Product Overview
Pros:
- Sleek design
- Premium materials
- Waterproof and buoyant
- Expansive soundstage
- Tons of EQ control
Cons:
- Small battery capacity for its size
- Won't charge devices
- Not robust enough for impacts
The $200 Motion X600 portable Bluetooth speaker from Anker Soundcore will be available for purchase on May 6. It features an upfiring full-range driver integrated into the top to provide a spatial music experience even when using a regular stereo. The kind people at Anker Soundcore definitely would like me to stress this.
Okay, I'll take care of it. Afterwards.
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| Simon Cohen / Digital Trends |
But first, let me just talk about how gorgeous this thing is. The whole speaker appears to be made of metal, with the exception of a rubber membrane covering the tilted top surface (taking a break around that fancy additional driver). And part of it is: the front grille is all stainless steel, and the handle is made of aluminum. Even if the rear panel is made of plastic, it doesn't matter because every component has the same rounded corners and smooth, anodized metal appearance that makes everything merge together perfectly. If a MacBook Air and a small ghetto blaster from the 1980s had a romantic night together, the result would be the Motion X600.
It also comes in three colors—Polar Gray (seen below), Aurora Green, and Lunar Blue—just like the MacBook Air.
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| Simon Cohen / Digital Trends |
The X600's beautiful packaging comes with a drawback: it is not going to be as impact-resistant as many of its portable rivals. If you are not careful, the aluminum and metal components will dent and scratch. Fortunately, most accidental movements will be prevented by a set of gripping rubber feet.
The speaker has a lot of weight despite being quite thin—it is only 3.25 inches deep—thanks to all that metal and the integrated battery. With a weight of 4.2 pounds, it feels pleasantly substantial and high-quality. The X600's weight and almost entirely metal build might make you assume it is not the best option for poolside entertainment, but surprisingly, it is IPX7-rated for water resistance and actually floats (although upside-down,Thus, do not anticipate hearing much of your music other than the bass's gurgling pounding.
Have I tried immersing it? Indeed, I did. within a sink. Hey, do not judge; it is still winter in Canada.
Tast
The X600 played the whole way through, handling the water with ease. Remember that although it has an IPX certification that allows it to be submerged in water, dust protection is not provided. So, beaches no, pools yes.
The rubber membrane covers all of the controls, and Soundcore maintains simplicity: Power, Bluetooth connecting, volume up/down, play/pause (which allows you to skip tracks), and two sound mode buttons for spatial sound and "BassUp" (a bass increase) are all included. In addition to being visible in most lighting situations due to their white lettering on a black backdrop, they also have a particularly wonderful feature that not many portables have: backlighting while the speaker is on. For a waterproof speaker, it seems like a fair trade-off that they require some pressure to click. It can take up to 2.5 seconds for the play/pause button to respond while using the playback controls, which is a bit bothersome.not a deal-breaker, but.
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| Simon Cohen / Digital Trends |
Two secured connections are located around the back: a USB-C port for charging and a 3.5mm jack for external analog audio sources. Soundcore comes with a 3.5mm cable and a USB-A-to-C connection for charging, but not a real charger.
A set of five drivers is housed inside that elegant exterior. Four are hidden behind the primary grille: two tweeters and two woofers. The top-firing, full-range "sky" driver, as Soundcore calls it, is the only one that is visible. Three separate amps are used to amplify them. A 20-watt amp drives each of the stereo channels (woofer and tweeter), while the sky driver is driven by a single 10-watt amp, for a combined 50 watts. Even while it might not be sufficient to get a big garden full of partygoers excited, it nevertheless gets surprisingly loud for its size and virtually distortion-free. You won't need anything else indoors, whether it's in a living room or kitchen.
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| Simon Cohen / Digital Trends |
The Motion X600 has a tendency to produce wild sounds. With the help of the bass boost function, spatial mode, out-of-the-box tuning, and vast EQ range in the Soundcore app, this Bluetooth speaker can sound anything from harsh and tinny to full-frequency and satisfyingly resonant. Everything depends on how you use it.
The X600 can be quite disappointing when used in normal stereo mode and without the bass boost turned on (which is how the speaker is shipped). The bass feels hollow, the midranges are struggling for breath, and the emphasis seems to have been shifted entirely to the highs. The apparently full-range driver that fires from the top sounds completely weightless and strangled. The four EQ settings included in the Soundcore app—signature, voice, treble boost, and balanced—only allow for minor adjustments, and I must admit that the balanced preset's form confuses me somewhat.
Maybe Soundcore did this on purpose to have you experience a "wow" factor when you activate spatial mode and bass boost. The X600 transforms from a lamb to a lion in a second, bursting into life with dramatic flair. Turning on these two functions enhances almost every element, including the soundstage's significant expansion, dynamic range, and the presence of those previously absent midranges. The top driver can now replicate its whole frequency range, which results in a far better balanced version of the formerly gratingly harsh highs.
It might be a little over the top to refer to it as "spatial". Although it does not sound as fully 3D as a Dolby Atmos-compatible speaker like the Amazon Echo Studio, Apple HomePod, or Sonos Era 300, it is more immersive than a typical stereo portable. It is incompatible with spatial audio codecs like Dolby Atmos Music.
The effect of Soundcore's additional processing is audible if you position it a few feet away and sit roughly in the middle; song parts do, in fact, seem as though they are emanating from far beyond the speaker's tiny footprint. I left the X600 with both capabilities active after flipping back and forth a few times to remind me of the differences, and I never turned it back on.
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| Image used with permission by copyright holder |
If you discover that some frequencies are overemphasized by these modes and you don't mind tinkering with custom EQ settings, the app's highly customizable nine-point equalization may be modified by up to ±8 dB over a vast range of selected frequencies, spanning from 48Hz to 20kHz. Although it's a bit much for a speaker like the X600, it does provide you a great deal of control.
Desire a louder sound still? By using Bluetooth, two Motion X600 speakers may be connected as a stereo pair.
Just a little note on some of the labels Soundcore uses on the X600 device and on its product page on Amazon. Although our review unit has a "Lossless Sound" emblem on the left side, it is not a lossless wireless speaker.
A song that has been digitally encoded so that no information from the original recording was lost is referred to be lossless, as are streaming Bluetooth codecs that offer the same guarantee when playing music wirelessly from a phone. The first is untrue for the X600 since it cannot directly encode or play lossless digital music. The second is also untrue. Because it supports the LDAC Bluetooth codec, which is only now accessible on Android devices, it is in fact a certified wireless hi-res audio speaker. However, LDAC is still a lossy codec.
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| Simon Cohen / Digital Trends |
Is any of that relevant? Most likely not. In this instance, it simply means that compared to speakers that only offer lower codecs, like SBC and AAC, the X600 won't lose as much quality via a Bluetooth connection. However, LDAC is still a bit of a wild animal, so you probably won't take full use of its 24-bit/96kHz potential until the speaker and your phone are extremely near to one other (three feet or less). Furthermore, if you only stream Spotify? You will not be aware of it.
According to Soundcore, you can use the Motion X600 for around 12 hours on a single charge, but bear in mind that this is only when you play at roughly 50% volume and disable the bass boost and spatial enhancement features. Increase the volume and activate those characteristics, and that number will sharply decline—down to as low as five hours. That's really on the low end for a portable Bluetooth speaker of this size. A few versions, such as the Sony SRS-XG300, Marshall Middleton, and Marshall Emberton II, may reach close to 20 hours.
Even though the Soundcore Motion X600 lacks features like speakerphone functionality, power bank device charging, or a party mode for connecting multiple speakers, its elegant, primarily metal design makes it a very visually appealing choice, and its built-in handle and superior water resistance give it the exact kind of functionality you need in a portable speaker. Once the sound is adjusted, this small boombox is rather remarkable.