Soundboks Rider Party Speaker Review: Loud and Durable

However the Rider is not simply loud—it is clear. Throughout all quantity ranges, it sounds nice. Whereas it could actually produce massive bass, it is not overpowering within the combine. The sound profile matches the speaker’s understated, PA-style aesthetic—clear, sturdy, and detailed.

The speaker can output as much as 118 dB SPL. That is well within painful levels, and much like a rock live performance. I am actually undecided when or the place I might have to push out that a lot audio, however in the event you ever do, the Rider is sport.

Advantageous Tuning

The app is equally streamlined and unfussy. You’ll be able to management mainly each speaker perform remotely, together with quantity, sound profiles, EQ modes, and even turning it off.

Connecting, nevertheless, was a bit of finicky. I needed to pair, unpair, re-pair, energy off, and energy on just a few instances earlier than the app and speaker would really begin speaking to one another. That was much more irritating as a result of, after a firmware replace, the app advised me to overlook the speaker and re-pair over again. I’ve examined lots of of wi-fi audio devices—Bluetooth connectivity points with brand-new merchandise are much less stunning than you may assume and sometimes get sorted out inside a month or two of software program updates. Nonetheless, it made the entire expertise really feel decidedly much less premium than the Rider’s $600 worth may counsel.

Is It Overkill?

The Soundboks Rider is a wonderful speaker. When it comes to loudness, sturdiness, and battery life, it runs circles round many of the competitors, together with bigger party-slash-karaoke audio system just like the Sony Tower 5 and JBL PartyBox Club 120.

However as a bigger, moveable Bluetooth speaker meant to face all by itself, it is a bit area of interest, particularly for $600. I do assume it is overkill for lots of people—I am unable to consider many of us in my life who want this mixture of loud and bombproof of their speaker. It’s also possible to get loads of moveable Bluetooth audio system for much less (the aforementioned $500 Sony ULT Area 7 and $330 JBL PartyBox Encore Essential 2 come to thoughts) that may do the job simply high-quality.

Soundboks says this can be a moveable social gathering speaker constructed for spontaneity and outside journey. For my spontaneous adventures, the Rider is overkill. But when your adventures embrace much more folks (and much more house) than mine, it is likely to be the right match—sufficiently big to convey to any social gathering and sturdy sufficient that you just by no means have to fret.