Spaced360 review

The Spaced360 is an effortlessly distinctive looking piece of kit. No matter which way you rotate this portable Bluetooth speaker, you’ll stare down the barrel of one of three speakers.

The Spaced360 company is a spin-off from the well-known home cinema speaker manufacturer OrbitSound, and the first don’t stop there. The Spaced360 speaker uses a three-driver system that’s the first of its kind in a portable device. The Spaced360 shares OrbitSound’s airSOUND system, which is designed to create great sound regardless of where you sit in relation to the speaker. It does this by having a different audio signal routed to each of the three 2in drivers, with right and left channels combined into a single mono channel, along with spatial channels which play only elements of the sound which are not common to both right and left.

The Spaced360 can also make use of the high-quality aptX codec when streaming via Bluetooth, assuming you have an aptX compatible device.

The end result of this design is to create a 360-degree bubble of sound, effectively avoiding a single sweet spot that you must sit in to get the best audio experience. There are also three passive bass radiators on each side of the speaker, helping to the round out the lower end of the sound. The Spaced360 has a frequency response of 75Hz to 18KHz, and although it doesn’t produce a particularly deep bass rumble when pushed we were pleased with the tightness and clarity of low tones.

The speaker is fairly small, and it’ll sit neatly on an iPad 3 without extending past the edges of the tablet. There are always going to be audio quality limitations in such a small device, but the Spaced360 does a remarkably good job of producing good-quality audio. It’s also one of the most stylish Bluetooth speakers we’ve ever seen. The Spaced360 really wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi film.

There are some things that inevitably challenge little speakers. Play fast, busy, non-linear music such as extreme heavy metal through small speakers, and it’ll almost inevitably sound a bit muddy, and that’s the case here, although we were still able to clearly pick vocals and instrumental leads out of the busy mid-rage. Virtually everything else we played sounded good enough to give some similarly priced desktop speakers a run for their money.

Hard rock, acoustic folk music and guitar-based pop sounded particularly good, thanks to a clear treble and high mid-range that really brought out amplified strings and female vocals, which can sound over-bright on some small speakers. The rich orchestral tones of Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody filled the room beautifully, as did our euphoric trance test tracks.

The Spaced360 has a higher maximum volume when it’s connected to the mains. Even so, we preferred to keep it just below maximum because it became slightly boomy when turned up to full volume. In general, the Spaced360’s sound was among the cleanest and most balanced of any we’ve heard from a portable speaker, whether we were listening to a cappella ballads or hard dance.

The Spaced360 supports NFC, so you can pair it with a compatible mobile device at a touch. The standard Bluetooth pairing process also works well. A symbol on the speaker’s centre button flashes while in pairing mode. Alongside the centre button, which is also your power switch, is a mute key and some volume controls. There is no integrated microphone, so you can’t use it as a speakerphone if you get a call on your mobile while it’s connected via Bluetooth. This might annoy some people, but we found it only a minor inconvenience.

The Spaced360 has a built in battery which lasted just under the advertised eight hours while operating at a reasonable listening volume in our battery test. The speaker comes with a charging dock, to which it connects via a small pin recessed at the base of the speaker. It’s all very neatly designed, but the exposed drivers and the charging pin make the Spaced360 seem rather less rugged than a typical portable speaker. A protective case is available, and it comes in a wide range of bright colours. However, we’d still rather not take this out to a festival or picnic where there’s any threat of mud or rain; it just seems too nice an object to jostle around in a backpack.

The speaker’s slick styling and 360-degree sound makes it perfect to use around the house. It’s pretty enough to show off and sounds so good that your friends will be in a hurry to pair their phones and share their musical taste. The airSOUND technology converts well to this portable speaker and we’d be delighted to have one at home.