Oh it’s raining Kitsound speaker systems! This time around, we’re introducing you to Kitsound’s best looking wireless speaker system – the BoomBar 2. Be sure to watch our quick unboxing video above for you to see what’s inside its retail box.
Before we take you through our impressions about BoomBar 2’s connectivity and sound quality, allow us to take you through our thoughts about its packaging and build. BoomBar 2 is placed inside a premium cardboard box. Apart from the speaker, it contains a faux-leather soft feel case, user manual, charge cable and 3.5mm audio cable. The soft feel case is very useful especially if you wish to take the speaker with you wherever you go. And yeah – it looks really fancy too!
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Boxy BoomBar 2
Unlike its predecessor, BoomBar 2 sports a boxy looking design with 5 sides. It embodies a minimalist look and feel with its monochromatic design and matte-textured chassis.
When placed flat on its skinny base, it could easily wobble by a simple finger nudge. On its left side, you will find all the switches and rockers: Volume Rockers, which double as back and next keys; pairing switch; and Off/On switch. On its same side, Kitsound also placed the AUX In and 5V DC power port.
Its two (2) 50mm drivers and bass radiator are covered by a black-painted aluminum grille. Its neat looking Kitsound logo is located on its lower right corner. It’s heavy for its size as it’s packed with monster specifications. It feels highly robust and durable, which give us the impression that it could last for a long time just like our Kitsound Boom Evo.
Made to be Connected Easily
In terms of connectivity, BoomBar 2 supports Bluetooth and AUX IN. As for Bluetooth, it has 2.1 that supports AVRCP, A2DP streaming up to 10 meters. It’s compatible with all the smartphones we have at our disposal – Xperia Z3 Dual, iPhone 6 Plus, Cherry Mobile Selfie, Cherry Mobile Excalibur, and even HappyMobile D-Lite. Unfortunately, just like other Kitsound devices we reviewed, BoomBar 2 is not compatible with the Playstation 4 and Vita.
If you fancy bringing this inside your car, you can easily do so and safely stick it on your dashboard. It can double as your hands-free device as the speaker supports it. Unfortunately, unlike the PocketBoom we recently reviewed, it does not have a dedicated accept and call button so use this in your car with full caution as this is optimized to be used in your bed or living room.
On Bluetooth, the wireless speaker system managed to stay up for 8 hours during the first 2 weeks of usage. It optimized further later at almost more than 10 hours on Bluetooth connectivity. If you have an iPad Air 2, you can watch 10 hours of video content with BoomBar 2 as your sound system.
Where’s the Play/Pause Button?
Despite the availability of controls found on its right side, it takes a bit of time to really master its controls. It would have been a lot better had Kitsound put playback music controls labels on top of its volume rockers and pairing buttons. Just in case you want to know, here’s a layout of its controls while listening to music:
- Volume+: (Press Once) Next Song; (Press longer than a second) Increase Volume
- Volume-: (Press Once) Repeat Song/Last Song; (Press longer than a second) Decrease Volume
- Pairing: (Press Once) Play/Pause Song; (Press longer than a second) Initiate pairing
Superior Sound
Its monicker’s prefix – Boom – is an understatement. It produces loud and clear sound, which give justice to your normal and even high resolution audios. Acoustic sounds are highly detailed, but music, which are ‘bassy’ lack the oomph I wanted to hear. While listening to Oliver $ and Jimi Jules’ “Pushing On” via Spotify paired on Xperia Z3, I had to manually adjust its setting to hear and feel more thumps of the music.
Verdict
BoomBar 2 looks and performs excellent both as a travel and home wireless system. The availability of connectivity options, battery life plus the quality of sound it gives off are awesome proofs that this is a bang-for-your-buck audio device. It isn’t perfect, but it captured and delighted us with how loud and accurate the sound it renders. Reasonably priced at PhP4,990, Boombar 2 easily won our heart. Boom…. panes. (You knew it was coming, right?)
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
