Hi everyone. Today we will be looking at a comparison between Bose's smart home speaker
range; specifically comparing the legacy Soundtouch 20 with Home Speaker 300 and 500. We will
be looking at things like: the built and sound driver setup, features, sound signature, an
audio comparison and then wrap it up with a Conclusion.
Lets start by comparing the physical characteristics of these three speakers. First thing first,
lets start by looking at the built quality.
Built: All the three speakers seem to be well built and feel sturdy when placed on a flat
surface. The don't seem to move even when playing loud music. But I must say that the
Soundtouch seems to be the most stable speaker of the three. Let's dive in deeper.
Both Soundtouch 20 and Home Speaker 500 have 2 speakers whereas the home speaker 300 has
only one. Soundtouch 20 has front-firing speakers with a bass-port at the back, Home Speaker
500 has 2 side-firing speakers with a bass port on the right hand side and Home Speaker
300 has 1 down-firing speaker with one bass port on the right as well but down-firing.
Just by looking at the speaker setup, it seems that Soundtouch 20 should have the best stereo
image and would ideally perform its best when placed in front of a wall or a window or any
hard surface behind it so that the bass can bounce from it.
Home Speaker 500 and 300 should perform well no matter where they are placed in the room
as the speakers are on the side for 500 and down for 300. So the sound is not direct like
in Soundtouch 20 but reflecting. This could theoretically impact the mid-highs and highs
but the bass shouldn't be affected. The only place I would avoid placing the home speaker
range would be on a tightly spaced bookshelf or in a cabinet or any area which restricts
the sound from spreading.
Dimensions: In terms of the dimensions, Soundtouch
seems to be the biggest of the three. Based on their physical volumes, Home Speaker 500
is abut 40% smaller than Soundtouch 20 and Home Speaker 300 is 62% smaller than Soundtouch
In order to give you a realistic idea of how big these speakers are, I have compared
their size to a soda can.
Weight: Soundtouch 20 weighs the heaviest
as well at 3.2 kg, which is what also give it that stability when playing music at loud
volumes. Home Speaker 500 weighs in at 2.15 kg and finally home speaker 300 weighs in
at only 900 grams. Both Home Speaker 500 and Soundtouch 20 have the power supplies built
in and are plugged in to the wall using an included mains cable, where as the home speaker
300 doesn't have a power supply built in and uses a power adaptor. The power adaptor is
small, but I am not a huge fan as I can't use a longer power cable in case I need to
place the speaker which is away from the main supply.
Buttons: All three speakers have buttons built-in
on the top of the speaker. Home Speaker range has touch sensitive buttons where as Soundtouch
has physical push buttons. That being said, Soundtouch 20 has a huge plus as it comes
with a wireless remote, which Home Speaker range doesn't. So you will have to rely entirely
on the provided app or the physical buttons for controls. Remote comes in handy as I can
bypass having to unlock my phone in order to change things like next track or volume
on the speakers. Another difference is that Soundtouch has a standby button on the top
of the speaker, which Home Speakers don't rather the only way you can put them in standby
is by either using the app or wait for them to go in to standby automatically after a
period of inactivity. I also wish that all these speakers had backlit buttons for when
using these speaker in dark rooms. They unfortunately don't.
compare to something Power usage/Watts
Startup sound
Features
All three speakers support streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music and TuneIn
radio and Bluetooth Audio. Home Speaker range also supports Voice Assistance, which I personally
don't like or use due to privacy concerns. Anyhow, none of these speakers support AAC
codecs for Bluetooth streaming. The quality doesn't seem to be effected by this in my
experience. But there are some performance issues, which I will get to in a second. All
three speakers also have AUX ports for wired audio-in. Not something I see myself using
so, no comments there.
One great advantage of having Bluetooth is
that you can connect your tablet or smartphone to the speaker when watching movies on Netflix
or listening to audio books or using an unsupported streaming service. Specific to streaming audio
on movies with Soundtouch, there is a definite lag which makes it unusable for this purpose,
which for me, is a deal breaker.
Display
Both Soundtouch 20 and Home Speaker 500 have displays built in, which I didn't necessarily
care about initially but after having using Home Speaker 300, which doesn't have a display
built-in, I immediately realised the importance of having a display built-in. Soundtouch 20
has a monochrome OLED display and works great in bright rooms as well. Home Speaker 500
has a LCD display with a lot of light bleed and low resolution, which in my opinions is
quite outdated and I expected much more from Bose on this front. The display looks quite
washed out not necessarily usable in bright rooms. Apart from the screen, Home Speaker
also has an animating LED strip above the screen. Home Speaker 300 also has an animating
LED strip, which in the case of 300 is the only way to show response and interaction.
Wifi-Lag
All three speakers have WiFi connectivity and are easy to setup using the Bose's respective
apps. That being said, Soundtouch being a legacy product uses the 'Soundtouch' app and
Home Speakers use the new Bose Music App. When playing music via Spotify, Soundtouch
lags a bit when changing audio tracks or starting to play music. Home Speaker 500 and 300 play
music instantaneously.
Grouping
All three speakers support Speaker grouping which allows you to group the speakers with
one another, but unlike Sonos speakers, this doesn't create left-right channels. Soundtouch
speakers can't be grouped with Home Speaker range devices. Home Speaker range also has
a dedicated mute button which lights up red when muted. This is great for privacy minded
individuals as it restricts voice assistant from listening in to your conversations..
Though unfortunately this mute button can't be controlled via the app.
Sound signature
Bose has a distinct sound signature with a very balanced sound stage. Having owned a
few of Bose's product in the past, I think this has been a constant in all the Bose's
products... Until now! Bose seems to have changed their original sound signature from
where it sounds more natural and less processed to something which has a presence of processing
with pronounced bass and treble. Though if the Home Speaker range of products is going
to be your first Bose product, then you won't necessarily notice this change and would more
likely be neutral towards it. Let me explain.
Bose in my opinion, doesn't have overpowering bass or treble and has a keen focus on mids
and mid-highs so that the audio sounds full of life almost as if you were in a concert
listening to music live. I think this is somewhat of a mature sound signature is what made what
Bose is today. But with a recent change of trend of what is perceived as a good audio
profile, Bose is trying to adapt its sound signature to have more thumpy bass and pronounced
highs. This initially put me off entirely but after a few days it grew on me. Now both
Home Speaker 500 and 300 allow for user to adjust Bass and Treble on the app, but me
being me, someone who can get quite obsessed with tweaking, would rather have a perfectly
balanced sound out of the box than to tweak it. I believe a need for having to tweak takes
the focus away from actually using the product. This is the reason why I didn't tweak and
let the audio grow on me. And grow it did.
All three speakers produce amazing bass for their size an you will be surprised. Both
Home Speakers have a similar sound signature but of course Home Speaker 500 has a much
better bass production and slightly better highs as well. Both Home Speaker 500 and Soundtouch
20 produce about the same amount of bass but are very placement dependent. For e.g. if
home speaker is placed in the centre of a big living room, it will definitely fill the
room with sound in terms of loudness but the bass just won't be there. Soundtouch performs
slightly better in this respect. All the speaker's have a dynamic sound spectrum to accommodate
volume increases which means as the sound goes up, the bass seems to disappear.
Audio comparison That's enough of me talking about sound. Its
now time to listen-in to the audio test for these speakers. I would recommend getting
on your headphones for this part. The audio is recorded on my high definition stereo microphone
and is not processed in anyway.
Conclusion It's time for conclusion. To start with, I
was quite inclined towards the Soundtouch 20 because of its sound profile and in comparison,
both 500 and 300 sounded a bit to processed. I also didn't particularly like the LCD screen
on the 500. Though having listened to all three over a period, the sound profile of
the home speaker range did grow on me with an added advantage of no lag when watching
movies and streaming audio via Bluetooth. 300 in my opinion does lack a bit in bass
in comparison to both 500 and Soundtouch 20, but considering it's size that's expected.
Though I didn't like the fact that the power supply isn't built in and if I were to place
the 300 away from the main outlet, it will not be as simple as buying a longer cable.
I don't intend to recommend a speaker as different people have different tastes and requirements,
but just to set out the facts in order to help you make a decision.
I would like to thank you all for bearing with me and watching the video. This is my
first ever video review and I would like to hear your thoughts. So if you found this helpful,
please so give it a thumbs up or leave a comment with your thoughts. Bye!