Last Thursday, in a furnished home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I sat on a sofa that was too low and too deep in front of a small, smart beige speaker sitting between a trio of central storage cabinets. On either side of the smart speaker sat two tall curved white screens.
The speaker was the new $299 Lifestyle Ultra, Bose’s answer to the Sonos Era 100. Along with the $1,099 Ultra soundbar and $899 subwoofer, it’s one of three new home audio products the company announced today, all of which seem to be taking a direct shot at Sonos — hoping to clear up that company’s recent missteps. I heard all three at the Bose event in New York, and I was particularly impressed by the speaker.
The $299 Ultra speaker is the most interesting and unique looking of the bunch. It has a front-firing woofer and tweeter, a firing driver – unlike the Era 100 – and a bass port on the back. (For music, Bose uses its own top-firing sound processing, rather than Dolby Atmos.) On top of the speaker, behind the firing driver, are controls for power, Bluetooth pairing, microphone mute, volume control, and a play/pause button. Volume and play/pause are in a circular depression, which you can slide your finger clockwise or counter-clockwise to control the volume. The Ultra speaker and sound bar support Alexa Plus.
The speaker sounds incredibly big and clear, and without the high-pitched noise that is present in speakers like the SoundLink Plus. In fact, when I listened to the first sample — Olivia Dean’s “The Man I Need” — I thought there should be more speakers playing behind the curved white screens.
I was partially right: The screens hid two other Lifestyle Ultra speakers, but they weren’t playing during that track. Instead, they were there for the latest stereo pair demo. Playing Leon Bridges’ “Peaceful Place” and Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” they showed off a nice stereo sound separation.
I found that the Ultra speaker can sound overly punchy when it comes to things like snare hits (I noticed this a lot during Chris Stapleton’s “Bad As I Used To Be”), at least at the volumes we listened to. This may be due to the lack of room resolution, a surprising omission from the Ultra Speaker at launch. Especially when using a stereo pair, I would expect there to be some way to tune the speakers in the room and compensate for any placement issues. I was told that Bose is looking into the possibility of adding room correction in the future to both single and stereo speaker setups.
Instead of putting all the control of streaming app playback in the Bose app like Sonos does with its own app, Bose instead relies on teamwork and playback within apps that people already use regularly, like Apple Music and Spotify. The Ultra speaker can stream music over Wi-Fi via Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect, and can be added to AirPlay and Google Cast speaker groups, including those with non-Bose speakers. If Wi-Fi isn’t available, you can stream to Ultra via Bluetooth. The speaker is Auracast-capable, but it won’t be Auracast-enabled when it launches on May 15. Raza Haider, Bose’s president of premium consumer audio, told me that Auracast will be enabled once that ecosystem is more mature.
I was expecting Bose to unveil its own Sonos app competitor, but this wide-open option — which lets you expand what you currently have whether it’s Bose or not — is interesting. It also bypasses the hassle of building all those individual streaming apps within the Bose app, and makes it work well. “We’re deliberately trying to be more open and not have apps in our experience,” Haider said. In addition to Spotify Connect, I hope Bose will also include services like Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect in the future.
Upstairs from the Ultra Speaker was a demo of the $1,099 Ultra Soundbar, a redesign of Bose’s first major soundbar in years. It has two firing drivers, two wide drivers in the left and right channels, two Bose PhaseGuide drivers – proprietary designs that direct sound from the sides – and two additional drivers with a central tweeter. The capacitive controls are the same as those found on the Ultra speaker.
We started the soundbar demo with the spice harvester exit scene A moundand it was not easy. That’s one of the scenes I go to for a movie sound check, so I know it well. While the soundscape had a lot of width to it and I could feel it thundering down, there was a hole where the bass frequencies should meet the midrange, making the sound feel hollow. Voice clarity was clear, and the soundbar did a good job with Atmos channels, but I couldn’t get past the missing high frequencies.
Fortunately, along with the Ultra Speaker and the Ultra Soundbar, Bose is releasing the Ultra Subwoofer, and that’s what the soundbar needs to fill the frequency gap I’ve heard. Instead of just hearing some vibrations from the low end, on Jacob Collier’s “Mi Corazón” the bass sounded full and supportive. It was a significant difference, but at $899, it also turns a small soundbar/combination into a $2,000 system (the same price as a Sonos Arc Ultra paired with a Sonos 4 sub).
With a full Atmos system, two Ultra Speakers can be used as rear channels, creating a 7.1.4 configuration. Wembley Stadium, from the Live Aid concert part of the movie Bohemian Rhapsodysurrounded and filled the room well. The height of the Atmos was good, although a little lackluster at times in its placement. That could be due to the design of the room and my living space — although interestingly, unlike a smart speaker by itself or a pair, the full system has room calibration.
Based mainly on my experience with the Ultra Speaker, there is a good chance for the new Bose Lifestyle Collection. “There’s more to come. This is the beginning of a new platform for the Lifestyle series,” Haider said when I asked him about the possibility of a battery version or a larger speaker. “The next one will not be small.”
Photos by John Higgins / The Verge
