Wavemaster Mobi-2 Bluetooth Speaker Review

We are glad that this unit has Bluetooth, as the standard 3.5mm audio cable is quite short. With a phone or tablet PC across the room, that’s not going to be an issue, but if you want to balance an iPad on your stomach while laying down then you will be very aware that there is a speaker attached.

For right handed people whose laptop has the audio connection on the right hand side, it will be fun to use ‘connected' while trying to type. Bluetooth gives you the distance you need to be comfortable.

To give this speaker a proper outing we tried a variety of tracks in a regular sitting room environment and also in a very large room (the KitGuru studios to be exact), which is a much tougher test for any speaker.

We tested the Wavemaster Mobi-2 side by side with an older Mobi, an X-Mini (original) and an X-Mini II. To say that the Wavemaster Mobi-2 is the best of the bunch is a serious understatement. In terms of volume, clarity and features, it sets a new marker in low-cost, mobile speaker systems.

To confirm our findings, we lined up 3 sets of independent ears.

Julian Brook, who runs marketing for a well known technology company by day and a rock band during evenings and weekends. He scrolled through a selection of tracks on a Nokia Lumia 920, using Bluetooth and got the same pleasant surprise as we did.

Julian is a rocker by nature and tracks like Enter Sandman from Metallica were used to see how the speaker dealt with fine detail at low volume – through to some pounding drums and thrashing guitar. The Mobi 2 handled very well indeed. Eyebrows were raised when we swapped the Mobi-2 back to the X-Mini and original Mobi speakers. Sound quality was noticeably worse with the other speakers.

Arwyn Bailey is a musician in his own right, as well as being a freelance reviewer for KitGuru. Across a range of classic tracks, Arwyn was a little stunned by the power output delivered by the Mobi-2 and wanted to know if we could loan him our sample, on long term. He said the sound quality from the Mobi-2 was noticeably better than the other speakers in the test.

Two down and one to go.

Siobhan Bermingham is a professional dancer, singer and musician. She has been using an X-Mini for years when going to rehearsals/casting calls. Physically plugged into her iPhone, she uses a portable speaker to warm up and run through routines before being called on stage.

She was equally surprised by the volume this little unit cranks out. “What really makes a difference is the distortion”, she told us. “When you set the X-Mini to full volume, it has a tendency to rattle on harder surfaces, so you can't use it at full volume – but the Mobi-2 is fine. You can crank your phone right up and it just sounds great”.

Our initial findings were confirmed by all of the test subjects in this review.

In terms of overall volume, we played Overkill by Motorhead on all of these speakers, as loud as each of them would go without distorting. To those unfamiliar with the track, it delivers a constant barrage of pounding drums with a serious bass line.

It's the consistency of loudness that makes it a good test for this kind of reading. We measured a spread of just under 8dBa across all of the test units at a distance of 1 metre, which is significant. The undistorted difference in volume from the smaller of the X-Minis to the Mobi-2 is very real.

When we looked at its wireless range, a fully charged Wavemaster Mobi-2 was able to play music perfectly via Bluetooth, even when the Nokia 920 source was 8 meters away. This was achieved across a studio with no obvious sources of interference. Somewhere between 8 and 10 meters, the signal drops rapidly … resulting in cut outs and then silence.

Comparative testing was handled with a sound meter at a distance of 1 meter, simulating sitting at a desk with the speaker attached to a laptop. Background noise was kept to a minimum.

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