Review: TDK A26 "Trek", Yamaha NX-P100, Panasonic SC-NA10 compared

This time I would like to present some recent portable Bluetooth speakers in the price range from 100-200$ and compare one to each other including my current favorite at this size: the Bose Soundlink Mini.

The smallest of the bunch is the TDK A26 "Trek", which looks like a smaller version of the great TDK A33 and can already be found for as low as 79$ on the US-Amazon store. The Trek costs a bit more in Germany though, where the lowest price is around 129�, which would make it twice as expensive when directly converted from the US-price.

The Yamaha NX-P100 seems to be a direct competitor of the Bose Soundlink not only in size but also in price, as at 199$ it costs about the same as the Bose and is also more or less equal in size.

Last not least the Panasonic SC-NA10, which is a bit bigger than the others, but remains still pretty portable as it is considerably smaller and lighter than the TDK A33 for example. Volumewise it should be only slightly larger than the Bose Soundlink Mini if the cover is not included. The Panasonic comes exactly in between pricewise, costing about 150�. I haven't found it on Amazon.com yet though.

I won't cover all the details of each speaker this time as I would like to avoid too much blabla. Like so many they are simple Bluetooth speakers, all of them have handsfree included as well as NFC for faster pairing, the Yamaha and TDK being splash-resistant too.
The Yamaha and Panasonic have Apt-X codec built in for better streaming quality. And both Yamaha and Panasonic have an additional USB-port for charging external devices.

Build quality seems great on all of them. I also like the design of any of them. The TDK Trek feels great in your hand, it is neither too heavy nor too light. Compared to the Soundlink Mini the TDK weights maybe 40% less as I would also estimate the overall volume about 30-40% less. It has exactly the same length as the Bose, but it is flatter and higher at the same time. The overall design resembles much of the original A33. Just the volume indicator LED is missing, which I liked quite a lot on the A33, as you could always see how loud it is set.

 
The volume of the speaker is not synced to the player's volume, on neither of them by the way. So far only recent JBL/Harman Kardon speakers have a single master volume, as do the Jabra Solemate and Solemate Mini speakers. I think the Jamboxes with recent firmware versions also have this feature, and maybe there are other ones too, but I don't know all of them.
As the Trek is so thin (only 2.5cm) it doesn't stand very stable. There is a flip-out stand at the back that covers the passive radiator, very similar to the Soundmatters FoxL. If you pull the stand out too much, it will fall out completely. No idea if this was done as protection for not breaking the hinges or if this is just a design flaw.

When turning the speaker on you will hear some simple tone-progression, not too loud thank goodness. When paired there is another tone, pretty much like on many other bluetooth speakers and the speaker just beeps when maximum volume is reached.

The A26 also has a main power switch, just like the A33 to conserve battery life if not in use. The switch as well as auxilary and charging ports are covered by a soft rubber cap. If powered down with the power button at the top, the speaker is probably just in standby-mode. I have no idea if there is much battery drain when left like this for a longer time. I noticed some problems with the power button on my sample. I really had to press harder in order to turn it on or off, not so with the other buttons which worked well.
The TDK is also the only speaker that forces playback from the player after pairing with Bluetooth. After it reconnects with any device you should automatically hear some music playing. Not sure if this is desireable every time, so I thought I should mention it. According to the specs, the TDK should provide 6 hours of battery life. That is on par with the TDK A33 which I always found to be a bit short, as I never got more than 6.5 hours, despite listening at lower volumes.

I had highest expectations for the Yamaha NX-P100. It is really pricey for that kind of speaker that's why I thought it should also easily compete with the Bose soundwise. Let's find out later if it really did.
The Yamaha looks quite modern, the design is nice and it comes in different colors. It is about equal in size to the Bose Soundlink Mini, maybe even slightly bigger overall.

The body is made of metal covered with rubbered elements at the sides and at the top and bottom. First I thought the body would be made of plastic, but in fact it seems to be metal, it is just the used paint that has makes it feel a bit cheap. Overall it doesn't look that classy as the Bose Soundlink Mini which consists entirely of a "naked" not painted aluminium body. The Yamaha also weights less than the Bose, but has more heft to it than the TDK. At the bottom you can see some kind of vent-slots. I assume the passive radiator is hiding in there, but you cannot really discern it like that.

The side ports are protected with a rubber cover which is very hard to open. You really need to have long nails, but even then it is nearly impossible to flip the cover back. I only managed by hooking up a scissor blade or a screwdriver etc. No idea what Yamaha was thinking when designing this. The TDK also has the ports protected, but you can open the flap easily.

When I unpacked the speaker for the first time and tried pulling it out of the bag, one of the rubbered side covers came down easily. Not sure if this is really meant to be like that, but pulling the cover down doesn't do any harm as you can put it up again without much effort, still I wanted to mention it, as it rather decreases the overall impression I had for this speaker.

The Yamaha has no volume indicator either. It just beeps, when the lowest or highest volume level is reached. When turning the speaker on, you will hear some chords, when successfully paired with a bluetooth device there will be a voice prompt telling you that Bluetooth is now connected. The voice prompts and confirmation tones are not that annoying like on many other speakers and they are played with the current level of the speaker. So if you left the speaker at a lower volume, the next time you turn it on, the tones will also be played low. Battery life should be 8 hours according to the specs. When paired with an Iphone you will also get a battery life indicator in the top status bar.

The Panasonic is in a bit different category as it is larger. In case of emergency you could just put the TDK Trek inside your jeans pocket as it has the size of a "phablet" more or less, and there are many geeks around who carry theirs inside pockets day in day out. The Yamaha is also managable if you have larger side pockets, but the Panasonic will already need a Jacket or something similar. It is still pretty compact as a speaker though and quite light too.

It is even about 25% lighter than the Soundlink Mini and doesn't make the impression of being much heavier than the other two despite being larger. When having both Bose and Panasonic in your hand, the Bose feels like a heavy brick, while the Yamaha rather resembles a book.


Only the Panasonic comes with built in protection in form of a a flip-cover, similar to the one found on the original Bose Soundlink which also holds firm due to built in magnets. You can easily remove it because it is just attached through a press-button, but without cover the speaker won't really stand upright.

If not in use you just flip the cover over like a book and have the front and back of the speaker automatically protected as the cover is padded to some degree like a cushion. The sides and top of the speaker are still prone to scatches, so just tossing it inside a rucksack could do harm to the glossy finish. Only the front grille of the Panasonic is made of metal, the edges as well as the back are pure plastic. Although the edges seem to be aluminium, in reality they are just painted to look like that. The Panasonic has a rotatable volume-button like a good old analog stereo. The button rotates endlessly, but when the speaker is turned on it automatically gets a beginning and an end through a confirmation tone if you reached the minimum or maximum. The Panasonic also plays some confirmation tones when powering on of off. But all the tones are really restrained and not too disturbing.

The Panasonic is the only speaker of the bunch that needs a proprietary charger. It cannot be charged through USB like the others. The charger is also pretty big, by far lager than the Soundlink Mini charger.
The Panasonic adds a battery level meter like the one from Yamaha to the Iphone display as soon as it is paired through Bluetooth. The Panasonic battery is rated for 20 hours in "LP"-mode. I only know this mode from my old VHS video recorder, where the tape was rotated with half the speed, so that you got double the space but with considerably worse quality. Maybe in LP-mode the Panasonic only uses half the bits or half the sample rate? ;-)
It doesn't look as if the battery was replaceable on any of these speakers. I haven't found any obvious way how to get access it.

What about sound?
The Yamaha SC-NA10 was the first I got, so I was able to listen to it first. As already mentioned I expected a performance at least close to the Bose if not even better. In reality the speaker just sounds like any mediocre 50$ Bluetooth speaker. There is hardly any bass to speak of, the one that's there is a kind of muddy mid-bass which sounds rather boomy, without much impact. The overall sound is pretty covered too, as if the speaker was playing inside an additional cartoon box, the treble has some unpleasant resonance frequency, and it tends to sound like a bad clock radio. Volumewise it can reach about 70% of the Soundlink Mini's volume, which is quite loud, but not really louder than a Jabra Solemate Mini that can be found for less than half. At top volume there are hints of distortion, but not too severe, but you can also notice dynamic compression. It sounds neither good at low nor high levels.
Overall the Yamaha disappointed me most. The speaker has neither the quality nor the sound to really justify the high price. If the price was down to 100$ it could be maybe worth considering, but even then there are better sounding speakers that cost less. To tell the truth, I have not heard that many speakers in this size or price range that sounded really worse.

The TDK A26 sounds just like the A33, but without bass. It sounds quite balanced in the upper frequencies, but it has even less bass than the Yamaha. The Bass is tuned differently, so that it doesn't have the boomy character but rather more impact. The sound is much more opened and also treble has quite a bit of sparkle, more than the Soundlink Mini without doubt, but compared to the Soundlink Mini it sounds thin and a bit anemic. There is no real bass below 100Hz, just added overtones, but no fundamental. You can even hear "something" at 60Hz, but these are just overtones not real bass. Maybe they did this in order to make the speaker sound fatter than it is in reality. And in fact you have the impression of hearing some low frequency, but listening closer you notice that there is hardly any power. The smaller FoxL put beside sounds remarkable similar to the TDK, but has a more punchy bass. You can really feel some low-bass with the FoxL, while with the TDK you only hear a bit more mid-bass. With good placement the FoxL manages to outplay the TDK easily as many bass driven songs will sound more engaging, although the FoxL won't play as loud as the TDK and distorts pretty quickly. If the TDK had at least half the bass of the Soundlink Mini it would be a really great sounding speaker for the size, but as it is now it just sounds like a small portable speaker.
Still I prefer the TDK over the Yamaha, as the TDK can play louder and sounds more powerful at higher levels than the Yamaha. The bass on the Yamaha tends to distort at high volume due to its boomy tuning. The TDK also distorts on top volume, but only noticeable with louder peaks like drum kicks etc. which start to crackle. In fact this can be quite disturbing, as I would prefer some slight distortion over crackling sounds, but lowering volume one or a few notches should make it go away.

The Panasonic would outplay both the others easily, at least at low levels the bass is deep and powerful, nearly on par with the Bose Soundlink Mini while at the same time clearer in mids and treble. The sound of the Panasonic was indeed impressive when I turned it on the first time, but the magic went away if I turned it a bit louder. When the volume was reaching pleasant listening levels strong distortion started creeping in. It sounded really severe with some bassheavy songs, the passive radiator was buzzing and farting around, while the speaker hasn't even reached 30% volume yet. The distortion became less again at higher levels, as the speaker seems to dial back bass at higher levels, but it was still noticeable. It was not that strong with songs not containing much bass, so I was not sure if this was a failure or a feature and I ordered a replacement to really get sure I have a representative sample for my review. But the replacement behaved in exactly the same way. You couldn't turn the speaker past 30% without getting heavily humming overdriven sound with many songs. Apart from the distortion the speaker would play quite loud, louder than the TDK A26, but not as loud as the Soundlink Mini. A pity that something seems to have gone wrong with the acoustic design, as otherwise the speaker could be indeed quite nice. I also tested the LP-mode but this just seems to reduce bass and maximum volume adding some stronger dynamic compression to achieve louder levels, while distortion still remains high.
Ignoring the distortion, the Panasonic is tuned quite nicely. Although it has less bass overall than the Soundlink Mini, it is still strong enough to sound convincing as a speaker unlike the Yamaha or TDK, which sound rather flat and tinny. The mids and treble sound clearer on the Panasonic and are less directional. The sound starts to fall apart quite a bit at higher volume levels, where the Soundlink Mini still manages to deliver a compelling sound. If one didn't like the Bose sound because of excessive or "overblown" bass as many claim it, the Panasonic could have been a real alternative, not much bigger, but lighter at the same time. Unfortunately the distortion problems with the passive radiator make it rather useless as a speaker. I ask myself how such a flaw could have made it into a final product?

I prepared a video where you can hear all of them including the Bose Soundlink Mini as reference. I chose again the same track from the Youtube audio library in order to avoid any copyright issues. This time audio was recorded with a Zoom H2n audio recorder. Volume level was set to about 60% on the Soundlink Mini, and all other speakers were matched more or less volumewise. You can hear severe distortion from the Panasonic, as well as pumping effects and clipping from the Yamaha.

 
Conclusion: The Panasonic SC-NA10 could have been in fact the best of the bunch by far, but fails due to excessive distortion problems with its passive radiator even at low volumes.
The Yamaha NX-P100 is a total failure delivering sound not really better than any clock-radio. It has a nice design and all the features you could be asking for, but listening to it makes me cry, especially when considering the price Yamaha is asking for!
If I got the TDK A26 for 79$ I would definitely choose it over the others. The TDK produces a nicely balanced sound only falling short of delivering some deeper bass, but the sound still remains pleasant with only disturbing crackling sounds at top volume. I am not sure about the battery, but this could be another weak point. The battery doesn't seem to be easily replaceable on any of them, thus making them paperweights after some years and heavy usage.

Review: Klipsch KMC-1, the big letdown!

I started becoming interested in Klipsch speakers, when I heard the KMC-3 my friend brought along so we could compare it to my Altec Lansing MIX.
Infact the Klipsch wiped the floor with my Altec Lansing producing an overall louder and more punchy sound despite being smaller. But for portable use the KMC-3 needed battteries and for my taste it was still a bit large to really being taken with me.

Then Klipsch announced the smaller KMC-1 which looks nearly like the big brother, but much smaller sizewise, which should allow to be taken everywhere easily. It also includs a rechargeable battery, so that I thought I should give it a try if this could be the best mobile boombox so far?

The KMC-1 which stands for "Klipsch Music Center" came inside a rather large and heavy box. The speaker itself is about the size of a Big Jambox thus considerably larger than the Bose Soundlink Mini for example.

Despite having a plastic body, look and feel of the speaker are really positive, as it has some heft to it and feels pretty sturdy at the same time. The paint of the main body has a kind of soft feel, the front and back speaker mesh is out of metal, the top plate which contains the NFC-enabled area is rubberized. I assume the whole area is also meant for placing your mobile phone. It has about the size of a standard phone, though a larger phablet would look rather out of place there.

There are hardly any hardware-buttons on the device. There is only the main power switch at the back. There you can also find an auxiliary input and the AC-power input. In addition the KMC-1 is also equipped with an USB-output, which can be used to charge external devices. In fact this also works when the speaker is running from its internal battery, but it will of course reduce overall playing time.

On top of the speaker you can find a single touch-sensitive area with another power/standby button, a pairing button and the volume control with an additional light-chain showing the actual volume level. Unfortuantely the volume of the speaker is not synchronized to the volume of the connected device. An additional battery/call-button reveals that the KMC-1 even has hands-free included.

There is nothing written in the manual if the internal battery can be replaced, but at the bottom there is a screwed down cover which most likely should contain the battery. I haven't looked inside, so I cannot say if the battery is some specific model or if a standard battery pack can be used.

Powering the speaker on will play a cheesy guitar-chord as confirmation tone. Bluetooth pairing is forced through a longer touch of the pairing-symbol. When successfully paired another guitar-sound together with some kind of applause is played. The confirmation tones are pretty annoying and unnecessary. I have not found any way to turn them off. I would prefer a simple silent beep or something similar, but the current tones sound really bad. At least the speaker doesn't talk as some other ones. The KMC-1 supports Apt-X which should allow the best possible audio quality. Thanks to Apple not supporting Apt-X on their iPhone I only tested normal Bluetooth which in case of the iPhone should be some AAC-codec.
An issue I have found is that unlike most other bluetooth speakers I have tried, the Klipsch does not automatically reconnect to previously paired devices after power on. You have to force the connection each time from your device.
But there is another feature, which maybe is the reason for that as the speaker has some kind of automatic standby-mode, if it stays idle for some time. From this mode you don't need to power the speaker on manually, but on your phone just select it from your bluetooth-devices and it should automatically turn on.

Audio quality is a kind of mixed bag. I was really disappointed with the first sounds the KMC-1 was throwing at me. At low volumes there was hardly any body to the music. Bass was very subdued, treble was somehow sizzling, sounding rather metallic, with remaining mids that didn't overwhelm me either. Treble seemed also quite directional as sound became considerably worse when listened from above or from the sides.
Overall the sound was probably the most unspectacular I have heard for quite a long time. It reminded me rather of a kitchen radio than a mature "boombox". Even the small Soundmatters FoxL didn't sound that much worse at lowest levels than the Klipsch. You really had to turn up the speaker as loud as possible until it started to get some punch with bass becoming this particular drive so that you could feel the vibration of the passive radiators. In fact the speaker could play down to about 40Hz without much drop in amplitute, despite the specs claiming only 65Hz or 56Hz as lowest usable bass frequency.
The louder played the better and more powerful the KMC sounded with one drawback of severe distortion starting to creep in at levels near maximum. The speaker sounded best one notch below beginning distortion. Most songs were only playable up to 75%, others already caused distrotion at 60%. Particularly peaks of kick-drums were prone to clipping, not so bass-sounds which usually sounded rather clean.
Compared to the Bose Soundlink Mini the KMC-1 could theoretically play much louder, but not without sounding really harsh and distorted at the same time. There doesn't seem to be any limiter or dynamic bass adjustment active, which results in little bass at low volumes and much bass at high volumes but at the same time clipping and distortion.

For demonstration I prepared a quick video with a simple and dirty comparison of the KMC-1 to the Bose Soundlink Mini, which is the only portable speaker I currently have for comparison. It is rather unfair as the KMC-1 should be rather compared to similarly sized speakers, but even the small Bose manages to produce a more punchy sound up to medium levels. It is only when the Bose starts reaching its limits and automatically reduced bass, that the KMC-1 overtakes it with a louder more dynamic and more powerful sound, but we are talking about quite high volumes already, not really suitable for home listening. In this video the Bose was playing at about 50-60%, while the KMC-1 was matched volumewise:



Roundup:
I expected really more from the Klipsch KMC-1. I thought the KMC-1 would at least come close to the performance of its bigger brother KMC-3, but in reality it only sounded convincing at levels near maximum, while at the same time the speaker already struggled because of distortion.
A speaker that only sounds acceptable in a narrow volume-window is unusable for me, while others might prefer exclusively high volumes and nevertheless like the KMC-1, because it really sounds nice and powerful at higher levels, but the strong clipping made the overall listening experience rather frustrating for me. On the one hand you feel the need to crank the speaker, on the other hand if you crank it too much, the sound suffers.
Look and feel was certainly convincing,  but Klipsch could have done without the needless confirmation tones when the speaker is turned on or off, or when it pairs with another device.

I wouldn't want to recommend the Klipsch KMC-1 to anyone, as for comfortable home listening the sound is not good enough, while for loud outdoor use it is not powerful enough ending up with a distorted sound. Even if the KMC-1 was supposed to sound neutral, in reality it doesn't because the overall sound has a hollow character to it with rather biting treble.
If "boom" is really important I would actually choose the UE Wireless Boombox over the KMC-1, which meanwhile can be had for less than half the price. Although the UE Wireless Boombox also distorts at high levels, at least it is not sounding much worse at lower levels. An even better choice could be the TDK A33, which is smaller and sounds pretty good across the whole volume, but it won't play neither as loud as the Klipsch nor as the UE Wireless Boombox.

+ design and build quality
+ simple touch-UI, no hardware buttons
+ Apt-X for best streaming quality
+ NFC for quick pairing
+ powerful and precise bass at higher levels
+ hands-free
+ built in battery accessible

- sound unimpressive with hardly any bass at low levels
- thin and metallic sounding treble
- strong distortion at high levels
- annoying confirmation tones during on/off and pairing
- too big for given performance

Review: August SE50 - A 'Tivoli' costing only a fraction?

August International sent me a sample of their new tabletop radio SE50 for a review.
As I have heard lots of different radios, I thought I might give the SE50 a try, as it is a very inexpensive unit that even includes bluetooth streaming for under 40$. At the same time it is quite classy looking due to a faux-wooden design. In Germany you'll have to pay a little bit more, as you can find it on Amazon.de for around 45�.
A comparable Tivoli One radio with bluetooth will cost you more than 200$ and you'll only get mono sound. Is the high price for the Tivoli really justified? Let's find out.

The SE50 came in a stylish but very simple box. There was only the radio, the power-adaptor and a manual inside, but August even included a 3.5mm Aux-wire, which is impressive for that price, as even Bose doesn't add any wires with their products that cost 5 times as much.

The radio looks modern but classy at the same time. The main body is some kind of plastic with a wooden texture printed on (or maybe laminated). The front speaker cover (not removeable) is of a black cloth material. The display and the control panel at the top are glossy black. At the back there is also the auxilary-input, as well as the power switch and a bassreflex port.
The display either shows "SE50" or the frequency of the radio station, if set to radio mode. It doesn't have any clock or alarm, which is a pity, but understandable because of the low price, but at least a simple clock would lift the SE50 to an even higher level.

No idea why August decided to mount the power switch at the back, as usually it would be quite hard to reach, if you placed the radio inside a shelf or higher on a cabinet. But you can also just leave the radio switched on, and set to aux mode, in order to bring it into a kind of "fake-standby".
All other operation is done from the top control panel. 2 buttons are bigger namely the source-button where you can switch between radio, auxiliary input or bluetooth. The other one is the bluetooth button, which forces the radio to jump into pairing mode. When you turn on the radio for the first time, it automatically starts in bluetooth mode. The SE50 also keeps the bluetooth connection if you switch over to radio or aux-input. You have to press the bluetooth button in order to force new pairing or just disable bluetooth on your phone, in order to cancel the connection.

All other buttons are in orderly rows which makes them quite hard to operate blindly. The volume buttons are exactly the same size as all the rest and in addition they have the preset button inbetween. The preset button also acts as play/pause button during bluetooth mode btw. But there are no buttons for skipping tracks. You can just pause or resume music directly from the radio.

I really would have preferred at least a large rotatable knob at the front, which you could use for adjusting volume and powering on/off when pressed. A pity this was not considered for the final design, as it could make the speaker look even more interesting.
As it is now the speaker rather needs to be placed at lower positions, so that you really see what you press, I would have at least elevated or marked the volume buttons somehow in order to find them because those will probably be the most used. I will show you later why this is a bit of a dilemma, because in reality the SE50 is indeed better suited for elevated places.

The first thing I did was of course pairing my iPhone with the radio in order to check its sound with some known tunes and compare it to the Tivoli One. Pairing was fast and without problems and the sound was surprisingly warm with a nice amount of bass, but at the same time lacking a bit of treble-definition. My first impression was that it sounded really veiled, until I found that it improved a lot, if you put the radio at ear-height.
The sound seems to be rather directional. As the treble is not very dominant anyway, it becomes even worse if you listen to the radio from above or angled from the sides. This is a pity, as there is no EQ or additional sound control, so that you just have to live with it how it sounds. You can of course add a bit of treble boost, if you use some EQ-app on your phone when connected through bluetooth or aux, but radio sound will always remain a bit dull. Compared to my Tivoli One which is known for not being very bass-shy the SE50 has comparable bass output, but the Tivoli sounds considerably clearer in treble and mids. At the same time the sound isn't that directional and doesn't change that much when listened from the sides. The same goes for the Tivoli PAL which doesn't have the bass-punch of the SE50, but has finer treble and is not that picky where to be placed. Although the SE50 has 2 speakers for stereosound, the separation is not that huge, so you hardly gain any advantage over a mono radio like the Tivoli One, especially when placed farther away.
The SE50 can be turned pretty loud. The sound even improves when turned up louder, as it becomes more punchy and powerful. Even at highest levels there was hardly any distortion, only with very bassheavy tracks, but it was still bearable. The Tivoli One can play a notch louder but distorts quite strong at  highest levels. I liked the sound of the SE50 more at high levels than on low. Really not bad considering the low price and beating all available small bluetooth boxes costing the same or even twice as much.

Thanks to its built in bar-antenna I found the radio reception to be quite good and comparable to the Tivoli One which has the antenna completely integrated, though also has jack for an external antenna. Searching for radio stations is other done manually by pressing the FM +/- buttons until the desired frequency is reached, or the radio searches automatically for the next station, if one of the buttons is kept pressed for a second. Although we only live some kilometers from Vienna, the radio reception is pretty bad in our area. Nevertheless I was able to save some radio stations as presets. By adjusting the antenna a little bit, respection could be improved even further.

In summary I have not much to complain about August's SE50 radio. It is really inexpensive, but has a nice warm sound, although a bit treble-shy. But the sound doesn't cause any fatigue even after hours of listening and it can be turned up pretty loud without the sound becoming worse.
The radio receiver is able to pick up even weaker stations, but most important of all: There is bluetooth on board, which makes it easy to wirelessly connect any smartphone or whatever to listen to your own music or even internetradio. I haven't noticed any hiss or problems with bluetooth and the reach was quite impressive as I still had connection from another room.
I would only have welcomed a more conventional user interface, with at least one dominant volume-button. The SE50 is hard to operate if you don't see the buttons.
The cherry on top would be of course a simple clock or even an alarm.

+ clean modern design
+ warm sound with nice amount of bass
+ can play loud without distortion
+ digital FM-tuner with 10 station presets
+ good radio reception
+ bluetooth connectivity
+ aux-wire included

- sound quite directional thus a bit veiled and treble-shy
- user interface is not friendly to be operated blindly
- power switch at the back
- no clock despite big display

Minirig and the new Minirig Subwoofer

I must confess that I have not heard the Pasce Minirig yet, although I have only read positive reviews about it so far.

The Minirig is a compact but powerful mono speaker with very loud and clear sound, according to most who own it. The speaker has a built in rechargeable battery but no wireless mode, it only works wired. But you can also daisychain several speakers to push output even further.

Now Pasce finally lounched the new Minirig Subwoofer which should push the whole system a step further. The Sub is claimed to provide bass down to 48Hz (+/-3dB) which is quite impressive regarding the size.

Soon Pasce will provide a whole 2.1 system consisting of 2 Minirigs and 1 Subwoofer together with all needed splitter-wires, so that you get real stereo-sound.

The whole set reminds me a lot of my mighty and meanwhile sold Thinkoutside Boomtube (formerly Virgin Boomtube Ex) which was quite an impressive 40 Watt speaker system when launched (the volume dial went to 11!), but due to all the wires it was hardly portable anymore once set up. If you wanted to reposition it, you had to disassamble everything again or you needed at least 3 hands.

The fine thing with the Boomtube was that for transport you could screw the satellites on the sub for transport. A pity this is not possible with the Minirigs. At least Pasce could have built in some magnets that held the satellites in place. Though they will probably come up with some special carrying bag with place for everything.

The Minirig 2.1 could become a serious contender in the crowded boombox market, but it comes at a price, as the whole system will cost you about 350�. You can get a Klipsch KMC-3 for 299�, which I am sure will blow the Minirig out of the water regarding bass response and loudness although nerd factor seems to be higher with the Minirig set of course!

Here you can see the whole Minirig system in action thanks to Digital DJ Tips:

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Audiorecording through microphone - Olympus LS5 vs. Yamaha PR7 vs. Zoom H1

My initial idea of recording different speakers under the same conditions had the goal to give objective results and maybe help others in their decision which speaker sounds better etc.
But it turned out not to be that easy.

The biggest challenge would be to create a controlled enviroment, so that recording of different speakers over time with directly comparable results was possible. But this would imply an own recording room, maybe even acoustically optimized and a controlled recording procedure with fixed positions for speakers, microphone etc, similar to that Dpreview is doing with their test-scene to allow the comparison of different cameras.
I am not sure anything like that has ever been done with speakers. There are lots of speaker-measurements in various Audio and Hifi-magazines, but I have never seen audio recordings of them.

To really allow perfect results such a recording should be done with the best possible recording-equipment that is able to record even the finest sound-nuances. This does not only mean lots of effort and time, but also costs. I have no idea if something like a microphone with linear frequency response exists at all. Here you can see the (claimed) frequency response of the Zoom H1 microphones:

When I started doing my recordings I tried out different audio-recorders. Although the Zoom H1 is overall very popular, I assume this is probably because it is one of the cheaptest, therefore I wanted to try some other ones and added the Olympus LS5 and Yamaha Pockettrack PR7 to my test. 
In the following Video I recorded the Sonos Play:1 with all 3 recorders and also mixed in the original recording (from 2:39), so that you can compare which recorder comes closest. I am really not sure, first I thought the Zoom H1 sounded best, but compared to the original recording it also sounds most different. Of course the speaker also distorts the original signal, so the sound characteristics of the speakers adds up to the characteristics of the microphone, not to mention the acoustics of my room, which is not optimized by any means for such a recording.



Still I would like to know which recorder you think gives the best representation of the original recording.
Maybe some of you even own the Play:1 and could listen to the original track through their speaker and compare to the recording. The original track is "Get Back" from "Silent Partner" and is taken from the Youtube Audio library to avoid any copyright issues.
The final idea would be to create a kind of "database" where all speakers can be selected and compared. Unfortunately I am afraid that my know-how is not high enough, and I don't have the money for that. You would also need to have contacts to Hifi-dealers that might lend you speakers for a recording session etc....

Maybe someone else will do this once, so far you have to be satisfied with my amateur-ish approach.

News from Philips/Woox Innovations

Philips was facing quite a bit of financial and structural problems during the last years. The planned acquisition through Funai was finally cancelled and Philips seems to have decided to found a new subidiary for its multimedia products called "Woox Innovations". So far the term "wOOx" was mostly used by Philips for speakers with passive radiator design.
I wonder if new launched products will still carry the "Philips" branding, or already be marketed as "Woox", as there are some interesting products coming.

I already reported about the Philips DS9800W/10 Airplay speaker several times and did a short review and comparison with the Parrot Zikmu speakers. Overall the Philips Soundsphere are pretty fine sounding speakers, with only some software flaws, but also hardware issues. I experienced the popular blinking red LED on my own set as well, but it could be fixed for free during the warranty period. Since then the speakers have been working well, with only some rare crashes.

My biggest wish was always to get the speakers in different colors than black and finally Philips seems to bring a new revised version to the market named DS9830W, which really looks gorgeous in white:

Not sure if something changed with the hardware, I assume they still sound the same, but Philips now added Spotify-connect support, so that the speakers can directly stream songs from Spotify without the need of any further device running.
A pity they didn't add additional inputs like HDMI for example, to allow connection of TV sets etc. The DS9830W should be available soon for 799$/�.
If you can live with black and don't need Spotify, I would grab the old version, which can already be had for under 300$! Soundwise they blow any B&W Zeppelin or A5 or A7 out of the water, just pray that your set doesn't brake out of warranty.

HDMI is probably left for the more expensive and even more funky looking version Fidelio Soundsphere PS1/12:

This speaker only supports Bluetooth (though with Apt-X), but has also HDMI inputs and is claimed to produce "virtual surround" sound. The PS1/12 is more powerful with 2x100 Watts instead of 2x50, but both speakers still seem to need a speaker-wire inbetween.
The PS1/12 will be offered for about 2500 bucks, and although I would love to hear them, I definitely cannot afford them. For 2500 you already can get some high quality audio stuff, the price seems a bit utopic for me. If they come down for under 1000 (or under 300 like the DS9800) I might have another look maybe.

Review: Sonos Play:1 - smallest yet best?

I have kept an eye on Sonos for several years now. I have heard the Play:5 in a store, I had the Play:3 at home for my own testing and I was quite impressed by the Sonos system as a whole, like the ability of pairing 2 speakers into a stereosystem without any needed wires inbetween, but neither of their speakers really impressed me that much to actually feel the need of buying one of them.
The Play:3 although overall quite nice sounding became really flat and dull at lower volumes. I tried it in my bathroom, in my kitchen, but it only really worked at higher volumes in my large living room, until it started to struggle again above 70% of its volume.

I started to get even more interested in Sonos when they announced the Playbar and the Sub, but lacking connectivity of the Playbar, as the omission of DTS decoding let me down a little bit, although I really would have loved the fact, that you could use their speakers wirelessly as rears, because I was already looking for a surround system without any wires for quite a long time.

Lately Sonos announced the Play:1, their smallest and cheapest speaker yet, and I thought I would love to try this out, as most reviews are indeed quite excited about it. I highly regard the opinion and speaker measurements of Brent Butterworth that he is doing for Soundandvision, and infact he already measured the Play:1 coming to the conclusion the Play:1 having a performance that the designer of a $3,000/pair speaker could be proud of. His frequency response graph of the Play:1 shows indeed that the speaker has a relatively flat frequency response curve in a window between 100Hz and 20kHz with a slight downwards tilt towards treble, which enhances the psycho-acoustic effect of a speaker sounding fuller if treble is subdued a little bit. Some speaker engineers don't respect this simple principle and make speakers with harsh treble but hardly any bass at all (like the JBL Flip for example) which tends to sound overall rather tinny because the high frequency output is too dominant and not in balance with the rest.

Play:1 frequency response graph (c) Brent Butterworth

I was curious how the the Play:1 really sounded and if it could output a healthy amount of bass despite its small size. In fact the Play:1 is not that small, the volume measures about 2 liter, which would make it more than 4 times bigger than the Bose Soundlink Mini and still about 40% larger than the bigger Soundlink II. I have no bias towards Bose at all, I just really like my Bose Soundlink Mini that much, that I sometimes even prefer using it at home over my main speakers. It sounds incredibly rich and full and played at lower volumes you would never have the impression of listening to a speaker not larger than a power brick of a notebook. So far the Soundlink Mini was able to cause the biggest wow-effect of any speakers I have tried yet. Although the Soundlink Mini is rather meant as a portable speaker on the go it sounds so nice that I am sure many will use it mostly at home as well.
I asked myself if the Play:1 will outperform the Mini by a large margin or if the Soundlink Mini despite all the Bose bashing could even keep up. Although both are compeltely different types of speakers, both go for around 200$ or 200� so a sound comparison could be hopefully quite interesting for others too. The Play:1 is offered together with the Bridge for 199,- until the end of 2013, so I ordered one to have a listen and prepare some audio comparisons.

I don't want to elaborate on the Sonos system as a whole, as there is enough information to be found online. I really like the system as it doesn't interfere with any existing wireless network and seems much more stable than Airplay for example. I owned or had several different Airplay-speakers for testing and nearly all showed a strange behaviour, like sometimes remaining muted during streaming, or producing dropouts, many even renamed themselves repeatedly (the Libratone Zipp did, as my Philips Soundsphere still does it). The Sonos system just works, and the apps to control the system are among the best I have tested, especially the one for the iPad which has a generous layout compared to the one for the iPhone, where you have to jump back and forth more often.
If there is one quirk then the 65000 song limit which Sonos can only index. If you have more music, many tracks will be missing and will not be listed within Sonos. This can indeed become a problem for people with lots of music. There are workarounds, but the limit still remains even with the newest Play:1. As each Sonos Player has the whole music-index saved for quick access, the limit probably comes due to limited built in memory, that never was addressed by Sonos, because of backwards-compatibilty for the older Play:5 speakers (or Zoneplayers how they were called back then). At a push you can always use any Sonos Speaker as DLNA renderer, which can be accessed by many media servers.
Another Sonos-issue often criticised is the lack of any standby-mode. Unfortuntaely Sonos didn't change anything with the Play:1 so it is still the same, the speaker is always on and needs about 4-5 Watts whole the time, even when not used. There is no power-button either, so you have to pull the plug, if you really want to save energy.

Here I rather want to concentrate on the Play:1 and its sound.
The Play:1 is available in white and black, i went for white because of our white furniture at home.
I really like the simple and clean design of the Play:1. I prefer it much more over the large and dull looking Play:5 front. The speaker has a nice heft to it and you really can feel the built quality.
On top there are only the volume buttons and a play/pause button. On the back you can find an ethernet port as well as a thread for wall-mounting. The power cord is plugged into the bottom part of the speaker. Although it is a standard plug this will only work with the supplied cord, as the special plug is designed to remain flat with the speaker's base. If you want a shorter cord or a longer one, you will be probably out of luck. It is nice though that there is no need for an external power-supply, there is just the speaker and the power cord, very clean and elegant.

I have no direct comparison to the Play:3, but from memory think to remember how it sounds because the Play:1 sounds remarkably similar. It has that typical Sonos sound signature, but it also has a big advantage over its bigger brother, because it manages to sound better at lower volumes than the Play:3. Not sure if this is due to a better tuned DSP processing, or if the passive radiator of the Play:3 was to blame, but the Play:1 has a fuller sound even at lower volumes. But it is still far from perfect, as the sound loses at the very first volume steps. I was surprised how good the Play:1 sounded when turned up a little bit, but I am not sure what surprised me more, the sound of the Play:1 or how good the small Soundlink Mini managed to keep up as at lowest levels it even sounded more powerful and more concincing than the Play:1, without any kitchen-radio effect which is quite respectable regarding its small size.
You might ask why I always dwell on low volume quality. But I regard this as quite important for speakers to sound convincing even at low levels. Imagine you listen to a song that you like much and you turn it up in order to get this particular drive and feel from where the song starts to sound enjoying, but then your wife comes and tells you it is too loud and asks you to turn it down. Of course you obey, but then the song loses all its power and starts sounding dull and boring. Not so with the Soundlink Mini. You can have it at its lowest level and still hear the power of the lowest frequencies. I guess Bose dynamically adjusts the sound according to the Fletcher-Munson loudness contours thus pushing low frequencies at low volumes more in order to make them better audible, because they would otherwise get lost due to the human hearing physiology. With the Soundlink Mini Bose also seems to adjust high frequencies a little bit, something they didn't do with the bigger Soundlink, which started to sound very boomy at lowest levels.
Sonos also has a "loudness" setting for all of their speakers, available from the app. But to me it rather sounds like a global bass-boost. It doesn't really seem to affect the sound dynamically, that's why the Play:1 doesn't sound that convincing for low background listening, although more than the Play:3, which really sounded flat and tinny until you cranked it above 30%.

At low levels The Play:1 could be brought to a similar powerful sound like the Soundlink Mini by adjusting the bass-slider some notches up within the app's EQ. This way the Play:1 had an overall cleaner but also deeper bass, while sounding a bit more dull than the Soundlink Mini, the Soundlink Mini having a hump in the upper mids, which makes it sound clearer despite having less treble definition in reality. The Play:1 has a more refined sound, especially upper treble sounds clearer and smoother without any harshness. It starts to really shine at higher levels and leaves the Soundlink Mini behind but not by that far, except when the Mini really reaches its limits above 70-80% by starting to compress dynamics and dialing back the bass in order not to distort. Up from then the Play:1 really sounds big and heavy rather comparable to the bigger Bose Sounddock than to a similar sized Radio like the Tivoli PAL.

If you think that the Tivoli costs about the same, but sounds like a,... well, small radio, it is quite impressive what Sonos managed to achieve, something that the so called "audio-legend" Henry Kloss didn't.
Designwise the Play:1 reminds me a bit of the former Nokia Play360, but the Nokia doesn't even come close soundwise. Even the similar but newer JBL/Nokia Playup which was redesigned and acoustically improved by JBL sounds rather toyish.

In the following video I tried to compare the Sonos Play:1 with the Soundlink Mini. The Play:1 was at about 50% of its volume, where it already sounds perfect, the Soundlink Mini played at about 60%, where bassheavy songs can sometimes already cause a bit of distortion. You can even notice some hints of distortion with this example. Although the Play:1 sounds overall cleaner and more refinded, the Soundlink Mini manages to keep up. If you consider that this is a palm-sized speaker that you can carry around with you everywhere it is even more impressive.



Sonos is said to employ some former Velodyne and Boston Acoustics guys, which probably is the reason why their speakers are built with some real acoustic background, in contrast to many companies like Jawbone or Libratone which don't have any particular history in speaker design. 
The Play:1 outperforms many bigger and more expensive speakers like the BIG Jambox for example, which sounds hollow and tinny in comparison. I would even claim that the highly regarded Libratone Zipp doesn't match the Play:1. The Play:1 has a notably wide soundfield. As the measurings from Brent Butterworth already suggested, the Play:1 is not that critical in placement. Although you shouldn't face it completely backwards, you can put it anywhere in the room and walk around, while still getting a nicely balanced sound. The Soundlink Mini can't match and has a strong treble rolloff when listened off-axis.

I also prefer the Play:1 over the Harman Kardon Onyx at up to medium levels, as the Onyx sounds quite mid-focused and harsh, while the Play:1 remains quite coherent, it is only at higher levels, where the Onyx starts having a more powerful bass, while the Play:1 dials bass back in order not to distort. I would say the Play:1 sounds best at half volume, if there is lots of bass in the music it will start to dial bass back from about 60-70%, but I didn't encounter any distortion so far. Even very bassheavy mixes didn't distort at top-volume, but you could notice how bass was minimized then, without any of the impact when listened at medium levels. Especially kick-drums suffer from loss of dynamics when listened at highest levels.

You won't even notice that you are listening to a mono source, the Soundlink Mini despite having 2 separate drivers for left/recht channel sounds equally mono, except if you press your face against it. But 2 Play:1 should really be able to output a serious stereo sound. I already tried 2 Play:3 which outperformed one single Play:3 by a large margin. I don't even think of combining 2 Play:1 together with the Sonos Sub, to really have a grown up system, but unfortunately with a grown up price too.
2 Play:1 would cost around 400$ which is more or less the price for the new Bose Soundtouch 20, but I am sure the Play:1 duo would leave the single Soundtouch 20 in the dust soundwise. Not to mention that with Bose's system you cannot even sync 2 Soundtouch speakers as a stereo system.

I think the Play:1 is the best reason to finally jump on the bandwagon and try out Sonos. It is not a portable speaker like the Bose Soundlink Mini which you can carry around in your house or even outside, but the Play:1 sounds excellent for what it is, and you can always buy a second one to complete the system for stereo listening, or a third one for the bathroom and a fourth for the kitchen...

+ affordable
+ simple compact design
+ great balanced sound at medium levels with surprisingly punchy bass
+ broad sound dispersion
+ no distortion at maxium level
+ humidity resistant


- sound a bit lifeless at lowest levels
- bass and dynamics are dialed down at levels above 70%
- not very loud overall
- no standby mode, no power button
- needs its own power cord

White TDK A33 and the new smaller TDK A26

During shopping last Saturday I discovered the white TDK A33 in a store. It looks pretty slick and elegant in white, and if I still had the need for such a speaker, I would probably choose it in white. Although I know the sound of the A33 quite well, I compared it in the store to some other speakers, like the new Harman Kardon Esquire and the cheaper A33 blew the Harman Kardon out of the water.

Haven't known this white model even existed I tried to Google it and found even another new model from TDK, namely the A26 "Trek":

It looks similar to the big version, but is pretty slim with 2.5cm and seems to rather compete with Jambox or JBL Charge costing 99$ on Amazon.com. In Germany it is quite a bit more expensive for 129� and it is not available yet.

If the A26 sounds nearly as good as the A33 it is definitely a winner and a much better choice over the JBL or Jawbone offerings.

IK Multimedia iLoud - the best portable speaker?

IK Multimedia had already announced both iLoud speakers more than half a year ago. Finally the speakers seem to have become available.
There is a big version with 40 Watts of power as well as a smaller more portable mini version.
The big one already seems to be in stock at the US amazon store, the german amazon store lists both, but only with an availabilty of 1-2 months.

IK Multimedia talks big to have produced the best sounding portable speaker so far. They claim to have bought all portable speakers available with the goal to produce one better and louder sounding. They market the speaker as music monitors for serious listening that should also please real audiophiles. There is a Mic/Guitar Input at the back, so that you can gig around on the go and use the iLoud as a monitor.

IK Multimedia also posted some interesting comparison videos on youtube, where you can see how the bigger iLoud fares against the UE Wireless Boombox, the BIG Jambox and the Bose Soundlink. I have no idea how real the videos are, but they seem rather authentic, as I recognize the sound signatures of the other speakers quite well (especially the muffled Bose Soundlink). Have a look:


There is already a review of the bigger version available on iLounge, and they liked it quite a lot.

Review: Harman Kardon Onyx - the ultimate Boombox... er, "Boomegg"?

I have always been a big fan of Harman/JBL speakers. Despite being based on a several year old design I still think the latest go&play wireless version to be one of the best looking and sounding boomboxes around, with the only downside of a castrated sound when run from batteries. I was also very impressed by the JBL Radial, when I heard it for the first time, as well as the JBL On Stage 400-Series, which produced quite a big sound despite being rather small.
So far unfortunately none of the real portable and battery-driven speakers from Harman or JBL managed to convince me. The JBL Charge being larger while costing only slightly less than the Bose Soundlink Mini is not able to produce such a convincing sound as the Bose.

The Onyx seemed to me the perfect reincarnation of the original and iconic go&play design but considerably smaller with a built in battery and hopefully with a similarly mature sound. I like unusual designs for speakers, as I liked the trumpet or vuvuzela design of the Parrot Zikmu, as well as the simple cylindrical design of the Libratone Zipp.
The Onyx looks a bit like an egg at least from the side, but the design as a whole including the steel handle would make it quite attractive within a modern interior, which is why I directly ordered an Onyx as soon as it became available.

The Onyx came in a big but surprisingly light box. I really expected something much heavier, but during unboxing you'll notice that most of the space is just taken up by air, as the speaker is rather compact with only added bulk due to the angled steel handle, which unfortunately is not rotateable, so that you cannot flip it in-line with the speaker to really make it flat for transport. Apart from the handle the speaker just measures 16cm at its thickest spot. It is a real pity that Harman didn't think of such a detail, as a rotateable handle would make the speaker much more convenient for transport so that you could just toss it inside a rucksack or bag. As it is now, it needs a bigger bag to really fit in.



I wouldn't like to carry the Onyx around without any protection despite the convenient carrying-handle. Although the materials are overall really of high-quality, the aluminium passive radiator or even the leathered-back could be easily damaged or scratched without any protection during transport.
I don't understand the choice for a leathered back. Although it might appear pretty slick together with the shiny passive radiator, most of the time you won't even notice it, as the speaker would normally be aimed towards the listener and not with the back-side. This is not a 360� sound system and sound degrades considerably when listened off-axis.

The price for the Onyx is quite steep (499$ or 499�) and among the highest for this kind of portable speaker. Even the go&play costs 1/3 less and I am sure the price for the Onyx could have been lowered, if the some parts were made of simple plastic. Apart from the leathered back the ring around the main body is of a rubbered material and contains all touch-sensitive buttons, while the front consists of a rather cheapish cloth-cover, that can also be removed if necessary.
For my own taste the black cloth-cover degrades the looks of the otherwise high-grade speaker. When touched it becomes dirty pretty fast, and I am sure the cloth will be the first part to show signs of wear, if the speaker is really taken outside often and not only used at home without being moved around. At this price level I would have preferred a wired mesh similar to the go&play to tell the truth.

If the cover is removed the acoustic core of the Onyx is revealed consisting of 2 full-range drivers and 2 tweeters as well as another opposing passive radiator at the front that works together with the one at the back to minize vibrations of the whole speaker. Both reinforce the low frequencies (the backwards movement of the active drivers) that would otherwise be lost within the speaker. A ported design as an alternative would probably be less efficient with such a flat and compact body.
I was a bit surprised to see the actual paper-cone drivers, as they look pretty cheap, like some simple speakers bought from Radioshack.

I expected Harman Kardon to use some more sophisticated and high-quality drivers. It also catched my eye that the drivers were not mounted totally centered but rather offset slightly within their openings. Maybe this is nitpicking, but we are talking about a pricy design-object, where I would expect a bit of perfection.

At the bottom back there are some connection ports as well as a WPS-button for quick router-connection. The Onyx does not only support a simple Bluetooth connection (including a quick NFC connection, which is pretty useless for Apple-users until Apple finally decides to support NFC) , but can also act as an Airplay speaker as well as a DLNA renderer. The Onyx is not bound to the Apple universe, but can equally be used from Android-devices or simple Bluetooth players which don't support any Wifi connection. Harman Kardon claims that the included Bluetooth protocol also supports the much superior Apt-X codec (which again is not supported by iOS devices yet and couldn't be tested by me).
I switched a bit back and forth between Airplay and Bluetooth and didn't notice any big differences in audio, despite only using the worse-quality AAC-codec for Bluetooth, but maybe the tested music was not that revealing.

To tell the truth I haven't figured out if the USB-port is only for charging external devices, or if  it can playback music from any attached player as well, but I wouldn't use this feature anyhow because the ports are overall placed in a bit hard to reach place. Every time I wanted to attach the power-cord after having used the Onyx from battery, I always had to take accurate aim to actually fit in the cord. The space between the bottom part of the handle and the recessed ports is quite narrow. I would have welcomed a kind of additional charging cradle, where you could just place the speaker for simple charging. I am sure though, Harman would charge even more for such a feature...

The touch controls at the top of the speaker light all up as soon as the corresponding area is touched. The first time I tried to turn it on, I pressed every single area, including the WPS-button, but nothing happened. It seems you have to keep the area around the power-symbol touched for at least about 3 seconds, then the speaker comes to life! The symbols light up, but go off again after some seconds, the only lights that always remain lit are the power-symbol and the Wifi and Bluetooth symbol. It's strange that Harman didn't also keep the volume-symbols lit. There are 5 distinct volume-dots, that symbolize the current volume-level. If you turn the volume louder, one dot after the other will first brighten up, until it reaches full brightness, then the next dot starts to brighten.
Maybe Harman thought the touch-sensitive area as a whole would be enough and any user would just touch there and then swipe to the left or right in order to get the right volume. But it is not that easy, as you don't see where the minimum or maximum volume is before touching, you might touch the area in the middle and the speaker would scream up with a higher level than wanted. I still haven't found out, if you have to swipe to the right to turn it louder, or if it is enough to simply touch near the desired volume-area. You can also use the +/- areas (which are not lit either until you touch them), but you need to hold them pressed for about a second until the Onyx quickly jumps to a much lower or higher volume.
I found controlling volume through the touch-field being quite cumbersome. I didn't manage to tune volume fine enough like this. Either it was too loud or too soft, or it unexpectedly started to play near maximum volume so I rather preferred using the volume slider on my iPhone or even its volume buttons. The absolute volume level is mirrored on the player by the way (regardless if played through Wifi or Bluetooth) which is quite nice, as you don't need to deal around with 2 separate volume-levels, like you have to do on the Bose Soundlink for example. 2 separate volumes can lead to further sound-processing artefacts, for example if you turn your player to the minimum and turn the Soundlink to the maximum it will sound different, than if the speaker is set low while the player is maxed out. No such effects with the Onyx thank godness.

Establishing a wireless connection is not a big deal with the Onyx. Keep the Wifi-symbol touched for a certain time and the Onyx will setup an own Wifi-network which you can connect to from your mobile device or computer and setup the connection details to your router. By dialing in 192.168.1.1 into the browser you'll get access to the Onyx' configuration site, where you can also start a firmware update or even dig deeper into the settings through the manual configuration tab. A quicker method might be just pressing the WPS-button, but i haven't even tried it like that.
The same goes for Bluetooth, keep the symbol touched and the Onyx will jump into pairing mode.
Both types of connection are confirmed by the same loud "bleep" which is a bit too loud for my taste. If connection is lost or canceled another annoying tone is played. Bluetooth range is quite impressive. The Onyx did repeatedly pair with my iPhone, standing in the opposite corner of our house. Due to the confirmation tones this could be quite distracting, especially if it automatically tried to pair at night when everyone was already sleeping.
I have not figured out if you could turn off Bluetooth or Wifi completely in case you would like to save some battery, as Wifi seems to be active whole the time. The light just turns red if no connection is established but it still seems to be active, because when I return home with the Onyx it automatically connects to my network as soon as it is close enough.
After a certain time the Onyx automatically jumps into standby-mode when no music is played. It is still shown as an available Airplay device, but the Powerlight is red, and the speaker probably running in some kind low-power mode.
If the speaker is streaming through Bluetooth currently while another stream is started through Wifi for example, the newer stream has priority and takes over the speaker.

So, how does it sound?
I hoped it would at least knock my socks off in the same way as the go&play did, when I heard it the first time many years ago. The Onyx sounds good, but it didn't impress me that much as many other speakers did in the meantime. It is more expensive than many other contenders but sounds only marginally better, in case of the go&play even worse.
But let me explain first. When I unboxed the Onyx after coming home from work it was already quite late until i finally managed to turn it on. I couldn't really crank it, but rather had to listen at lower levels thus remained pretty unimpressed.

For direct comparison I put the minuscule Bose Soundlink Mini (which is by far my favorite ultraportable speaker now) besides and switched back and forth between both with matched levels only to find out that the Mini put out a more serious and mature sound than the Onyx. At lower levels (I would say comfortable room-volume for background listening) the Onyx sounds hardly any better than a good kitchen radio with a bit of a honky sound. The sound remains quite mid-focused without any mentionable bass and even treble remains a bit recessed. We are talking about levels within a frame of 15-20% on the Onyx' volume scale, which corresponds to about 30-40% of Bose's Soundlink Mini volume. Of course the Onyx can play much louder than the Soundlink Mini (I would say it reaches about twice the loudness), which is not the question here. If you want some low background music the Onyx just cannot impress. It only starts to really live up to its expectations if you turn it above 30-40%, but it performs best and sounds perfect at about 50-60%, which is pretty loud already and considerably louder and more powerful than the Bose Soundlink Mini at its maximum volume for example. That's still quite impressive for Bose considering the drivers of the Soundlink Mini are just about the size of the Onyx' tweeters.

In the following video I tried to compare both the Onyx and the Soundlink Mini with matched volumes as close as possible. The Onyx was playing at 35%, while the Soundlink was about 70%. Overall the Onyx has a more defined sound, but the Soundlink Mini keeps up pretty well. At lower levels the Soundlink mini manages to produce a more powerful sound, while the Onyx has the edge at higher levels and can also play much louder.



I am not sure if the weaker performance at lower volume is because of the higher inertia of the passive radiators, which don't become fully effective until higher levels are reached, or if Harman just didn't tune the DSP well, as I didn't notice such a strong volume dependent sound degradation with the go&play for example. Harman or JBL are known for their DSP processing and dynamic bass adjustment, but in case of the Onyx something seems to have went wrong.

When directly compared to the Harman Kardon go&play, the go&play produces a deeper and fuller sound. The Onyx might sound a bit more natural, but the go&play is much more enjoyable, bass is tuned lower, i would assume about 10Hz lower. The technical sheet is claiming 55Hz as the low frequency limit for the Onyx and this seems to be more or less the reality. Although you can still hear a bit of "vibration" below 50Hz, it hardly has any amplitude any more. The lowest usable bass-frequency seems to be around 50Hz, while I would estimate the go&play of being able to play down to 40Hz. The Audyssey South of market Audiodock even had usable 35Hz at lower volumes, despite being not really much larger in volume than the Onyx. Interestingly the Audyssey had neither passive radiators nor a bassreflex port and therefore impressed me even more performancewise than the go&play, which was the reason why I finally sold my go&play some years ago. Unfortunately my Audyssey died after one year and I couldn't get an exchange from the store, so I returned it completely, although it impressed me a lot as a speaker.

I tried to compare the Onyx to some other speakers I don't currently own and took it to a store with me, where I was able to listen to it side by side with a Bose Sounddock Portable (I already sold mine some time ago otherwise I would have been able to compare it at home as well), a Libratone Zipp (also sold) and a Cambridge Audio Minx Air 200.

The Onyx sounded more powerful than the Sounddock Portable at higher levels, but as expected the sound was less impressive than the Bose at lower levels. I would say that both played more or less on the same level, with the Onyx having a bit more punchy bass, but the Bose sounding clearer in treble. Not a bad result for Bose, as the Sounddock Portable acoustic design is already several years old, but still holds up pretty well.

The Libratone Zipp lost completely. When the Onyx was at its best at about 50% volume, the Zipp already distorted on heavier bass sounds, nowhere able to reach the levels of the Onyx. The Onyx had a much more punchy sound, the Zipp sounding hollow and tinny. The Zipp had clearer treble due to the ribbon-tweeters, but overall sound was artificial and thin, especially regarding mids.

The Cambridge Audio Minx Air 200 is in another speaker-category, it is larger, not meant as a portable speaker, but costs about the same as the Onyx, that's why I wanted to compare both anyway. At normal levels both sounded pretty similar, it was only at higher levels, that the Minx Air 200 started to have an advantage with a more powerful bass, but I was not able to really listen to both at high levels for long not to be kicked out of the store.

Overall there were no big surprises even compared to many other speakers. The Onyx definitely sounds good, but it doesn't have the "wow"-factor, many other speakers manage to create.
It cannot compete by any means with my Philips DS9800W Soundsphere speakers which I currently use as my main listening solution as the Onyx sounds rather like a mono kitchen-radio when directly compared. It was only at high levels and bass-heavy music that the Onyx produced some distortion. It was not severe, but noticeable. Also bass is not that strong anymore at higher levels than 70%, so that the speaker plays loud, but without the bass power you would expect.
I also noticed slight vibrations of the enclosure with particular piano-notes, nothing too serious, but pure piano music at louder volumes could sound bad on the Onyx. First I thought the front cover was to blame, but it seems the drivers are causing the vibration.

Here an additional outdoor video showing off the Onyx, volume was between 50-80%, where the Onyx sounds best:


My hope was that there were some further adjustments available from the Harman Kardon remote app. I downloaded and installed the app for iOS only to notice that it crashed every time I wanted to start it. Later I discovered that the app indeed worked but only through a Bluetooth connection while Wifi remained turned off. At least now I could try the features, but noticed that there are hardly any additional parameters available for tweaking. The app acts rather like an additional music player.

At the main page all available players appear, in my case only the Onyx. But sometimes the Onyx din't appear at all, I had to restart the app or the speaker so that I finally had it selectable in the app. The app has its own device control panel where you can see the remaining battery as well as the current streaming mode. There is also a stereo-widening option, which doesn't do much harm to the sound, but doesn't broaden it up really much either. It was turned on from the beginning and I kept it turned on, because it sounded quite acceptable without any annoying artefacts (like Liveaudio from the Jambox for example), but don't expect any miracles. The Onyx still sounds rather like a mono sound source, except if putting the nose against the cover.

Although there is another EQ-like symbol at the bottom right of the app, the corresponding panel is empty in case of the Onyx with the exception of a single volume-slider. Maybe there will be further updates which will allow additional EQ-tweaking, but as there are several other Harman devices listed, I would rather assume that those devices might have some further EQ-options which are simply not available for the Onyx. But at least you can even turn off the speaker remotely form the app, if really needed.
My wish would be some simple "loudness" switch, which would compensate for the sound-loss at lower volumes. So far only Bose, B&O or Audyssey really seem to care to optimize sound for low volume output.

Battery life was around the promised 5 hours. I tried to listen at levels near 50% where the Onyx sounded best streaming through Bluetooth and managed slightly above 4 hours until the speaker turned off on its own. I also tried mixed streaming through Wifi and Bluetooth at lower levels (about 20-30%) and it played for 5 and a half hours. So the streaming-unit seems indeed to be the limiting factor here as Harman promises 8 hours with wired connection. A pity as 4-5 hours of portable use are certainly not enough for a day at the beach or a fireside-party in the evening where louder levels might be necessary.
Not sure what happens after some years of usage when the battery starts to lose its capacity even more. It doesn't seem to be replaceable at all. This is quite a drawback with a product costing that much. Maybe the Onyx can be sent in for a replacement at a service-center.

Upcoming I am going to compare the Onyx to the brand new and quite similarly designed Libratone Loop which also costs the same. Unfortunately delivery of the Libratone Loop was delayed, as I am going to send the Onyx back, I won't be able to compare both anymore.

To conclude I would claim that the Onyx is definitely a nice sounding speaker that has its spacy looks but it doesn't give any surprises regarding sound. It can play pretty loud but has its limits, as sound starts to deteriorate above 75%. It also sounds quite sub-par at low levels, so you always feel forced to turn it louder.
I wouldn't recommend the Onyx as a portable Boombox but at the same time there are also much better stationary speakers, like the Philips Soundsphere which meanwhile can be had for about 320$. If not the hardware issues which I also experienced with my model, this would indeed be one of the best sounding Airplay speakers I would recommend to anyone.
As a portable Boombox I would definitely choose the Klipsch KMC-3 over the Onyx. It is larger for sure and doesn't look like a UFO, but it puts out a much more impressive sound and it is cheaper too. The missing internal battery of the Klipsch can be easily fixed with an external Powerbank. Not sure about the new and smaller KMC-1, as I haven't heard it yet, but I doubt the smaller Klipsch can compete with the Onyx regarding high volume output. Even the old Sounddock Portable might be a better solution as it produces similar sound as the Onyx, but is smaller and has better battery life.
I was a bit disappointed with the overall quality of the Onyx. It seems to cheat top-quality but at closer look makes a rather cheap impression. There's a catch with the price which is overpriced by 30-50% in my opinion. The Onyx does by no means produce sound worth 500$ and the leathered back as well as the shiny passive radiator don't compensate for this.

+ spacy and elegant design
+ compact
+ precious materials (especially at the back)
+ all possible wireless streaming modes available (incl. NFC and Apt-x)
+ good sound with punchy bass at medium levels
+ can play pretty loud
+ impressive Bluetooth range
+ app support
+ mirrored volume on speaker and streaming device in all wireless modes (incl. Bluetooth)

- too expensive
- cheap front cover
- handle cannot be rotated for an even flatter design
- sound unimpressive at lower volumes
- starts to sound harsh and distorted at high volumes
- unimpressive battery life (4-5 hours)
- battery not replaceable
- iOS app crashes when connected through Wifi
- no further sound customization through the app 
- loud confirmation tones when connecting through Wifi or Bluetooth