I can also hear some digital signal processing being applied to keep the music from distorting as you crank the volume. That's a difficult claim to verify without the proper test gear-I'm stuck with my battered old ears-but the speaker does sound a little bit louder. Furthermore, UE claims the new Boom is 25 percent louder. It's still the best I've heard from a speaker this size. To my ears, the Boom 2 offers the same sound as the original at normal volumes. Neat, especially if your hands are wet or your phone is across the room. You have to pick up the speaker (to prevent accidental taps?), but once the Boom 2 senses you're holding it, smack the top. There's an innovative trick to this speaker: UE added an accelerometer, so you can pause or skip songs by tapping the Boom 2.
Once it senses you're holding it, just smack the top. I put mine on the floor of the shower a few times, and even threw it into the Pacific Ocean. The entire gadget is sealed against water and sand. The speaker grille is different, too: Hold the Boom and Boom 2 side-by-side and you'll see a tighter weave on the material enclosing the Boom 2. The charging and auxiliary ports are sealed with rubber gaskets and little flap-doors the volume, power, and Bluetooth pairing controls are chunky buttons with no seams. The Boom 2 meets the IPX 7 standard, meaning you can dunk it in water a few feet deep without a problem. I never worried about taking it to the park or the pool, but I'd get a little nervous if rain or cocktails were expected. UE sent me a loaner, and I've spent the past few weeks using it as my primary speaker. The new UE Boom 2 speakers ship before the end of September in the U.S., and everywhere else soon after. And for that money, I can't recommend it highly enough. It even does a new trick: Pick it up and whack the top, and it skips to the next song. The sound quality is just as good as the original, and the new Boom is waterproof, more rugged, and offers more wireless range.
It's called, appropriately, the UE Boom 2. Now, Ultimate Ears has gone back to the well, producing an updated version of the Boom. After the product became a hit at launch, UE (owned by Logitech) began iterating on the design, offering a larger version called the Megaboom, and two smaller designs with similar DNA, the Mini Boom and the UE Roll. It stands vertically, spreading stereo sound over a w-i-d-e arc, and has a footprint about the size as your morning beer. The compact $200 speaker sounds amazing and goes more than 15 hours on a charge. For the last few years, our favorite Bluetooth speaker here at WIRED-really, one of our top tech products overall-has been the UE Boom.
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