Bose SoundLink Home review: Big sound from a slim, small Bluetooth speaker

Best way to describe Bose’s new product Sound Link Home ($219) The wireless speaker is the company’s spiritual successor. SoundLink Mini 2 This speaker was quietly discontinued at the end of 2018. Available in two color options, the SoundLink Home is a portable Bluetooth speaker with up to 9 hours of battery life, but its aluminum chassis and lack of water resistance make it more of an indoor design. . That means it’s portable, but probably not the speaker to take to the beach or camping trip.

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Aside from its attractive design, SoundLink Home’s biggest advantage is its sound quality. Equipped with Bluetooth 5.3 and weighing just over 2 pounds, it produces impressive bass for its compact size and also offers decent clarity. Overall, the sound is excellent for a mini Bluetooth speaker, and it is louder and somewhat richer than the SoundLink Flex ($150).

However, like any other small speaker, there are sound limitations. For more complex tracks, as you turn up the volume, the digital processing may sound slightly suppressed at certain frequencies to prevent distortion. It is also more suitable for small to medium sized rooms. It filled my bedroom and home office with sound, but while it was fine for making background music, it felt too small for my living room.

This speaker is a mono speaker that uses digital processing technology to widen the sound stage and make the sound more expansive. Everything is fine. However, combining two of these speakers into a stereo pair can produce much better sound. You can also connect the speaker directly to your computer, smartphone, or tablet using a USB-C cable for wired sound. As you might expect, the SoundLink Home sounds slightly clearer and more detailed in wired USB-C mode.

There are no additional features other than a built-in microphone that allows you to use the speaker as a personal speakerphone. And it works well in that capacity. Callers said they could hear my voice clearly and that background noise reduction was good.

More importantly, SoundLink Home is somewhat expensive and doesn’t connect to Bose’s companion app for headphones and other Bluetooth speakers. This is a bit strange and there is no way to adjust the sound profile with some equalizer settings. I haven’t felt a huge urge to adjust the sound profile, but I’m pointing this out for those who like to play around with their speakers’ sound settings.

Bose SoundLink Home and SoundLink Flex

The biggest question for many people is whether to choose Bose’s cheaper offering. Sound Link Flex speaker or this model. Bose recently released 2nd generation Flex It adds several new features, including new shortcut buttons, Bose app compatibility (you can now adjust sound profiles with the equalizer and create SimpleSync connections with other compatible Bose products), and support for AAC and AptX audio codecs. It’s not a huge upgrade, but it makes an excellent portable Bluetooth speaker slightly better.

Your choice will ultimately depend on how you plan to use this mini wireless speaker and whether you want a speaker with a sturdier design (Flex) that delivers very good sound for its size. battery life) or a less robust speaker that improves sound quality by about 30%. You may notice a greater improvement in sound quality on some tracks than on others. For example, if you’re playing a simple ballad or acoustic track without a lot of bass, the difference will be less noticeable. All of these small speakers tend to sound different depending on the quality of the recording and the type of track being played.

SoundLink Home currently supports SBC and AAC audio codecs, but not AptX. This omission isn’t a big deal, especially considering you get USB-C audio via SoundLink Home.

I’d say put one speaker on top of the other, but it’s not that simple. However, if you expect to use the speaker primarily indoors, such as a home office, bedroom, or kitchen, and occasionally take it out to the patio, the SoundLink Home is probably a better choice. Take out the extra dough for that. Of course, in an ideal world you could connect SoundLink Home to SoundLink Flex, but that option isn’t currently available, and who knows when that will be the case.

If you look at other competing products, there are definitely a lot of compact Bluetooth speakers on the market. JBL, Klipsch, and Marshall have wireless tabletop speakers (Marshall Acton 3 and Kilburn 2For example), although they are billed as home Bluetooth speakers (some even offer Wi-Fi streaming), they tend to be larger and not all of them are portable. I am JBL Authentics 300However, they are much louder and much more expensive than these Bose speakers. There’s also the Sonos Roam 2, which is slightly smaller than the Bose but is designed to connect to a home Sonos Wi-Fi system and be used as a portable Bluetooth speaker. However, the Bose Soundlink Home sounds better than the Roam 2.

In the end, Bose’s SoundLink Flex and SoundLink Home are both excellent compact Bluetooth speakers. But if sound is your priority, SoundLink Home is a winner.

Bose SoundLink Home Key Specifications

• Size: 4.33 x 8.50 x 2.34 inches
• Weight: 2.046 pounds
• Bluetooth 5.3 (30-foot range)
• Battery life: Up to 9 hours at medium volume level
• USB-C charging (4 hours to full charge, no charger required)
• USB-C audio wired mode
• Built-in microphone for speakerphone function
• Stereo mode (requires second Soundlink home speaker)
• Light silver and cool gray colors
• Price: $219