Bose SoundLink Max reviewed: big and bold

Speakers, speakers everywhere, so what do you pick? Bose’s latest is all about bringing a big sound in a package you can easily carry.

If there’s one thing Bluetooth speakers are known for, it’s portability.

Carry your sound wherever you go and rock out whenever, that’s the general idea of these things, and they are clearly plenty of them out there. It seems like everyone makes at least one, and you have choice when it comes to finding something.

Bose is no stranger to the category, and we’ve certainly seen more than a few speakers from the brand over the years. Many of these are built to be small, aimed at letting you carry a bigger sound in a bag.

The latest is a little bit bigger, and even comes with its own carry handle. Made of rope and silicone, it feels as strong as the rest of the speaker, as the Bose SoundLink Max aims to make the most of a stellar size.

Design and features

Big and meaty, you won’t confuse Bose’s SoundLink Max for any other speaker out there, that’s for sure. Bigger than the SoundLink Flex we checked out two years ago, the new speaker is obviously larger and manages to weigh nearly four times as much, but doesn’t feel cumbersome at all.

By comparison, the Soundlink Max weighs 2.13kg, bigger than the roughly 600g of the Flex, but it’s a larger speaker again.

There’s simply more to the Max, which you’d expect with the name.

Rated at IP67 and supporting connective two devices at once, it’s a meaty speaker with resistance to the outside world. It’s clearly meant to be taken outside, and the carry handle is a dead giveaway of that.

Beyond that handle, there’s a silicone-wrapped soft-touch stereo speaker here, which we experienced in Bose’s “Blue Dusk”. You can also get the speaker in black, but the blue was cute and nice, making a difference from the usual black speakers we see.

In-use

Grab the SoundLink Max by the handle and place it somewhere. From there, you simply need to power the speaker on using the soft push buttons on the speaker, each of which is clearly marked. Power, Bluetooth, volume up and down, pause and play, and so on. It is pretty much made to let you control music.

That’s the crux of how you use this speaker, but you could also just stick to what’s on your phone: either use the app or just your phone’s standard media controls.

Bose’s app isn’t as useful as it is on the QC Ultra Headphones, but that’s because there’s no spatial controls for the speaker. Rather, it’s just a choice of music playback and equaliser settings, though you can name your speaker. We called our review SoundLink Max “Party Starter”.

Alternatively, you can grab an auxiliary 3.5mm cable and plug into the back of the speaker, which could also make it ideal for plugging into other sources, such as a small projector when you’re out and about. You’ll work it out.

Performance

Party Starter got this review party started with Bluetooth audio as it does with every other review: turning to the Pickr Sound Test, where we can try a bunch of tracks and genres and let the speaker speak for itself.

This starts with Tycho, which sees a loud sound with lots of bold bass, possibly more than we expected. That vibe is much the same in Daft Punk’s “Contact”, which seemingly puts out more bass than the mids and highs. It’s an earthy sound built for the outdoors, and it is loud.

In fact, the loudness gives you a good sense of what you’re going to get across genres. The pop of Carly Rae Jepsen was equally bold and dynamic, lacking detail in some of the voice, which was much the same in a track from Ariana Grande.

Fortunately, the SoundLink Max is impactful where it matters. The punch of drums and a slick baseline in Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” punches hard with a speaker that really matches the vibe of our name: Party Starter.

In fact, for most of our test tracks, the bass leads. It’s not so much a warm sound on this speaker, but rather balanced with more bass. It’s why we’re adamant that the sound is big and bold, because it is. Detail can get a little lost in translation on some tracks, but depending on what you’re listening to and where, you may not care.

That’s not to say the SoundLink Max can’t drive detail, because it definitely can. We found the better the track mastering and engineering, the more the Max delivered.

Take the classics, with tracks from David Bowie, Paul Simon, and The Beatles: all were detailed and clear, without over-emphasising the bass considerably. We found solid detail and lovely stereo separation in these renditions, and it was much the same in jazz and classical.

Battery

There’s a decent amount of battery life on offer to let you jam to, but judging by the size, you might expect more.

Up to 20 hours of battery is possible from the SoundLink Max, which isn’t a bad amount at all. It’s enough to keep you going over a weekend without fail, so much that we had the speaker pumping tunes all day and didn’t think to turn it off. One day turns into two very easily, and the USB-C charged Max is easy to top up if need be.

That USB-C port also doubles up as a power pack for your phone, too, with the sizeable battery able to lend itself to topping up your mobile’s battery life. Handy.

One point worth noting: the battery charging speed isn’t necessarily fast, taking around five hours to go from completely out to completely full. Just something to be aware of, especially since there’s no USB power pack in the box and only a cable. It’s very much a BYO state of affairs, so hopefully you have a USB power pack, either from a phone or tablet, or maybe something extra meaty from your travels.

Value

One catch is the cost, because with an Australian price of $599.95, the Bose SoundLink Max is not inexpensive.

At the roughly $600 mark, Bose is technically competing with JBL’s $699 Boombox 3, the $599 UE Hyperboom, and maybe even one of Sony’s light-up party speakers, which tend to range between $450 and $700 depending on the model in question.

Bose lacks the lights of some of the party speakers, but what it brings is power in a relatively compact portable size. You might even put it up against the Sonos Move 2, which at $799 is a fair chunk more, but also supports multiroom audio and four more hours of battery life, both of which are notable differences.

For around $200 less, Bose is bringing plenty of oomph in a portable way.

In short, it’s not bad value at all. It might seem pricey on paper, but what you get sounds great.

What needs work?

Our only major critique with the SoundLink Max is with the detail: it’s not always amazing. Some tracks clearly sound better than others, and in our tests, the speaker has no problem shining a harsh light on some of issues in tracks.

You can turn down the bass using the app’s EQ settings, but you can’t tone down the way the speaker treats some tracks, it seems.

We’re also a little surprised there are no microphones on the Bose SoundLink Max, something that would have helped the speaker be a little more. Sure, there’s no smart assistants here — no big deal, clearly — but you’ll need your phone nearby if you want to use the SoundLink Max as a speakerphone of sorts. Without a mic, it just comes up a bit short in that category.

What we love

Weirdly, the thing we love about the SoundLink Max is just how portable Bose has made this thing. Some speakers come with a little loop or a carabiner clip. This one comes with a rope handle. Hell yes.

It’s so easy to carry this speaker around. So, so easy. The SoundLink Max isn’t small, but it’s a whole lot more portable than you’d expect.

You can even pop out that handle if you want, either to replace it with another, clean it, or just make the speaker that much more slimline. We’ll leave it for the moment, though; it just makes carrying the SoundLink Max that much easier.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

Niggles aside, there’s plenty to love in Bose’s big speaker. It’s a sizeable addition that doesn’t hurt your carry as much as you’d expect, helped in part by a clever design that makes it easy for anyone to grab.

We’re big fans of that handle and the volume. There’s just so much sound on offer in the Bose SoundLink Max. If oomph is what you want, this is the portable speaker to check out. Recommended.