Review: Satechi BT Portable Wireless Speaker

Have you been looking for a small and lightweight portable speaker to give your tablet or smartphone a little more oomph when jamming out tunes? Not too long ago, we covered the launch of the Satechi BT Portable Wireless Speaker. Now we’ve gotten our hands on one in order to put it through its paces.

Does the innovative pop-up design actually boost the audio quality? And more importantly, is the $45 speaker worthy of your hard-earned cash? The answers to these questions (and more) are yours past the break!

• Ultra portable design with an attractive and protective carry pouch.
• The signature “Bass Expansion System” allows the device to be expanded for better bass response.
• Connects via Bluetooth or 3.5 mm headphone jack
• Connect several Satechi BT Speakers in series for added power
• Long-lasting Lithium Ion battery and USB charging support

As one can gleam from the frequency response plot below, the laws of physics simply cannot be bypassed. A small speaker will unfortunately always be a small speaker. This leads to bass response that is not quite noteworthy.

That said, twisting open the BT speaker to allow for a larger cabinet volume dramatically improves performance, just as one would expect. In real world usage, this translates to extension of around 200 Hz when closed and 150 Hz when open—quite a significant gain.

Throughout the rest of the frequency range, sound is presented quite unobtrusively. I would even go far as to say that the small driver works in the speaker’s advantage to some degree. This is because the driver’s low moving mass allows for reasonably crisp mids and highs.

Device power is more than adequate. Throughout the majority of its frequency range, it is able to average over 90 dB and peak at over 115 dB, when measured at a near-field distance of 4 inches. Unfortunately however, we noticed significant harmonic distortion when playing at peak volume. This was especially evident when in passages featuring abundant bass.

Subjective listening tests agreed with the objective measurements. While the bass response is somewhat lacking, the clarity is certainly present. Listening to music predominated with vocals (especially female) yielded a great experience. Music was crisp, transients were clean, and overall, music was simply pleasant. That said, the portable speaker did occasionally sound a bit shrill, depending on the content being played.

However, fans of hip hop, techno, and other bass-heavy genres would perhaps be better suited looking elsewhere. Unfortunately, though, this also involves toting around much larger speakers—something that isn’t really an option for many.

The Satechi BT Wireless Portable Speaker is a very interesting product. It’s quite lightweight and portable, and it comes with a handy carry pouch to make sure it won’t get damaged as you inevitably take it everywhere you go. It also allows you to physically expand the unit when in use to achieve better sound quality by twisting open its top. Furthermore, those who want even more output can link several Satechi devices in serial to generate even more volume.

Simply put, however, this is not an audiophile-caliber device. Even when expanded, the bass response is simply not enough for bass-heavy genres. However, even for fans of hip hop and techno, there’s no arguing that the Satechi speaker blows any built-in tablet or smartphone speaker out of the water.

Ultimately we have no reservations recommending the Satechi speaker for anyone looking for an extremely portable Bluetooth-enabled speaker to upgrade his/her smartphone or tablet’s sound—that is, as long as expectations of bass response are kept in check. However fans of bass-heavy music may wish to pass in favor of larger and more powerful solutions—one of which, we will cover tomorrow.

Pros

• Extremely compact when popped-in
• Innovative pop-out design actually works
• Useful carry pouch
• Adequate volume and sound quality

Cons

• Lots of distortion at high volume
• Lack of bass response