? It’s 2025. But I’ll forgive that sin because this speaker costs $280 while looking better than B&O gear at three times the price. You can pair two for stereo or four for surround, though that gets expensive fast.
I love that they made the front panels swappable with magnetic wood, fabric, and metal options. Smart move. These speakers live in our homes, they’re furniture as much as tech, and Xiaomi gets that. The included metal stand and ambient light bar just seal the deal.
The voice assistant and smart home stuff is there if you want it. Super XiaoAi leverages AI for natural conversations, but unless you speak Mandarin, who cares? The Xiaomi Mesh 2.0 compatibility is more useful if you’ve bought into their ecosystem.
Will this make Apple fanboys switch teams? Absolutely not. But for design nerds who miss when tech products were allowed to look like actual designed objects instead of kindergarten crafts, the Sound 2 Max is the real deal. It’s a modern speaker that respects its design heritage while delivering killer specs. Minimalism isn’t dead after all. It just moved to Shenzhen.
The post Xiaomi Channels Dieter Rams, Proves They’re Still the Apple of the East first appeared on Yanko Design.
