It’s hard to know which factor drew more surprise on the announcement of the IKEA Kallsup. Was it the fact that this Bluetooth speaker was priced at a seriously cheap price of just $10? Or was it the fact that you could link up to 99 of them to form an enormous cityscape of stackable guava-colored noise boxes?
When I tested the Kallsup for the first time, it was the ludicrously low cost and its networked features that drew my attention most, which is why I described it at the time as ‘fun, flexible and affordable’. While its sound quality wasn’t exactly top tier, that impressive connectivity certainly piqued my curiosity.
I’d always been planning to try pairing a few Kallsups together once they were on general release, even if just to establish they partnered up as well as some of the best Bluetooth speakers.
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But after my eyes alighted on TechRadar’s JBL Flip 7, an impish thought occurred: the price you’d now pay for the Flip 7 is the same as a dozen of the IKEA speakers. And who hasn’t at some point wondered what would win a showdown between 12 $10 speakers and one $120 speaker?
Rather than get bogged down in mundane concerns like ‘is this a practical use of my time?’ or ‘is my partner going to object to me flooding every spare surface in our living room with pink plastic cubes?’, we purchased a dozen Kallsups. Once they arrived, I grabbed the JBL Flip 7, set up my magenta Stonehenge, and settled in for my grand experiment.
More = better??
Going into this, I was obviously skeptical that mere multiplication was going to turn a $10 speaker into a worthy rival for an $120 one. But blow me down: it turns out that lots of bargain-bin speakers are far superior in terms of sound quality than one mid-priced one.
No, obviously I’m joking. They’re not. Sadly, that would require some major rewriting of the laws of physics. Small drivers can only cover a certain frequency range, and whether you have two or 40 of them, you’re not going to regain parts of the spectrum they were never able to reproduce alone.
The IKEA Kallsups fared best when it comes to the mid-range. Playing Ordinary Love by Elder Island, I was surprised how competently that constellation of full-range drivers did of showing off the track’s ravey synths, while the percussion felt a little more dynamic than on the JBL. However, I definitely think the Flip 7 more deftly handled its gorgeous house-y vocals, giving them a touch more polish and presence.
Unfortunately, the competition quickly became a wash when I strayed out of the Kallsups’ frequency sweet spot. Trying out Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac on both speakers, the difference was stark. While the JBL largely walks the line between oversaturation and dullness, the IKEA array made the rhythm guitars and cymbals feel, oxymoronically, muted while also sounding a bit sharp and glassy.
Bass similarly feels overlooked. When I dropped Us by Pola & Bryson, the JBL definitely flubbed the sub-bass, but it still did an adequate job of conveying the distorted bass synth, and the kick drum packed plenty of punch.
Conversely, on the Kallsup, the track’s drop was rough — not only was there no sub-bass, there was barely any low-end of any kind, while the kick felt pinched and thin. These little units simply aren’t built for bass, no matter how many you amass.
The case for shedloads of small, cheap speakers
So is the ability to hook up this many speakers completely unnecessary? Not quite. While they won’t give you better sound quality, a raft of cheap speakers does seem to help in a few circumstances.
Perhaps the most obvious is that you’ll get a more omnidirectional sound. Given I could place speakers all around me, the Kallsups’ presentation was much more dome-like than the single point that the JBL’s sound issued from. It’s not going to be a substitute for a genuine surround or Dolby Atmos setup, which will pinpoint various elements at a precise point in space, but it’s probably the cheapest way to feel like you’re sitting at the heart of a hemisphere of sound.
Another benefit is the boost in dynamic range. Not only do more speakers mean you’ll get a higher max volume, but it will actually increase the dynamics exponentially, meaning quiet elements stay quiet and louder ones get much more so. That’s what made the boldest instruments like synths stand out even more during my tests, with them getting an extra boost compared to the background level.
Still, I’d argue that the most compelling use case of the Kallsup’s connectivity is it offers a really cheap way to multi-room your tunes. While putting the best Sonos speakers in every key room in your house could set you back a substantial amount of money, the Kallsup is so ludicrously cheap that there’s almost no barrier to spreading music throughout your home.
There’s not even any reason to limit it to one speaker a room. During my student days, we threw plenty of house parties with DJs mixing and a huge rig in the living room. Had IKEA’s Kallsup existed in those days, it would have been a fun way to bring the tunes up throughout the whole house, so that you could even hear them in the hall or going up the stairs.
So there are definite benefits to having a lot of smaller speakers that extend past simple sound quality. And while I’d personally prefer a selection of speakers that offered a little more bass oomph or high-end clarity, that doesn’t mean I can’t see the value of this kind of huge network of li’l wireless speakers.
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The best Bluetooth speakers for all budgets
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josh.russell@futurenet.com (Josh Russell)
