Antec Mobile Products SPzero Bluetooth Speaker Review

AMP SPzero Sound Quality

SPzero Sound Quality and Any Other Issues

We don’t have any high end testing equipment to see how well this speaker is actually performing, so we’ll leave it to our ears to judge if this approximate $80 MSRP speaker delivers sound well.

Now the sound quality from this speaker doesn’t throw off bass like a high end subwoofer would, and it was never expected of the speaker, but it also isn’t completely tinny or full of treble; you can actually catch a little bass trying to push its way out. Songs were actually quite clear and definitely clearer and louder than the speaker on my Galaxy S3. Trying to listen to Skrillex or Deadmau5 wasn’t the most pleasing, since that genre of music is very bass heavy, but it was also much better than what any phone I’ve heard can produce. Yes, it is mono sound, but in general I did not have a problem with this.

Cranking up the volume all the way on my phone and the speaker yielded distortion, and quite honestly if you’re going to play at these levels it is to be expected with any speaker, especially a little 3 watt speaker. I would notice only a small amount of distortion with the speaker volume at 100% and my phone at 12 out of 15. To me this was very much acceptable.

Call quality, again, was not that great. The caller’s voice on the speaker got a little quiet and the other end experienced a low or ever so slightly muffled voice. I absolutely wouldn’t run out and use this as a replacement for the speakerphone on your cell phone.

So what other kinds of issues did this speaker have? I must say the absolutely most annoying flaw that this speaker had was the fact that the alert and voice tones do not scale with the volume of the speaker. Yes, I tend to use the speaker at full volume, all while controlling the final output via my phone, but even when I had the volume on the speaker at low levels the tones would be blaring loud. While in places that I had no intentions of playing loud music, I would tend to hold the speaker against my chest to muffle the sound when powering it on and off.

When it came to the low battery alert, this forced me to either discontinue use altogether, until I could charge it, or plug it in and charge while I’m using it. The alert tones all together are the most annoying part about this speaker, simply because you cannot mute or adjust the volume on them.

The alerts issue is major enough that I would tell you to not bring this speaker to a place that you’re trying to be mostly quiet and just bring ear buds instead. Unfortunately there may be times that ear buds will be a bad solution because you still need to hear things around you.