When investing in a wireless speaker, you want to be sure you’re getting the absolute best product for your needs. Given prices can vary wildly, it’s essential you feel confident in your purchase ahead of time, as dropping the better part of a grand on a gadget that leaves you dissatisfied is likely to leave a sour taste in your mouth.
I’ve had the privilege of testing some of the best wireless speakers for TechRadar. After more than a year as Reviews Editor, I’ve gotten to put a wide range of devices through their paces, from budget Bluetooth bangers to ultra-premium audiophile-grade one-box sound systems. That’s allowed me to enjoy some truly sumptuous audio – but it’s also helped me to spot a stumbling block that way too many speakers bang their metaphorical shins on.
While some wireless speakers attract criticism for a lack of smart features and others for limited battery life, I’ve come to realize that there’s an even more fundamental factor that separates the acoustic crème de la crème from the aural underachievers. When it comes to wireless speakers, the most telling weakness you’ll encounter is unbalanced equalization.
A key cause of audio flaws
Most listeners these days expect booming bass. Once upon a time, decent low-end was the exclusive purview of monolithic floorstanders and hulking big box units, with most wireless speakers being marketed around portability, rather than convincing depth. But roughly 15 years ago, increasing numbers of wireless speakers began to hit the market with impressive, whomping bass.
These days, no music fan is going to put up with a wireless speaker without bags of bass; even pocket-sized speakers need to have punchy low-end presence if they’re going to compete. But I’d argue this has triggered an arms race where each brand feels like it has to outdo the competition, with even cheap and cheerful speakers trying to trade on their bass output.
That’s fine: after all, it means you get some hefty thump even on budget Bluetooth speakers. Whether it’s the Tribit XSound Plus 2, JBL Charge 6, or the Sonos Roam 2, I’ve been consistently impressed by the low end many Bluetooth or wireless speakers are capable of. But in their rush to cater to listener expectations, I’ve often found some brands out there take serious shortcuts to squeeze as much bass as possible from their drivers, leaving some sections of the frequency spectrum sounding weak in comparison.
Typically, these sacrifices are made in the mid-range, particularly the lower-mids. After all, most of us are more likely to notice flaccid bass or soggy trebles far more than a little notch taken out between the low-end and mids. It’s understandable why manufacturers take this shortcut – by focusing their drivers’ finite dynamic capacity on the areas that consumers will most notice, they can achieve more impressive sounding results without significantly increasing the cost of components. But I do feel like this sonic sleight of hand often promises more than it delivers, shortchanging listeners in the process.
While you might not diagnose the problem right away, you’ll likely spot the symptoms: vocals that lack gravitas, percussion with bite but little resonance, and bass that’s pumping but not warm are all signs that corners have been cut. And, for me, the biggest tell is a speaker that’s calibrated to make certain genres shine, while leaving others feel stifled. For example, a device that’s perfectly tuned to make rock music sound bright and enthusiastic, while leaving electronic tunes feeling pinched between the bass and synths, would be a dead giveaway.
Listen to enough modern wireless speakers and you’ll notice quite how common this ailment has become. For any audiophile, it’s a frustrating state of affairs, as even some supposedly high-end speakers jettison true fidelity for a superficially more energetic sound.
Rich bass – but with a frequency balance that’s pitch perfect
So that’s the rule – but what about the exceptions? Surely not every wireless speaker you can buy falls into this trap? Fortunately not: there are several excellent speakers out there that buck this trend. And few in my mind do so as deftly as the Cambridge Audio Evo One.
I’ve sung the praises of this wireless speaker plenty already quite a few times. Part of the reason for that is it has genuinely fantastic connectivity. Not only can it connect to streaming services, internet radio and local streaming through Roon, but it also offers RCA inputs, HDMI eARC for home cinema sound and a built-in phono stage for hooking up a turntable. It really is a sonic Swiss army knife when it comes to connectivity.
But the main reason I rate it so highly is because it utterly sidesteps the flaw I’ve mentioned above. Cambridge Audio is absolutely fastidious with the frequency tuning of its products and the Evo One is no exception. Not only is it capable of bass that’s thick as bitumen but those critical mids are given much more room to breathe. From the sublime vocals and faithful piano of London Grammar’s Wasting My Young Years to the pumping, two-step percussion and sweeping synths of Bonobo’s Outlier, it gives everything a palpable weight that bass alone can’t manage.
Fundamentally, rather than squeezing your favorite tracks through a bottleneck at about 120Hz, the Evo One gives this frequency range plenty of room, allowing multiple elements sufficient space to express themselves simultaneously. Naturally, that’s helped along by the speaker’s copious number of drivers: with four 1-inch silk dome tweeters, four 2.25-inch aluminum cone mid-range drivers, and six 2.75-inch long-throw woofers, it’s capable of a seriously expansive separation, something that’s apparent throughout its frequency range.
On top of this, the Evo One’s bass isn’t the wild beast unleashed by many wireless speakers, instead proving itself eminently tameable, thanks to the speaker’s room calibration settings. Even though I did find its bass a little unruly out of the box, once I’d tweaked the Room Compensation preferences to match my cluttered living room and adjusted settings for the device’s proximity to the wall, what had previously felt swampy quickly became sharp and focused.
I’ll admit there is a slight caveat that tempers the Evo One’s many strengths though: its price. All of this meticulous audio engineering doesn’t come cheap – at $1,499 / £1,299 / AU$2,495, Cambridge Audio’s wireless speaker definitely sits at the premium end of the market. But if you’re looking for unimpeachable audio quality you can always count on in a versatile, compact package, it’s an incredibly safe bet.
And if your budget doesn’t stretch this far, there are still other speakers out there that can offer as judicious a frequency balance. While it’s hard to predict how various speakers will fare on this front without hearing them yourself, we test all of the best wireless speakers with a wide range of genres, meaning you can count on our recommendations to spell out which models will truly show off your tunes in the best light.
