Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM portable speaker review

There’s all kinds of portable Bluetooth speakers out there; from pocket sized to party in a box. If you’re looking for a big, loud, party-proof speaker, Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM might be for you. Let’s dig into what it can do, how it sounds, and what sets it apart from other speakers.

The first thing to know about this speaker is that it’s big and heavy. Weighing in a 6kg or about 13 pounds, this is not something you’re going to want to carry far. It’s also tall. Even so, HYPERBOOM is a portable speaker you can bring with you, and it’s splash-proof with an IPX4 rating. It’s also battery powered, with a 24 hour life, and you can use it as a power bank for phones and tablets too.

In the box you’re getting the speaker and the power cable.

Setting up Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM

The instructions say to power on the speaker and then download the Boom app from the App Store or Google play.

The Ultimate Ears Boom app gives you several additional features including:

Playlist auto-launch: using the ‘Magic’ button allows you to launch a whole series of music from your chosen playlists. Just go into the app and choose your playlists, albums or songs, then push and hold the Magic button. Your music will play. This feature is easy to set up with a couple of clicks and works exactly as advertised. Nice if you just want to hear your favourites without much fuss.

For details on some of the other features, read on.

Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM Sound quality

There’s no mistaking that this speaker sounds awesome. I ran the speaker through my test playlist (see it on Spotify)  and found it handled all genres of music really well. This speaker is meant to cut through raging parties, according to all UE’s promotional materials, so not surprisingly it has strong bass and killer volume. At just level three it was more than enough volume for in house ambient use.

The speaker is surprisingly well balanced for a party speaker; it may lean a bit to the low end by design, but the vocals sound clear and it’s not tinny or buzzy.

The diamond shape of the HYPERBOOM is meant to funnel sound in all directions. Here’s what’s on the inside… 2 x 114 mm woofers + 2 x 25 mm tweeters + 2 x 89 mm x 190 mm passive radiators. Overall, I was quite impressed with the sound quality.

How loud does HYPERBOOM get?

Ultimate Ears says HYPERBOOM is the biggest, loudest, BOOMiest speaker yet with three times the loudness and over six times the bass of MEGABOOM 3.

I can attest to the fact it gets deafeningly loud inside.

HYPERBOOM Special Features

Adaptive EQ

HYPERBOOM has a built-in microphone that knows when it’s being moved. The adaptive EQ feature will read the room or your outdoor space and automatically balances the sound until it’s perfect for your space.

Dial up the handy grid in the app and touch to adjust any of the EQ settings; power up the bass or treble and fine-tune your sound just for you. The tweaking provides noticeable adjustments so you should be able to get just the soundscape you want.

Sharing music with friends

HYPERBOOM lets friends play music from four devices and switch between them—with no need to stop the music. Just connect via two Bluetooth, one auxiliary, and one optical input. Then hit the source selector button to instantly switch.

Pairing with other speakers

You can use the app to link multiple speakers together for massive sound. As I only had one speaker, I wasn’t able to test this feature.

Onboard controls: using HYPERBOOM without app

You can also play, pause, and skip tracks directly from the speaker without reaching for your phone.

Pair HYPERBOOM with more BOOM speakers

You can connect your HYPERBOOM  with any BOOM, MEGABOOM, or even another HYPERBOOM for massive multi-device sound.

Charging/Recharging HYPERBOOM

The HYPERBOOM is designed to be portable, so you can charge it up with the AC cable and then take it with you. Ultimate Ears says re-charge time is just over two and a half hours and as noted earlier you get 24 hours of power.

Overall review of Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM

There’s pros and cons to this speaker. Pro: it sounds surprisingly great. Con, it’s big, heavy and awkward to move, but the pro might be it won’t get stolen from the party easily.

Pro, it’s loud and has thumping bass. Con: Your neighbours might complain. Pro: the app works great and provides additional features, including sharing battery life at a glance.

Overall I like this speaker and can recommend it for its power and sound quality.

Find the Ultimate ears HYPERBOOM at Best Buy.