I just received my HiddenRadio 2 speakers after more than a year waiting. I want to use them in combination with my iPhone 6S and Apple Music. As the design of the speakers is quite striking, and the company clearly looked at Apple for their marketing and packaging approach, I think a little review is in place. If a company calls their own product magical and the most advanced speakers in the world, are they worth buying?
Design & packaging
Well, for starters: the packing is really neat and they did a good job in copying Apple. The design is equally beautiful. These are very nice speakers to have in your living room. I don't feel they are very sturdy and I shouldn't be taking them on a hike with me. There is little pouch included, but I prefer to keep them at home. I think there are other speakers that are mobile and can be used on the go. 8/10
Sound quality
I owned the first HiddenRadio, and found the sound quality to be horrible. Like, it could not get any worse. Harsh, unpleasant metallic sound, no base, constant hissing, distortions, ... For me the first HiddenRadio was nothing more than an unfinished beta product that should never have been released. This new version is a huge improvement. My ears don't start bleeding when I use them. The sound is much warmer, no distortions (unless you put the volume really high) and there's some base. What's disappointing: although the volume is quite loud, the sound doesn't fill the room. The 360 design of the speakers doesn't seem to help. There is also a constant hiss coming out of the speakers. If no music is playing, this is clearly audible. Note that I'm no audio expert, I just know when I like something. Therefore, I would rate the sound as "a little better than average". 6/10
Usability
Now, I want to use these speakers in combination with my iPhone 6S: Come home, and put on some music in the living room. Initial pairing with bluetooth works fairly well and as soon as you come nearby the speaker, it connects. The range is also very long. But! It has to be on first! To put it on, you need to press the top of the speaker, which is a touch based control system. Annoyingly, the speaker does not respond immediately. It takes a few seconds to wake up, and as there's no feedback during that time, I keep wondering if the speaker registered my touch.
When waking up, a motor lifts the top of the speaker. The sound this makes does take a way some of the Magical Lift Technology experience they claim this feature is. If you disconnect, the speaker goes back to sleep after a while. If you use the speaker in your bedroom, the sound of the motor might wake you up, but only if you're a light sleeper. Also, the speaker only registers with one phone. If I wanted to use another phone, I need to deregister the other phone first. The speakers do work with NFC for fast pairing but obviously, iPhone users cannot take advantage of that. 7/10
Multispeaker
A cool feature of these speakers is that you can connect 2 of them to play in stereo or multiroom mode. You can do this by pressing a corresponding button on the bottom of both speakers. And that's where it all falls flat: when trying to do that, the led goes yellow, green, white, pink, blue, ... to indicate problems, but there's no way of knowing what each colour means. I had to try several times to get them to work together. Just press and wait and see if it works and keep retrying. By starting music and listening if the second speaker kicks in. Once it works, it does work and both speakers play synchronously.
But, the horror! The next time you want to listen in stereo to both speakers, you have to reconnect them!!! They don't stay linked up to each other. Very frustrating and annoying as this can take up to a few minutes. Maybe I'm doing something wrong here, but I can't figure out what. Their slogan "It's just simple" does not at all correspond to my experiences. 2/10
iOS App
There should be an iOS app coming out to allow renaming the speakers and to help in the pairing process of the speakers but it's unclear if that will fix the linking issue I'm seeing. Also, if this means I have to launch that app every single time I want to use the speakers in stereo or multiroom mode, I'm definitely not impressed.
Volume
It's a bit weird to have a separate paragraph on volume. But these speakers do crazy things here. Several users complain about the volume going up and down by itself. I did not notice this, but I find it very annoying that when you change volume on your phone, there is a delay of several seconds. After that, the volume jumps a lot higher or lower in one go. It's not smooth whatsoever. Changing volume on the speakers is cool though: you can rotate your finger on the top cap to change volume. However, if you're in stereo or multiroom setup, the other speaker does not always follow: so you can have the sound of one speaker all the way down, and the other one all the way up. In that case, you have to go to the speakers themselves to fix this. 3/10
Conclusion
While these new speakers are a huge improvement over the first version (they were really horrible), I don't find them that convenient. For me, they are not magical or the most advanced speakers in the world. They feel a bit like cheap off the shelve components put together in a nice design. Why the constant hissing? Why the connectivity issues? Why the volume problems? If the speakers were of high quality these problems shouldn't be there. So I would rate them 5/10. Good enough to listen to but a lot of hassle to get them to work. For me at least, their not worth the price tag of $199.
Maybe I should go for speakers that offer Airplay as that might be more user friendly in combination with iOS, but in my experience the sound in a multispeaker Airplay setup is not always synchronised. Maybe iOS 9 with its Airplay improvements addresses this?
Hope someone finds this review useful! If the iOS app changes my experience, I will update the review.
Design & packaging
Well, for starters: the packing is really neat and they did a good job in copying Apple. The design is equally beautiful. These are very nice speakers to have in your living room. I don't feel they are very sturdy and I shouldn't be taking them on a hike with me. There is little pouch included, but I prefer to keep them at home. I think there are other speakers that are mobile and can be used on the go. 8/10
Sound quality
I owned the first HiddenRadio, and found the sound quality to be horrible. Like, it could not get any worse. Harsh, unpleasant metallic sound, no base, constant hissing, distortions, ... For me the first HiddenRadio was nothing more than an unfinished beta product that should never have been released. This new version is a huge improvement. My ears don't start bleeding when I use them. The sound is much warmer, no distortions (unless you put the volume really high) and there's some base. What's disappointing: although the volume is quite loud, the sound doesn't fill the room. The 360 design of the speakers doesn't seem to help. There is also a constant hiss coming out of the speakers. If no music is playing, this is clearly audible. Note that I'm no audio expert, I just know when I like something. Therefore, I would rate the sound as "a little better than average". 6/10
Usability
Now, I want to use these speakers in combination with my iPhone 6S: Come home, and put on some music in the living room. Initial pairing with bluetooth works fairly well and as soon as you come nearby the speaker, it connects. The range is also very long. But! It has to be on first! To put it on, you need to press the top of the speaker, which is a touch based control system. Annoyingly, the speaker does not respond immediately. It takes a few seconds to wake up, and as there's no feedback during that time, I keep wondering if the speaker registered my touch.
When waking up, a motor lifts the top of the speaker. The sound this makes does take a way some of the Magical Lift Technology experience they claim this feature is. If you disconnect, the speaker goes back to sleep after a while. If you use the speaker in your bedroom, the sound of the motor might wake you up, but only if you're a light sleeper. Also, the speaker only registers with one phone. If I wanted to use another phone, I need to deregister the other phone first. The speakers do work with NFC for fast pairing but obviously, iPhone users cannot take advantage of that. 7/10
Multispeaker
A cool feature of these speakers is that you can connect 2 of them to play in stereo or multiroom mode. You can do this by pressing a corresponding button on the bottom of both speakers. And that's where it all falls flat: when trying to do that, the led goes yellow, green, white, pink, blue, ... to indicate problems, but there's no way of knowing what each colour means. I had to try several times to get them to work together. Just press and wait and see if it works and keep retrying. By starting music and listening if the second speaker kicks in. Once it works, it does work and both speakers play synchronously.
But, the horror! The next time you want to listen in stereo to both speakers, you have to reconnect them!!! They don't stay linked up to each other. Very frustrating and annoying as this can take up to a few minutes. Maybe I'm doing something wrong here, but I can't figure out what. Their slogan "It's just simple" does not at all correspond to my experiences. 2/10
iOS App
There should be an iOS app coming out to allow renaming the speakers and to help in the pairing process of the speakers but it's unclear if that will fix the linking issue I'm seeing. Also, if this means I have to launch that app every single time I want to use the speakers in stereo or multiroom mode, I'm definitely not impressed.
Volume
It's a bit weird to have a separate paragraph on volume. But these speakers do crazy things here. Several users complain about the volume going up and down by itself. I did not notice this, but I find it very annoying that when you change volume on your phone, there is a delay of several seconds. After that, the volume jumps a lot higher or lower in one go. It's not smooth whatsoever. Changing volume on the speakers is cool though: you can rotate your finger on the top cap to change volume. However, if you're in stereo or multiroom setup, the other speaker does not always follow: so you can have the sound of one speaker all the way down, and the other one all the way up. In that case, you have to go to the speakers themselves to fix this. 3/10
Conclusion
While these new speakers are a huge improvement over the first version (they were really horrible), I don't find them that convenient. For me, they are not magical or the most advanced speakers in the world. They feel a bit like cheap off the shelve components put together in a nice design. Why the constant hissing? Why the connectivity issues? Why the volume problems? If the speakers were of high quality these problems shouldn't be there. So I would rate them 5/10. Good enough to listen to but a lot of hassle to get them to work. For me at least, their not worth the price tag of $199.
Maybe I should go for speakers that offer Airplay as that might be more user friendly in combination with iOS, but in my experience the sound in a multispeaker Airplay setup is not always synchronised. Maybe iOS 9 with its Airplay improvements addresses this?
Hope someone finds this review useful! If the iOS app changes my experience, I will update the review.
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