At CES 2025, LG announced a new range of Bluetooth speakers, with a sound signature developed in conjunction with musician and occasional tech entrepreneur will.i.am. Now, I tend to take a pretty dim view of celebrity tech collabs, and will.i.am has dabbled in audio before, largely unsuccessfully.
However, LG played me some tracks on the new ‘xboom by will.i.am’ range, and I absolutely loved what I heard, even compared to some of the best Bluetooth speakers. The whole range served up big bass, balanced finely with clear and expressive treble and enough mid-range to fill out everything – although the speakers vary in size, so there are some differences too.
First, I heard the xboom Grab (listen, I’m really sorry about LG’s choice of capitalization across this whole endeavor, please bear with me), which is a cylinder about the size of a JBL Flip 6, and though LG didn’t announce any prices, I’ll bet it will cost about the same (so potentially around $129.95 / £129.99 / AU$175).
Being small (it’s designed to fit in a car’s cup holder), there’s only so much bass it can produce, but it really goes for it, adding in plenty of low-end kick without feeling over-worked. When mid-range and upper-mid vocals came in, they felt like they had their space, and weren’t dragged down by the efforts of the bass, which can be a problem for these speakers.
The xboom Grab has a lot of good competition, but it’s definitely one to watch (or, y’know, listen) out for when review time comes. But it’s not the one that most impressed me.
That was the LG xboom Stage 301, which is a chunky unit designed like stage speakers (hence the name) – including a design with a corner cut off on the bottom, so you can tip it so it’s angled up, like musicians often use. But this has benefits for anyone – if it’s on the floor at a party, angling it up is just going to help fill the room.
It’s also designed to sit on a stand, though, which LG described as being a “rave-style” configuration. The idea with the Stage 301 is that it’s super-versatile – use it with a mic for karaoke (or “busking” is among LG’s suggestions), use it for parties, use it as a PA system if you need to…
But what matters is that it sounded really impressive to me. A 6.5-inch woofer and twin 2.5-inch mid-range drivers provide the sound, and while the lack of a tweeter was surprising, I didn’t mind at all when hearing it.
These speakers are all apparently aiming for a warm sound, and this is where it really gets to wrap you in that fuzzy sound blanket. In my brief demo, I found it to deliver really full bass that felt suitably deep but not overwhelming at all, and with tons of space for the rest of the music to leap out at you.
Vocals felt layered and true to life, and small details lifted out of the mix clearly while still feeling connected to an energetic and really fun soundstage. Lots of companies are focused on making party speakers right now, and I see a lot of demos of them at events – this is the first short demo that’s made me go “Oh, I might actually want this at my party!”
This is far from a final judgment, of course, but I’m actually excited for us to get these in for review, when I really wouldn’t have expected that given LG’s up-and-down record in audio (it’s made some excellent stuff, and some really mediocre stuff) and the flash of a celebrity name. But like all great musical double-acts, sometimes the chemistry is just right.
There are no prices or official release dates for these products yet, other than “2025”.
You might also like…
TechRadar will be extensively covering this year’s CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2025 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/jAUNFfhT5g2hviAA5p7bWm-1200-80.jpg
Source link
