Gadget Review: Sony ULT Tower 10 Wireless Tower Speaker Is a Musical Powerhouse – News

Looks good and sounds great

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When is loud just loud? And when is it musical? Accordingly, when is it not the Sony ULT Tower 10 Wireless Tower Speaker and when is it.

After recently reviewing the Sony ULT Wear headphones for these pages, we weren’t expecting much; just excessive volume from the same series of tower speakers from the Japanese giant. But boy, were we surprised.

The ULT series is part of Sony’s new line of revamped audio products, with which the brand aims to improve and refine sound quality. However, we were not convinced when we tested our first device in the series, the ULT Wear headphones.

These headphones were perceived as a very artificial attempt to boost bass for the sake of bass, increase power and volume for the sake of volume, and amplify certain frequencies for the sake of “party effect” – all at the expense of musicality.

Now, to start with a confession, I’m embarrassed because I’m very picky about sound, a result of years of classical music training that left me a failed musician but a determined audiophile. As a result, few audio products seem to measure up, including the ULT Wear headphones. So when Sony sent us a tower speaker from the same series to review, our expectations were low, given our previous experiences with its younger sibling.

But the ULT Tower 10 is a different ball of cake. It’s a beast in every way, including sound quality – a rare mass-market product that can also be a purist’s delight.

Even before you turn it on and start playing music through it, the Tower 10 makes an impression with its size and presence. Measuring 3.6 feet tall, 16.5 inches wide and 16.9 inches deep, it’s a towering presence in your living room. And weighing in at 30 pounds, it’s a good thing Sony recommends two people lift it when moving it.

A handle is built into the top of the frame, and there are small wheels on the bottom edges of the back frame so you can roll it out onto your back porch without extra hands when you need to set it up for a party, but the wheels could be bigger. Given the size and weight of this sound tower, the small wheels make it difficult to drag over uneven surfaces like doorsteps, grass, or bare ground.

However, in our estimation, the ULT Tower 10 will spend most of its time indoors, acting as your primary listening device, aided by two tweeters, two midrange drivers, and a square 12.59-inch woofer, giving it an impressive 1,000 watts of output and a claimed frequency range of 20Hz to 20,000kHz.

In terms of design, the ULT Tower 10 is a massive block of black plastic, finished with a smooth-to-the-touch surface. The two tweeters are positioned at the top like little bulging eyes that look outward at an angle to better disperse sound, the midrange drivers are positioned inside the housing below, and the woofer is positioned at the bottom with ports along the bottom edge that fire forward. There are recesses for LED lights along the top and bottom edges of the bezel, and these lights shoot out onto the black surface to create an indirect reflective effect that, unlike Sony’s competitors on the market, is subtle and not visually intrusive.

The control panel is right at the top, a flat, square piece of shiny plastic with an on/off switch and ULT sound boost, and touch controls for play/pause, Bluetooth connection, LED lights, and an input selector, of which there’s an audio input, USB, and optical, which doubles as a speaker for the TV. We tried connecting our TV’s audio to the Tower 10 and found that while the sound was definitely amplified many times over, it’s not a soundbar replacement, as dialogue is overwhelmed by other sounds.

When it comes to sound, the first area where the ULT Tower 10 excels is Karaoke, which comes with an Echo button for reverb control and a wireless microphone. Guitarists are also in for a treat – a removable flap on the back hides a quarter-inch guitar input for when you need to show off your shredding skills at a party.

The ULT Tower 10 also has its own skills – clarity and musicality at high volume. In the interests of civility and good neighbourliness, we were only allowed to turn the volume up to half for a few seconds, but that was enough to demonstrate how pulsating the bass could be and how loud the overall volume could be without sounding jarring or losing musicality. A word of warning: if you can’t rent the runway at DXB International for your party, don’t turn the volume up to full unless you want to get arrested for disturbing the peace – it’s that loud.

The best surprise is that loud here doesn’t equal noise. At decently low, living-room-safe volumes, the ULT Tower 10 is probably the only tower speaker we’ve heard that’s addictively enjoyable to listen to. We played everything from Beethoven to the Beatles and Bollywood to Buddha Bar on this speaker and were more impressed than with any other tower speaker before. The soundstage is detailed, the highs and lows balanced, the nuances subtle, musical and delicate, and the whole musical experience enjoyable and enriching. Even the stereo separation was perfect, the first we’ve experienced in a single tower speaker.

And if all that’s still not to your taste, there are not one but two apps from Sony – Music Centre and Fiestable – that allow you to further customise and fine-tune the sound. We were so happy with the default settings that we decided not to play with them any further, but if you want, you can use the former to manage the speaker’s basic functions, and the latter to further boost the sound and party experience.

As for complaints, we would have preferred a battery in this speaker so we could take it to a party anywhere, but for something that is already so heavy and draws so much current that it wouldn’t be a portable speaker. The five-foot power cable could be longer for when you need to take it to a pool party. No complaints though, considering the official retail price of AED 3,999. Considering the sound of the ULT Tower 10, it’s money well spent and easily deserves five stars.

Sony ULT Tower 10 Wireless Speaker

– Excellent sound quality

– Two apps for more control

– Loud, no distortion