Well-Designed Home Audio That Comes With Warnings

When someone mentions Bose, I don’t immediately think of speakers. To me, the company is synonymous with noise canceling headphones as I have spent years testing various QuietComfort products. However, Bose actually has a number of speakers under its belt, a line that includes portable, home and living room models alike. The company’s latest home audio option, the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker ($299), is part of a collection of new Wi-Fi-connected devices that can be used as a multiroom setup or as part of a solid home theater setup. As is often the case with these types of speakers, the real question is how well Bose is prepared to compete with the likes of industry-leading Sonos.

The LS Ultra speaker is compact. At 7.27 x 4.77 x 6.59 inches and weighing just 3.7 pounds, it’s smaller than the Audio-Technica bookshelf speaker next to my turntable. Bose’s latest speaker is about the same size as the Sonos Era 100, except the LS Ultra is about an inch and a half deeper. The perfect shape here is more of a cylinder or a long pill. A fabric speaker grill that wraps around the front and sides of the device like a cover. And if you splurge on the limited edition Driftwood Sand color, there’s a wood base for an even more refined look.

Inside, Bose has packed three drivers, including one heated speaker, alongside QuietPort acoustics for the company’s Cleanbass system. Up top, touch controls give you the ability to play/pause, skip tracks, adjust volume, activate Bluetooth, mute the microphone and summon Alexa (more on that last one in a bit). The volume control is a radial slider ring that lets you swipe quickly to make changes or be more specific with your tweaks. If you’d rather just click + or – like normal touch-based buttons, you can do that too.

The LS Ultra Speaker has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, in addition to a 3.5mm aux port on the back. With Wi-Fi connectivity, AirPlay and Google Cast are integrated, both of which allow you to use the speaker as part of a multi-room setup. No need to create rooms in the Bose app, simply send audio to each device via AirPlay or the Cast menu in your favorite app. Depending on your preference, this may not necessarily be a bad thing. Personally, I miss the ability to send sound to every room with a single tap like I could in the HEOS app with Denon’s speakers.

Bose is the first to support Alexa+ on non-Echo devices. The Lifestyle Ultra Speaker, the new Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar and several other products from the company are all compatible. Amazon’s next-generation assistant arrived last year and introduced greater improvements than ever before. This is the only voice assistant supported directly by the LS Ultra Speaker, so if you prefer Gemini or Siri, you’ll want to disable Alexa+ and mute the speaker’s microphone. A small red light at the top of the speaker lets you know that the microphone is off.

Bose has equipped the Lifestyle Ultra speaker with what it calls TrueSpatial technology for more immersive sound. And of course, that firing driver certainly helps with dimensional sound. However, despite the three-driver setup and Bose’s bass acoustics, low-end speaker power is limited. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of kick drum on Bilmuri’s “Twice,” but the bass isn’t convincingly deep or nuanced.

The LS Ultra speaker excels in overall clarity and detail in the treble and midrange however. Vocals always come through well, and instruments like guitars, synths and horns always stand out in the mix. While it works well in all genres, I think the speaker is better suited to softer songs: instrumental synth tracks, bluegrass and Midwest emo, as a few examples. I’ve been coming back to American Football and Watchhouse’s new album Traditions with clean guitars and acoustic instruments respectively.

In the Bose app, the company gives you the ability to dial in the sound profile with a three-band EQ. Try as I might, I couldn’t make any adjustments that I felt really improved the stock tuning; I felt that boosting the bass lowered the overall fidelity by muddying things up. Additionally, you can increase or decrease the firing rate of the driver in the same menu, giving you the ability to change that setting to your liking.

Like most wireless speakers on the market today, the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker can be used as a stereo pair. The Bose app makes this setup very easy, as it asks if you want to add additional speakers as part of a duo or home theater setup when you first connect them. Of course, you also have the option to leave each one as a separate unit, which you can do to place them in different rooms.

Despite everything looking fine in the app, at first I only heard music from the first LS Ultra speaker I set up. Then, strangely, the sound started to come out of the second one, but it was very delayed, and I couldn’t pause or control the playback at all — it finally went on its own. Bose advised that this could be due to a connection problem and told me to make sure both speakers have the latest firmware and are connected to the 5GHz band on my Wi-Fi network. The company also recommended bike audio sources and rebranded pairings to the app. None of this worked, but Bose’s last resort was to turn off the speakers for 15 seconds, which finally did the trick.

After arguing with all of that, I had the stereo pair my heart desired, but there was still one lingering snag. When you pause the music, both speakers stop in unison, but when you resume songs, one starts before the other. Fortunately, when they both kick, the sound is perfectly synchronized, but I found this a bit annoying. Despite all this, using two LS Ultra speakers improves the overall effect, as you would expect. And if you plan to use it as a bookshelf speaker in your office or living room, I would recommend investing in a second one for a more balanced installation. Being able to listen to different audio channels is a much better experience.

Although you can connect a turntable to the 3.5mm aux jack on these speakers, I don’t have the RCA adapter needed to do so, so I wasn’t able to test the LS Ultra Speakers as part of a vinyl setup. Most Wi-Fi speakers support turntables and wired inputs, so that’s no different for this Bose speaker.

If you’re hoping to use two LS Ultra speakers to enhance your TV sound, I have some bad news. This speaker is not designed to be the main sound source for TVs, although it does have a wired input. Bose says that using the 3.5mm aux port or Bluetooth will cause latency and lip sync issues. Of course, if you have an Apple TV, for example, you can go the AirPlay route, but that’s not ideal as you have to go into the settings menu to send audio to the speakers every time you use that streaming box.

It’s not all bad news though. Bose developed the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker to be used as surround back speakers in a home theater environment. This means you can rent them alongside the new Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar and Lifestyle Ultra Subwoofer for a complete sound system. Just note that although Bose has other soundbars in its lineup, these speakers are only compatible with the LS Ultra Soundbar.

When it comes to Wi-Fi enabled multi-room speakers, Sonos is always the first name that comes to mind. That’s right, so is the company’s biggest app that we’re still recovering from. If you’re willing to deal with some software frustration, the Era 100 offers many of the same features as the LS Ultra Speaker for $80 less. Bluetooth connectivity is present alongside Wi-Fi, although the Sonos model lacks an aux jack. The two Era 100s can be used as a stereo pair and work as rear speakers with any Sonos soundbar. You also get the benefit of Sonos’ Trueplay tuning for room equalization.

I would be remiss not to mention the Denon Home 200 in this discussion. This speaker offers better sound quality than LS Ultra Speaker or Era 100 due to its superior bass performance. The HEOS app you’ll use for settings and optional controls is fast and reliable. The downside here is that the Home 200 is the most expensive in the area at $399.

However, like the LS Ultra and Era 100 speakers, the Home 200 can be used as rear speakers, as long as you’re fine with Denon’s Home 550 soundbar.

Bose’s Lifestyle Ultra Speaker certainly looks good on my shelf. I also enjoy the overall clarity and subtle detail that this model produces, although I would like to differ slightly with the low-end tone. Since there are better-sounding options for standalone speakers, I’d argue that the LS Ultra Speakers are better suited as part of a home theater setup with some of the company’s latest gear.

Of course, you will be happy with its independent operation, although you may encounter some kinks in the connection and stereo pairing at first. And if you buy multiple Lifestyle Ultra products, you’ll need AirPlay and Google Cast compatibility for multi-room use. At the end of the day, you can do better if sound quality is your main concern, but you can also do worse, especially in terms of design.