THE GOOD: The Sony Glass Sound Speaker has a very cool, transparent design and is equipped with an integrated LED light that’s dimmable from your phone. It delivers clean, crisp sound at moderate volumes and has a built-in battery for portable use (4 hours of batter life).
THE BAD: Expensive; not a ton of bass, battery life is so-so.
THE BOTTOM LINE: If you can afford it, Sony’s Glass Sound speaker is beautifully designed, sounds good and complements minimalist, modern decors.
Sony’s Glass Sound Speaker is part of a new line of really cool looking but pricey products from Sony’s Life Space UX division, which also includes light bulb speakers and short-throw projectors.
As a half wireless Bluetooth speaker, half lantern with a dimmable LED bulb that mimics a flame, it’s got double mood setting potential. It an also be moved around freely because it’s got an integrated rechargeable battery that gives you around four hours of music playback, depending on the volume level. You can also just leave it plugged in if there’s an outlet nearby.
It’s one of those products you really want as soon as you see it, but its $800 price tag is an instant buzzkill unless you happen to be a lottery winner or a Kardashian. That price roughly converts to £600 in the UK and AU$1,050 in Australia.
You can dim the light and adjust the volume using Sony’s SongPal app for iOS and Android devices. But if you’re phone isn’t close by, there are lighting and volume controls hidden on the bottom of the device.
While this speaker doesn’t deliver $800 worth of Bluetooth audio bliss, it does deliver smooth and natural sound for a Bluetooth speaker, particularly in the treble and mid range. And it is omnidirectional: It disperses 360-degree sound much like the cylindrical UE Boom speakers. However, those aren’t made out of organic glass, and with this speaker, that glass serves as a tube tweeter which gives the sound its clarity. A 2-inch woofer is responsible for the mid range frequencies and there’s a passive bass radiator for the low end.
If you’re so inclined, you can pair a couple of these glass speakers together to create a stereo pair or just augment the sound. It’ll only set you back $1,600 to do it, but hey, you only live once.
If you’re looking for a speaker that plays super-loud sound and has more oomph to its bass, this isn’t it. It’s really designed to play background music while blending into the decor — or complementing it — and also provides some accent lighting. It’d be great for the bedroom. As Austin Powers might say, “It’s Shagadelic, baby.”
Ultimately, this is cool stuff if you can afford it.
