Jabra Solemate Max review

The Solemate Max can emit a remarkable level of volume whether it’s plugged into the mains or running off its battery. Unfortunately, the bass on some of our test tracks distorted at higher volumes. At all volume levels the sound is dominated by part of the mid-range and a solid bass, sometimes to the detriment of fine high-frequency detail. However, these audio characteristics make sense when you’re listening outdoors or have the speaker providing music at a party, and make it easy for your ear to latch on to a melody or vocal line. Modern tracks produced with marked dynamic range compression, from rock to dance, sounded particularly vivid. The Solemate Max doesn’t promise perfect audio, but it’s great if you want to listen to your music around the house or share it with friends. It’s easy to use and has a fun, vibrant sound.

The Jabra Solemate Max also comes with an installation code for the Jabra Sound app for Android and iOS. The app is a simple but well-designed music player which automatically uses Dolby Digital Plus to apply a kind of virtual surround sound to your music. While the app has a pleasing interface, we weren’t particularly impressed by the effect of the Dolby enhanced sound. Tracks with a complex mid-range sounded oddly bright in places. Mostly, though, there was a little discernible difference.

CONCLUSION

At just under £220, the Jabra Solemate Max gives you plenty of features, and the ability to use it as a USB speaker is particularly rare in a portable model. Although the Solemate Max’s sound quality isn’t fantastic, its rugged design and decent battery life (it lasted over 11 hours in use) make it a good buy if you like to listen to music outdoors. If sound quality is more of a priority, then check out the Spaced360 instead.