Rocksteady Stadium review: Excellent portable Bluetooth speakers

Rocksteady Audio goals for the higher-end of the cheap Bluetooth speaker market with its new Stadium line. This speaker doesn’t compete with high-fidelity multi-room audio techniques such because the Sonos Transfer or the Bluesound Pulse Mini 2i, but it surely principally hits its mark.

The all-black mini towers are deceptively demure, every measuring 6 inches tall with a 4.25-inch sq. base. Designed with Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, every 30-watt speaker incorporates two drivers: a 28mm tweeter that will get 10 watts of energy, and a 70mm mid/bass pushed by 20 watts of amplification. These lively drivers are augmented by a pair of 72mm passive bass radiators. The desired frequency response is 60Hz to 20kHz (no tolerance given).

The larger story, Rocksteady says, is that the Stadium is “powered by Bambu Tech’s AWSM, an AI-powered audio authoring platform,” a platform stated to be so superb you’ll be capable to “hear your favourite music once more as if for the primary time.”

I wouldn’t go that far, however the Rocksteady Stadium audio system had been certainly loud, clear, and clear in my testing, with loads of bass and a few juicy mids and trebles. Whereas the readability of sound was glorious, I discovered the audio system extra attuned to pumping out larger, busier party-style jams than delicate, classical piano. By bumping up the quantity, I discovered that virtually every part sounded nice.

One of many huge promoting factors with the Stadium is that a vast variety of models will be paired to play in unison—in a course of much like Anker’s Soundcore Flare—so one speaker serves because the “host,” relaying audio to as many different Stadium audio system as you’d wish to deploy inside Bluetooth vary (about 100 ft).

Rocksteady

To that finish, the Stadium is offered as a single unit, in pairs, or in a bundle of 4. I examined the system with two Stadiums and located the expertise to be spectacular—partially as a result of every speaker has a swap that permits you to use it to play the appropriate channel solely, the left channel solely, or each collectively. You may make this resolution for every speaker in your assortment independently, so you’ll be able to combine and match nevertheless you see match.

Pairing the host speaker to a supply through Bluetooth is a straightforward course of, however the Stadium Mode characteristic was a bit finicky in my testing, and it took me a couple of tries at energy biking the satellite tv for pc speaker to get issues synced up. As soon as I had them linked, the system by no means stuttered—although notice that quantity is managed on every speaker independently, which is perhaps a bonus characteristic for some and a gentle nuisance for others should you’re utilizing the audio system in a single space or outside. If you wish to management quantity globally, you’ll want to take action from the supply.

Every Stadium has a group of mercifully intuitive touch-sensitive controls on high inside straightforward attain, letting you management quantity in addition to pause, play, and ahead/rewind tracks. These controls are straightforward to work with, and the facility button positioned on the rear of the speaker ensures you received’t unintentionally shut the speaker down. Be aware additionally that observe controls solely work on the host speaker and are disabled on any satellites.