Reviewed: The UE MEGABOOM Is the Best Party Companion You Could Ask For
Hard choice, but I’d still take the UE MEGABOOM over the Moët. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)
Bluetooth speakers are best tested under extreme circumstances. You only really know if you’ve gotten your money’s worth once your gadget has prevailed over a room full of noisy drunk people. That’s why I took Ultimate Ear’s brand-new MEGABOOM — which premieres today and will ship in January — on a trip to Atlantic City for New Year’s Eve.
I wanted to see if the portable 2-pound gadget could keep up as our night got progressively louder, drunker, and ultimately destructive. And it did: The Megaboom emerged the victor of our escapade, more clear-sounding and resilient than all seven of us the morning after.
For those of you unfamiliar with UE, the company has built a line of Bluetooth speakers on one simple promise: That its products can survive your adventures, no matter how poorly planned or lawless. What GoPro is to cameras, UE is to speakers. So far the BOOM line has been wildly successful, topping best-of lists from outlets like Wired, Gizmodo, The Verge, The Wirecutter, and me.
But UE’s excellent record also creates a unique problem: What makes the MEGABOOM so much better than its already-excellent predecessors (the $100 MINIBOOM and the $200 BOOM) that I should fork over $300 for it? A whole lot, it turns out.
At about 9 inches tall and 3 inches thick, MEGABOOM resembles — as one of my friends suggested — a mini “back roller.” It’s small enough for a backpack but probably too big for your average purse. With that bump in size comes a 20-hour battery-life, the ability to be submerged in water for 30 minutes, a 100-foot wireless Bluetooth range, and an astoundingly disruptive volume.
Though the MEGABOOM is clearly made to blast the deep, heart-fluttering bass of hip-hop and electronic dance music, it handles other musical genres with grace. This was evidenced by the progress of our playlist, which began with Ciara’s “Body Party,” and progressed to clubby stuff like A$AP Rocky & Skrillex’s “Wild for the Night.” By the morning, our heads couldn’t handle anything more intense than Taylor Swift’s “1989” album, and MEGABOOM knew its way around her poppy high notes, too.
The speaker’s Bluetooth pairing function is designed well for scenarios where lots of people are competing to hook their playlists up to the sound system. When you press the Bluetooth button twice at the top of the cylinder, it emits a subtle drum roll as it sends a pairing signal out for your gadgets. And it also conveniently powers off when it notices it’s not being used, a very helpful battery-saving feature for us, as we went back and forth from the casino floor to our hotel room to re-up on champagne.
The MEGABOOM kept up. Out of the box and after a short 30 minute charge, it had enough juice to survive our 7 p.m. dance party all the way to my 3 p.m. recovery bath (to wash away the stink of Atlantic City casino) the next day. Its 20-hour battery life may very well be the ideal capacity to keep a party going as long as humanly possible.
Speaking of baths, the MEGABOOM takes them like a champ. It’s able to last 30 minutes completely under water. Unlike cheaper waterproof Bluetooth speakers like the $60 BOOM Swimmer (no relation), its sound quality is barely affected by a quick dip. Not that it gets dirty very easily. Its stain-resistant skin is easy to clean in the event of accidental spills. It even emerged unscathed when I accidentally knocked a candle over onto it, save for a small wax patch.
Rub-a-dub with a $300 speaker. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo Tech)
It’s hard for me to imagine an everyday scenario where you’d need this thing to be even louder than it already is. But just in case you’re organizing a rave in the middle of the desert, the MEGABOOM can sync with another speaker from the BOOM line, for increased output or surround sound. As for me, I’m still trying to get away with playing it full blast in the shower without my neighbors complaining.
Actually, the UE MEGABOOM is so powerful that I’d say it’s less a speaker for casual listening in small city apartments and more an ultra-reliable portable sound system for almost any social situation. If you frequently find yourself at picnics, midnight pool parties, weekend cabin trips, or practically any other situation where conversation drowns out that playlist you slaved over, the UE MEGABOOM is the wing gadget you want. And like I said, it’ll probably emerge from the scene of the party in better shape than you.
The UE MEGABOOM will ship this month and is available to order at ultimateears.com.
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