Huawei Sound packs an impressive punch without the hefty price tag
Huawei Sound co-developed with French audio specialist Devialet.
Huawei continues to expand its range of audio products and this week I’ve been testing the excellent Huawei Sound speaker.
The Huawei Sound is a collaboration with Devialet, a high-end French acoustics company who are well-known for its innovative and stylish speakers designs. The Devialet Phantom speakers are works of art packed with the latest top-of-the-range hardware and a €3,000 price tag to match. Thankfully, the Huawei Sound borrows the design language without attaching the same hefty price.
There are five speakers inside the glossy black cylindrical shape offering a 360-degree listening experience with two 4-inch 40W woofer and three full-range 5W loudspeakers working in conjunction with each other to produce a balanced sound.
The bottom third of the speaker has a black fabric mesh and a solid rubber base under which you’ll find the round power port. Around the back is a rubber flap that conceals a 3.5 mm AUX port. This allows you to connect devices with a 3.5mm jack to the Huawei Sound speaker — a really handy option.
The top of the speaker has capacitive controls including volume up and down. Unfortunately, the other two ‘smart’ controls don’t do much outside of China. One is a mute which will toggle between pause/play while the other is a multi-purpose button that does very little.
Around these four-flush to the surface, buttons is a multi-coloured ring that illuminates to indicate volume levels. These only light up when you touch them and so aren’t visible until you do.
On the left and right of the speaker are the exposed 4-inch subwoofers. These look very cool and vibrate lots to push out a thumping bass. You can poke your finger in the massive holes but the actual speaker membrane is protected with a solid cover that has a small red vertical dash. It looks a lot like a large volume dial but you can’t change the bass volume on them.
Besides the gorgeous looks, the Huawei Sound offers some high-end audio features including Hi-Res Audio Certification and the high bit rate LDAC codec. Of course, to use the latter, you need a device that supports the format to take advantage of it.
Like any speaker, placement affects sound but the Huawei Sound is one of the few speakers that sounded really good even when placed on my desk.
I often find speakers this close to me just don’t sound good. This makes it an ideal speaker for general purpose use in a home office setup for listening to music, radio or podcasts. The bass has a lot of power and I could hear and feel the music when I used it on my desk. But, it really starts to shine when you give it more room and space to pump out the tunes.
The 360 speaker system means it isn’t directional so there’s no problem with placing it in the centre of a room. I was impressed by the loudness which was surprisingly powerful beyond what I would expect from a speaker of this size. Even at maximum volume, the sound didn’t distort but the bass was a little muddy in tunes with a lot of heavy bass. At lower volumes, the bass is less pronounced but that’s to be expected on a speaker this size although turning the bass up to the maximum (+6) does help.
Treble tones are clear and precise with lots of detail while the mids are nice and mellow for an all-around enjoyable listening experience.
The AI Life app provides some additional features including three preset sounds effects — Hi-Fi, Voice and Devialet Space SoundStage. From here you can also adjust the bass volume from -6 to +6.
Devialet Space manages to create a virtual surround sound by separating the input signal into direct sound, reflected sound and ambient noise, via a dedicated algorithm. The three different directionally-oriented speakers then receive signal based on the location of the listener and together create surround sound effects from the Huawei Sound speaker.
The firmware can be updated using the AI Life app.
My favourite feature is the NFC built into the speaker which allows for contactless Bluetooth pairing on the first setup. If you have multiple devices paired to the speaker you can quickly switch between them using the one-tap NFC too. Of course, if you own a Huawei smartphone you can use OneHop to connect quickly and it will show a graphic of the Huawei Sound when you do.
The Huawei Sound packs an impressive punch for its size and at an attractive price. The finish, design and features are first-rate although it would be nice if it was available in other colours and not just black.
Unfortunately, you can’t call the Huawei Sound a smart speaker but you could hook up an Alexa Flex or Dot via the AUX port to make it smart which at least is an option for those who want it.
Available in May for €189 Huawei Ireland
