Extreme Hangten review: Build Quality & Design
First of all, within the packaging you’ll find the speaker, a neoprene carry case, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable, a Micro-USB to USB charging cable, a carabiner clip and a user’s guide. We liked the inclusion of the carabiner clip as it promotes the speaker as being a tough portable Bluetooth speaker. The neoprene carry case is also a nice touch and snuggly fits the speaker. The build quality of the speaker is good thought out, with the top of the speaker housing on/off, volume up/down and a play/pause buttons which double up as answer/reject and even serve to enable Bluetooth. What we find lacking here is a button to cycle through music, where normally this button works through the volume up/down or the on/off buttons. This simple functionality is lacking with the speaker and is something we would have liked to see included.
At the back of the speaker you’ll find a 3.5mm auxiliary input and a micro USB port to charge the device. As Extreme wanted its speaker to be used on the go by people who are into sports, they included a small metal loop on the left-hand side of the speaker. Underneath the speaker there are small rubber feet which prevent the speaker from slipping and sliding all over the place. There’s also a rubber coating material all over the speaker, which prevents it from sliding around or being a fingerprint magnet. On the sides of the speaker there’s a trendy looking design that varies with the different versions of the speaker. The speaker comes in three seperate editions: The Heritage Edition (the version we recevied), the Blackout Edition, and the Artist Edition. Finally the front of the speaker has a metal grill with ‘EXTREME’ written on the face of it, which protects the speakers that lay underneath from being damaged. We like the way it can be used in various different directions. For example, you can use it in its natural horizontal way, or place it vertically on its side. We should also mention that despite being marketed at ‘Pocket Sized’ we wouldn’t consider this as a small speaker – it’s 168x92x55mm. It should also be stated that the speaker is not fully waterproof, but is somewhat protected from a few splashes through its hydrophobic coating.
Extreme Hangten review: Connectivity & Battery Life
The speaker is naturally connected via Bluetooth, but can also be used to quick-connect via NFC (found on the left-hand side of the speaker), a very handy feature if you don’t want to go through the whole process of finding and pairing the speaker. Speaking of its Bluetooth, the range we achieved with this is seriously impressive. Through several walls, the speaker worked at over 15-20m range, which should be more range than you’ll ever need from a speaker of its size. Naturally with a 3.5mm auxiliary input, it can be connected via the old-fashioned way, which can only be used if the speaker is powered on. Finally its battery is rechargeable and last around six to ten hours depending on your interactions with the speaker.
Extreme Hangten review: Sound Quality
Considering the speaker currently sits at £65 it’s only £15 cheaper than our current favourite budget Bluetooth speaker, the Denon Envaya, which sits at around £80.
We found its sound quality to be rather mediocre, given its reasonably high price tag of £65. We found the speaker’s sub-bass to be almost non-existent, which a disappointment given its reasonably large size. When the speaker tried to extend into the lower bass regions, we found it cut-off and sometimes struggle to maintain clarity. In contrast, the speaker’s mid-bass was well pronounced with a good slam that was controlled. Therefore the speaker held good bass quality (in the mid-bass region) but little bass quantity (especially in the sub-bass region). The mids were reasonably well presented, but did sound a little recessed, making the sound slightly V-shaped. The highs were very much like the lows, where they sounded rolled off and weren’t well extended. In fact, we found the highs were not able to produce that sparkle that we wanted to hear in a Bluetooth speaker. This led the speaker sounding U-shaped, which is quite rare to hear. A U-shaped sound signature comes from a lack of extension in both the low and high frequencies, whilst being supressed in the mid-range frequencies. Finally the soundstage was decent and was by far its best-selling point. The speaker had a good tonality, instrument separation and best of all a nice width. Overall, the sound quality was decent, but given its price tag was disappointing as speakers a fraction of its price could produce a similar sound at provide similar functionalities. If this speaker was priced at around the £40 mark, we could see it being a very sought after Bluetooth speaker, that’s not only stylish but also able to produce well sonically. We should note that the speaker did achieve a very loud sound output which did not distort at any sound level.
