UBoom X - final chapter (Patreon)

I wanted to let you know that I finished all my settings for the next firmwares and have sent them to Earfun yesterday. I expect to receive the new firmwares next week.

This was my final attempt to contribute something for the Uboom X as it won't be produced anymore according to Earfun. The prodcution costs are too high and the MOQ is 5000 pieces, therefore Earfun decided to cease the product and just sell the current stock. Apparently it didn't sell that well as they expected and it would be too risky for them to order another batch at least this is what I was told. I ordered a 6th unit now, simply to have enough units in case one breaks and also install different firmwares in case I want to use just a single unit or 2 in stereo. Still I hope my improvements will come in handy to all UBoom X owners. I tried hard to improve where it was possible, but I couldn't bend the limits of the hardware of course. Still I would like to write down some of the changes for the next firmwares.

I didn't get any confirmation from Earfun that they can realize different version numbers for each firmware, but I hope it will remain how I had planned with 049 being the "optimised" version and 050 the "TWS" firmware.

For 049 I didn't care about DSP limitations, therefore this firmware should cause most issues if you intend to pair 2 or more speakers at once. It's rather meant for single speaker use where I tried to cover my common usage cases. I rarely use Studio mode and although with 048 Studio mode should be pretty neutral, I prefer indoor in most cases. For 049 I tried to get a better balance from lowest up to highest levels with the indoor modes. Some had complained that the current indoor mode was too bright, while I found it not bright enough for lowest level listening, therefore with 049 indoor and indoor+ are brighter at lowest levels and less bright at high levels than 048. I had a hard to time to tune this properly, but I think I managed a nice result. Indoor from 049 has slightly different stereo enhancing than 048. It should sound a bit broader, but not as broad as indoor+. I remember someone wanting more stereo width than indoor, but less than indoor+ and I think indoor from 049 is the best compromise I could achieve. The stereo enhancing algorithm also has an impact on treble rendering, and I think the current value I settled for with 049 gives a sweeter treble than 048. With 049 there is also a new desktop mode to replace Studio and I would like to elaborate its purpose. With a speaker standing free and elevated you will get a different response than if you place a speaker in the center of some larger boundary like a table etc.

Above you can see a measurement of the Uboom X with indoor mode placed at the edge of a big table in white. In red the same position for the speaker relatively to the room, but the table was moved forward around 50cm. Blue is the corrected response which you should get with desktop mode applied. I cannot guarantee perfect results as the changes in response based on the position relatively to the boundary below can be quite random and I didn't solely rely on measurements but did some corrections by ear afterwards. But personally I definitely prefer desktop over indoor if the speaker is placed onto some larger surface.

The same idea is behind the new "desktop+" or let's call it "ground" mode which replaces Ground O. This mode is meant for outdoor use with the speaker placed directly at the ground and still get some reasonable response but not as bassy as the other outdoor modes. It is to some degree based on indoor+. Below you can see some outdoor measurements with the speaker elevated on a speaker stand in white, and measured from the same elevated position but with the speaker placed at the ground in blue. Orange would be the corrected response with destkop+ which I tweaked a bit more by ear to achieve something which is satisfying enough in terms of bass response but not boomy or muddy.

With 049 all modes have dynamic adjustment for low levels, therefore outdoor+ will have even more bass boost at low levels than with 048. I also tried to squeeze out a bit more bass at high levels for Boom XXX, but I was pushing the limits of the speaker already too much before, therefore I wouldn't recommend using it at maximum volume. All modes should sound fine up to 80%, above it will depend a lot on the recording and mastering if the speaker can still play it clean enough.

For 050 I tried to simplify all my settings as much as possible, therefore stereo enhancing is disabled for all modes. Stereo enhancing also changes the frequency response, therefore I tried to readjust all settings that had stereo enhancing applied before to a similar degree, but this firmware is really meant for TWS or party connect mode with several speakers playing at once.

Below you can see a measurement of 2 KH80 in white and 1 UBoom X with Studio mode in blue:

2 UBoom X with Studio mode playing in stereo (red) would change the balance slightly, thus 2 Uboom X in stereo would sound different to 2 KH80 playing in stereo:

That's why the sound is adjusted for all indoor modes based on the measurements done with 2 Uboom X playing in TWS to achieve a response as shown below:

There was no way to verify the result with 2 Uboom X at once during tuning, as I would need to wait for the final firmware to try it out, thus no guarantee again that the final result will be as predicted. But with 050 2 UBoom X playing in stereo with Studio mode, should sound more similar to 2 neutral studio monitors. The other indoor modes were adjusted accordingly and I tuned them slightly brighter as there is no dynamic adjustment for low levels, to achieve a reasonable sound at moderate levels as well now. I didn't change the response for the outdoor modes at all, except for outdoor+ as here stereo enhancing is disabled now, I had to do some tweaks to get a similar response to before. With 050 Studio and the indoor modes use less DSP power now than Earfun's default settings, thus those should play completely fine with no interruptions at all when paired for stereo and should offer a correct balance between bass and treble when playing together. The outdoor modes use slightly more DSP power than Earfun's settings. For Outdoor and Ground O not much has changed compared to 048 although I disabled some features DSP usage didn't seem to get much less.

As soon as I get the new firmwares I will prepare a package with all 3 firmwares also including my original custom 039 firmware. You could always use this in case you want to downgrade to Earfun's official 046 through the app for whatever reason. You will find this firmware package in my shop if you are interested. I don't force anyone to get it, but I already saw complaints why I do not offer this for free. I was already getting attacked on Joy's channel about the new firmware, therefore if someone has a problem with it, simply get yourself something better from JBL or Bose or even Sony. The new ULT speakers are reeeeeeally nice!

Unfortunately so far I haven't found a way to offer it for cheaper to those who have already purchased 048, I will ask Patreon support if there is some way how to handle this. But 048 was originally meant to be available for the enthusiast level only to get some first feedback, I just added it to the shop because many requested it.

For me the chapter Earfun is over now. I hoped for some collaboration with their recent headphone and earbud releases, but there doesn't seem to be that much interest from their side. I may just try to do some tweaks to the UBoom L and prepare an alternate firmware with both indoor and outdoor being optimized more towards desktop use. But so far I had no success with getting the necessary info from Earfun.