Earfun UBoom X vs SoundCore Motion Boom+ (Patreon)

There will be some changes after this video which I would like to note down here.

I made some adjustments to all my sound modes and there will be new ones added, just to make the speaker even more versatile and better suitable for various use cases.

I found indoor to be too bright and still too bassy therefore I got out and did some further measurements to get the bass even flatter below 100hz, I also took my Neumann KH80 for comparison and readjusted indoor mode to get a more similar balance to the KH80 for an even more neutal response. Based on this there will be a new mode called "studio" which has no stereo enancement, no dynamic boost at low levels and should represent a more or less neutral sound. Of course not by 100%, but the overall balance should be pretty close to the KH80. Keep in mind that measuring outdoors exactly on axis will probably result in a "non flat" response, but I measured the spectrums of both KH80 and UBoom X at my listening position and adjusted the response of the UBoom X to resemble the spectrum of the KH80 more closely. I am quite satisfied with the end result.

So here it goes:

Studio will be the very first of my settings and probably the most boring sounding one, but I thought it could be helpful to sometimes have a more neutral reference in case needed. I highly doubt many will use that at all, but I hope it may come in handy to those who want this.

Indoor is slightly more exciting than studio due to the added stereo enhancing and dynamic treble and bass boost for lower levels. It sounds "better" than the KH80 in a sense, that there is a bit more air with much deeper bass, but it does not sound off now and is not that bright like it was before.

Indoor+ gives you "a bit more sound" by adding some slight lower bass boost with some additional treble sparkle. It sounds similar to how indoor sounded before but with stronger lower bass emphasis. Only the lowest bass region is boosted similar to the Onyx series, but not as strong as those tend to sound very boomy in a room also due to their lack of treble. The bass gets a nice kick and makes the speaker sound even bigger than with indoor but not too extreme and not bassy. It should sound similar to a go+play 3 maybe even better as with every next sound mode I am enhancing the stereo effect a little bit more so indoor+ will have slightly more enhancement and should sound more open than indoor. I assume this will be the preferred mode for most who want to listen to music with a natural timbre but get some additional spice at the same time.

Outdoor was readjusted in bass a bit to make it less boomy but nicely kicking, but bass is considerably more than indoor+ as the bass is boosted in a broader range. It could sound similar to a JBL Boombox in terms of boost, maybe even slightly more punchy, but I wanted to keep the bass rather reasonable and tasteful not to exaggerate it too much. This is what the next modes are meant for. Outdoor will be slightly louder than indoor+ simply to always give you "more" as soon as you switch to the next mode.

Insane remained quite similar to before but has a stronger stereo enhancment now, this definitely helps to make the speaker sound more open also from some distance, I just fine tuned bass to appear as appealing as possible while avoiding any kind of boominess by lowering the region between 100-200hz. This way the speaker can be used directly at the ground and still appear convincing sounding. Keep in mind that due to the stronger treble boost you can also tilt it up for a more omnidirectional dispersion. We were using the speaker tilted up quite often when standing beside us at the patio. I will demonstrate this in an upcoming video.

BOOM xxX will be the loudest and bassiest mode although I still tried to make it sound as appealing as possible not to make it sound like some Sony speaker. The bass is boosted most in the 60hz region but has the bass cut quite a bit higher to avoid any distortion. It is not as annoying as the old JBL Xtreme bass which was boosted around 70 hz, neither does it resemble the 2nd bass modes of the JBL Partyboxes. It has a different flavor to Insane with more upper bass, therefore it may sound fuller up to highest levels. Boom xxX has the most stereo enhancing applied and should remain quite kicking up to maximum vollume. This mode may be suitable for those seeking the highest loudness and the most bass at high levels. It may be more suitable for genres like Rock and Pop which usually don't have so much emphasis in the lowest bass regions like EDM etc.

I also fine tuned my compressor settings for Insane and Boom xXX to allow for an even higher loudness without becoming too scratchy in the mids. These modes are pushed the most and can lose their balance at highest levels. I had to do this to allow for the highest loudness and had to boost mids and treble a bit more. Now the UBoom X should be quite a bit louder than the Stormbox Blast while still sounding fuller. I managed to reduce pre-gain by 5dB while boosting end gain instead. This way the speaker doesn't come into clipping that much like it did before. There may be still some scratchiness in the mids with particularly hot recordings, but it should be enough to reduce volume 1 notch to get rid of this. I am still in the process of optimising everything and finding settings which give the best possible result, a compromise between how much loudness is possible, how much bass is still retained and how much compression applied. It's quite tricky to perform these adjustments as I need to listen at maximum volume outdoors, otherwise it would be too loud. Different parameters may lead to different results and I need to do some careful listening to verify if some particular adjustment gave an improvement or not. I ordered a 5m USB cable to be able to sit farther away from the speaker while doing my adjustments. As I cannot adjust any parameter dynamically with the volume level, I had to cut bass bit higher than it was before while keeping the overall bass amount the same. This was necessary to avoid any issues at high levels. There was no other reasonable way to deal with this. I will still do some listening to check if all tracks are played back more or less clean and once finished I will send all my settings to Earfun so that they can prepare a firmware and I can demonstrate you all final modes more in detail.

I think that it will become one of the most versatile portable speakers on the market. Together with the 10band user EQ which remains nicely controlled up to maximum levels and can be made to sound quite appealing, my modes should be suitable for either more critcial listening but should also allow for some smaller party event outdoors. I haven't owned another speaker yet, which would allow such a broad range of usage. I really look forward using it again normally without PC connection and will do some further videos also comparing it against the KH80 just to show you the sonic character of the new sound modes.

Like already mentioned the final price will be at 159.99 which makes it cheaper than the Tribit and with early bird there will be another 30% off which makes it about the price of a JBL Flip 6. Release will depend a lot when the speakers will arrive the amazon warehouse. This may take up to August or even September.

I will only get shares from the sales done with my discount code, please keep this in mind. The speaker purchased regularly without using my code won't give me a penny. It was quite an effort trying to achieve something decent and squeeze out the most out of this hardware. The only way to get some income from this is if you really buy the speaker using my own personal discount code. Buying from other "influencers" will get them all the income without having contributed anything at all. I need to live with this as the contract with Earfun is totally unfair, but honestly I did all this out of personal interest and the goal to finally have a portable speaker which would make me want to listen to some music.