Portable speakers are often “You get what you paid for” – if it’s cheap it won’t sound good, and in some cases you’re actually paying a lot more for what you’re getting. In goldfries’ lab is the Elysium Zeon III which is a premium bluetooth speaker and it’s one of the very few speakers that hold it’s ground when it comes to delivering quality audio.
Starting off, the speaker unit is rock solid and comes with brushed metal finish. Below are the specs taken from the official product page.
SPECIFICATIONS
– Input Voltage: DC5V/1000mA
– Battery Type: Lithium battery
– Frequency range: 16Hz-18kHz
– Battery capacity: 7.4V 2200mAh
– Snr: 80dB
– Input sensitivity: 800mV
– Output power: RMS 5 Watts x 2
– Audio Mode: Bluetooth and Audio Line-in
– Impedence: 4 ohms
– Bluetooth band: 2.402GJz-2.480Ghz
– Bluetooth version: CSR 4.0
– Bluetooth protocol: A2DP, AVRCP
– Wireless distance: up to 10M
– Decoder support: ACC, aptx, SBC and MP3
The speaker’s button layout is as simple as it could be, just a few on top so inexperienced person will be able to get it up and running in a jiffy. I got it done without having to refer to the manual, if you’re not familiar with Bluetooth device pairing then it’s the manual for you. Just in case you wonder what is “CSR” on the title, it refers to the Bluetooth version used.
Here’s the base of the speaker, 3 long rubberized feet to hold the speaker in place.
Lastly here’s the side of the speaker, they move when it pumps out bassy tunes.
User Experience
Pairing the speaker was easy, I had no hiccups getting it to work with my Honor 7 smartphone. The speaker blew me away upon first playback, I pumped my favorite tunes right from the start and my goodness it loud and rather rich – now notice I said RATHER rich.
You see, the Zeon III is very capable of pumping the bass side of things, with the default output I can safely say that the Zeon III from Elysium has far richer and solid audio output than most portable speakers, and even better than some 2.1 speakers that I’ve tested.
Now the downside of things is that well, it’s bassy! While I’m not in the league of true-blue audiophiles, I’m neither at the league of the indiscriminate listeners as well. If the audiophiles are at 10 then I rate myself around 7, which means I am in some ways picky on what I like from my speakers.
The Zeon III pumps bass a lot, fortunately it’s not bad quality bass. It’s just loud and what one needs to do is to fine tune the bass so the speaker is able to provide overall better tonality. The 2200mAh battery is great too, you could go hours on end with this unit. It’s pretty much like using a phone to play audio, the only difference is that the speaker requires more wattage to get it running but it’ll still be going around for hours.
The Verdict
The Elysium ZEON III Bluetooth CSR 4.0 Portable Rechargeable Speaker retails at RM 499 – the price is steep but the build quality is rock solid and the audio output is superb. If you compare the price to what you get in terms of the goods and performance, I’d say it’s well worth spending on it if you’re looking for something that plays good audio and doesn’t occupy much space.
A Beats Pill costs more than RM 800 and that’s more than 50% of the price of the Zeon III, the Beats Pill’s only advantage against the Zeon III is the NFC connectivity but that aside the Beats Pill is no match to the Zeon III in overall build quality and audio delivery.
