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I am currently in the final stage of testing the sEARius in all kinds of situations and placements in order to decide if further adjustments will be necessary.

So far I am positively surprised with the performance. The speaker manages to give me some real „wow“-effect I haven’t got from any portable speaker for longer.

We have tested it at the pool and from far away it sounded as if a way larger speaker was playing. Even the neighbors were complaining to turn music down as Joy turned it up close to maximum to hear it from inside the water. I don’t think any kind of „outdoor“ mode is necessary. If you want more bass place it closer to some boundary which makes the sound fuller but never boomy. 2 playing in stereo give an even more impressive performance. We were using them while playing ping pong with both speakers placed to the sides of the table and the sound stage is incredible. You can set them apart around 5m while laying flat at the ground, the Minirigs had more issues with connectivity with exactly the same placement and without sub they were far not as impressive sounding.

I still think the sEARius performs best at moderate levels for background listening either indoor or outdoors, as up to half it retains the most bass. And I love the freedom of placement, just put it in the center of some table firing up and it fills the room nicely with music. I remember having placed the UBoom L always close to some edge to avoid any interaction with the surface below. In this regard the sEARius is way more flexible and it simply sounds way better.

As soon as I receive the new passive radiator units to check the final performance and don’t find any issues, I will start preorders as final units should perform exactly the same. I will just do some final tweaks based on the measured deviation from my initial unit.

To keep everything simple and transparent the preorders will be handled through a PayPal product link where you can pay with PayPal, Apple Pay, Credit or debit card etc.

For those interested in getting a unit or two please be a little patient until I really know for sure that the factory can produce all units to my specifications.

If you haven't noticed yet, I had posted some videos on Youtube as first introduction to this project and to attract some further potential customers. Production amount will be heavily dependent on how many preorders we can achieve. With 300 preorders we should be on the secure side, but when looking back at the SpX-R headphone I am afraid we won't manage to collect the necessary funds to finance all this.

I especially want to thank all my long-term supporters who stayed with me since the beginning and made this all happen!

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Comments

Luka Bošnjak

It would be a hassle but cool if these new passive radiators are tuned like 2hz higher to allow for almost equally deep response but with slightly more kick above half volume, because that's the only thing that's slightly lacking imo. Are they gonna send you one type of passive radiators or a few different units to chooses from? Again, I would be curious to hear sEARius in Stereo against Minirig 4s in 2.0 and 2.1 config and one more time against Helsinki (maby also in mono and stereo). ILouds surprised me in the previous video with how powerful they were. You should definitely send some units to other reviews if you have intention before starting the campaign this time, or at least some Reddit post, a lot of people could be interested in this.

oluvsgadgets

It won’t be possible to add much more kick. I tried fooling around with the current passive radiators and adjust the sound towards this but the speaker lacked the deep bass and it didn’t improve much in kick either. I tried what I could to keep the lower bass an still make it loud and as clean as possible. With another DSP it could have been improved even more maybe but here there is not that much possible. I hope the passive radiators they will send will match my original ones as close as possible, so at least I have a comparable result otherwise it will be a bit of a lottery. I will do more TWS tests once I have a second unit that can play 100% clan, now it’s simply too uncontrolled.

thomasecallaghan

It will be interesting to see how much it will cost. Exciting project!

JonnyB

Aside from the sound, there are two other important things—at least for me. As far as I know, unfortunately there won’t be an app, but it would be nice to have the following features: • Complete muting of startup and shutdown sounds (even when the battery is low) • Automatic shutdown (not just when nothing is connected, but also when playback stops—say, after 10 minutes).

John

Has pricing been discussed at all?

oluvsgadgets

It will be definitely cheaper than what KEF and B&O is asking

oluvsgadgets

The tones will be very soft and pleasant, it will have silent auto shutdown if playing from battery, if attached for charging there will be no automatic power down, so that you can use it as stationary unit and always reconnect when you are back home etc

JonnyB

To be honest, from the very beginning, I didn’t understand the point of those power-on and power-off sounds. There’s an LED (it’s there, right?) on the device. It can be used to inform the user about every status. As for the continuous connection to the power grid—does the device definitely support (or even prefer) this? Won’t this kill the battery in the long run?

oluvsgadgets

After some years maybe but it should also work fine without battery when attached. And in case of emergency you could always exchange the battery as it’s just clipped to the PCB. But honestly after 2-3 years there will be so many new great speakers that nobody will care about this one

John

I think it sounds great and looks great, im excited for the product. But, I wonder about the pricing strategy. Im not sure what you meant by cheaper - like closer to jbl flip territory or cheaper but still closer to kef and b&o territory. Even if it sounds better than those speakers, some people like name brands despite performance. They also look the part as well, they are targeting a different customer I would say. Im not trying to be negative, but the roll outs of the uboom L and even the X havent been the hottest despite your loyal following which is us and here right now. From an uneducated onlooker from the outside of the industry, I would just guess that you would need to build some brand recognition before entering the premium pricing bracket, specially after just releasing an excellent sounding budget friendly speaker. I also wonder how big of a piece of the pie the premium brands actually have compared to budget or mid tier like jbl. The people shopping for more premium priced bluetooth speakers may be small - my once again uneducated guess would be like 40% of market buys budget, 40% buys mid tier, 20% may buy premium. I would want unbiased feedback from a couple honest reviewers out there and hope for slam dunk reviews before pricing this too aggressively. Also, just a guess as to who a large portion of your following may be, is more budget slash quality oriented buyers. Budget isnt highest priority, its sound, but a part of this channel was showing that good sound DIDNT come from the highest priced speaker, it COULD come from anker / soundcore / tribit / earfun. Im guessing most people have always rooted for those companies to keep putting out smash hit speakers and have always been let down. They touched greatness once upon a time and failed us ever since. But the buyer has been there, waiting for the next great one. But also guessing that they were willing to move up in price for the right speaker if it checked all the right boxes im guessing to mid tier. Premium tier, may be a stretch... Just wondering.

Dolmen

Just a small question, will those transparent materials around the passive radiators for the RGB stay or will they be removed? Because I remember you mentioned the RGB isn't controllable.

oluvsgadgets

You will have the option to turn off the LEDs if needed. But they are hardly noticeable except at high levels where they become brighter. At low levels there is hardly and light.

oluvsgadgets

It’s up to everyone if they are willing to pay for sound quality instead of brand or whatever. If not they should simply stay with their Boses or JBLs and waste their money on the next generation. I mean flex 1 -> flex 2, what the hell is new here? Flip 6 -> Flip 7 sounds even worse. I tired to offer something different than those, I have been testing this stuff for more than 15 years and aside of some real gems it’s the same junk again and again let alone this Chinese low budget crap flooded all over. If this here fails, for me it doesnt matter. I have a couple of units that I will use as long until they will fail and I am done with buying other speakers or headphones. It cost me quite a money to get there but even spending 1000$ wouldn’t have given me the portable speaker I was always looking for. Offering it for low budget people wouldn’t value what they are getting while they praise this KEF junk as being the best portable speaker they have ever owned apparently just because they spent so much money on it. I don’t quite trust other reviewers except a couple of individuals but most of them are either biased or immediately bash something if it’s related to me like Alan Ross for example. I contacted John Darko if he would like to test a sample but he didn’t respond, I definitely won’t send it to such wankers like audioguys or flossy Carter. Maybe I can send it to some German testmagazine. But what else should they say? Here you can directly hear how it sounds compared to other speakers in its class, I cannot do more than that. You also forget that those companies produce thousands of speakers and have way lower factory prices. Mine will be produced in a very low amount and I cannot offer prices like big companies are doing. Even selling a flip for 50$ they would make enough profit

John

Yes I understand where your coming from. I wasn't sure how many units you were looking to sell, I wish you success with this really, after all this time. Darko would have been a good one. It's too bad what happened with Alan Ross.

X M

Please make a single stereo unit! I'd pay double or triple for stereo in one unit.