The Brane X Is a Portable (but Pricey) Smart Speaker With Incredible Bass
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The Good
- Best-in-class bass and sub-bass
- Wifi streaming over Spotify and AirPlay 2
- Compact and portable
- Powerful
- Stereo speaker
- IP57 dust-proof and waterproof
- Doubles as a soundbar with an AUX connection
- Companion app with EQ
The Bad- Expensive
- Upper registers sound compressed at max volume
- No Google Cast support
- No speakerphone function
- Some features make a whirring noise at startup
- No USB-C charging (only DC)
Table of Contents
The Brane X is many things, but cheap isn't one of them. But for $499, you get a multi-use premium speaker that can handle itself when splashed on, has Alexa voice assistant, connects through wifi for better audio, has the best bass of any wifi speaker, and can be used as a soundbar and subwoofer combo. The Brane X is a great wifi speaker for someone who values bass, would like to take their speaker outdoors, and needs a soundbar and subwoofer combo for their home theater. However, at its price, it competes with the best. The Sonos Move 2 is slightly cheaper, offers a replaceable battery with 24 hours of juice, and has better treble and mids (but nowhere near the same range or bass power as the Brane X). You should know what you're getting into here, because while this speaker is great, it's not for everybody.
Brane provided the speaker for this review.
My first impressions of the Brane X speaker
While I eventually came around on it, my first impressions of the Brane X weren't good. Turning it on wasn't intuitive, since the power button didn't provide any feedback that I pressed it properly. The same can be said about the media controls on top, which I'll get into later. There was also a weird whirring sound that the speaker made when I turned it on that made me think it was defective, but it went away after a few seconds. It turns out that was actually an air pump equalizing the air pressure inside the speaker, which is a patent that Brane calls Repel-Attract-Driver (RAD). RAD is what makes this speaker unique, giving it the best bass range output I've heard on any speaker. To get an idea of this, try this frequency range test on your wifi or Bluetooth speaker and see how it performs. The Brane X didn't just play through the whole range, but vibrated my entire office with its powerful bass. And because of that, I'm willing to put up with the humming sound it makes when it's turned on. If you can stick through the minor annoyances at setup, it turns out there's a lot to love here.
Design, controls, and battery life
But before that, there's still some more annoyances to get through, mostly having to do with the speaker's design. All black is a safe option, but it left me wanting to fill the void with some stickers to give it some personality. And as for actually using the device, the touch controls present an issue. The options here, which you'll find on top of the speaker, just give no haptic feedback, which means you won't know if the speaker has registered a command until it starts making some noise. There's also no play/pause button, so I can only control that with my phone or AUX device (or Alexa if using it to play music).
Considering this is an outdoor speaker that can be completely submerged underwater (at least temporarily) thanks to its IP57 rating, physical buttons could've come in handy here, as wet hands don't always work well with touch controls. At least the handle on the top is useful, considering the speaker weighs almost eight pounds.
The charger is also DC, so no USB-C for fast universal charging this time around, unfortunately. The battery life is a little short, too, marketed as providing 12 hours of battery life at a moderate volume, but I only got around six hours of juice at around 75% volume (which to be fair, is very loud indoors unless you're having a house party). It'll take about three hours to fully charge it once it is drained.
Rich bass and versatile use cases
But for all its design faults, sound quality is where the Brane X blows away the competition, especially if you love bass (and I do). The RAD technology is no gimmick, and really pumps out incredible power out from a speaker this small. Considering this is less than 10% the size of JBL's PartyBox Stage 320 (my favorite party speaker), it's impressive that it nearly matches its 240W of output power (the Brane X gets to 200W), only having about a 2dB volume difference. This isn't a party speaker, so you can hear it struggle in upper registers when playing at max volume, but that I can even talk about it in the same conversation as the PartyBox is impressive.
And when I'm not blasting the Brane X, the sound quality is pristine. Because the bass' frequency range is so wide, you can really hear and feel the lower registers even at lower volumes, giving it a full sound without needing to get too loud. The result feels distinctive to the Brane X. I listened to MONACO by Bad Bunny to test this out, and could hear the sub-bass parts of the song clearly even at 35% volume (although I was pretty close to the speaker). On regular speakers, getting this kind of sensation usually means blasting your audio at max volume, but the Brane X manages to provide that feeling without having to get loud enough to scare my neighbors.
A wifi speaker first
The Brane X is a wifi speaker first, so while it has Bluetooth as an option, it's able to provide a wider range and better sound quality by streaming higher bitrate audio when available. To use this, you'll want to play music directly through Spotify Connect, or via Apple AirPlay 2 or Amazon Alexa. The Amazon smart assistant here performs as well as on any Alexa device. Unfortunately, there's no Google Cast support here.
The Brane app
My experience with the Brane X's companion app was about the same as with most speaker apps: It does its simple job well, but it can disconnect on occasion and can be slow at times. The main things I used the app for were to check the battery life, mess with the EQ (you get a five-band equalizer), and set up the AUX Pass-Through feature when setting up the Brane X as a soundbar. The app also gives you the option to link up groups if you have more than one Brane X speaker, although since I only had the one speaker on hand, I wasn't able to try this feature. A nice bonus, though: Your EQ settings update in real-time, while you're listening.
The Brane X as an outdoor speaker
As I do with all of my outdoor speakers, I took the Brane X out to the court while hosting my Street FC soccer games. We played five on five on a hockey rink with walls, so the sound bounced off these to give it a "surround" feel even though this is very much a directional speaker. Even then, though, the Brane X struggled to fill the court completely. This is by far the smallest speaker I've ever taken to my games, however, and I'm comparing the volume to party speakers, which isn't ideal. Again, that the Brane X is even a contender here speaks to its versatility. With that said, the audio did sound compressed at maximum volumes sometimes. Since I was using a Bluetooth connection outdoors due to a lack of wifi on my court, the max volume compression was more noticeable.
The Brane X as a soundbar
If you want to use the speaker as a soundbar, you'll need an AUX cable (at least the end that connects to the speaker needs to be AUX). I wish the Brane X had Google Cast support so it could connect wirelessly to my smart TV, but you can't have everything in life. You can still connect it with Bluetooth, but if you do, you won't be able to use the AUX pass-though feature on the app to get rid of the sound delay (the delay is not bad, but sticklers will notice it). You also won't get eARC sound quality, but the speaker itself has a subwoofer, so the sound is surprisingly good as a soundbar and subwoofer combo.
I decided to re-watch Dune to hear how well the Brane X performed as a soundbar and subwoofer combo and compared it to the speaker system on my TCL QM7 TV, which has a subwoofer speaker on the back. The Brane X really brought Dune to life compared to the television speaker. I could feel every thud of the thumpers as they hit the sand when calling the worms. The soundtrack and vibrations of the explosions really put the excellent broad frequency range of the Brane X to use. The speaker is able to handle the dynamic audio you want from a soundbar, so you'll be able to hear whispers and feel explosions.
Bottom line
The Brane X is a powerful wifi speaker with a subwoofer that gives it incredible range in the sub-bass frequencies. It's the best wifi and smart speaker for bass lovers. With Spotify and AirPlay 2 compatibility, most people's music needs will also be met. Its compact size also makes it a great portable and outdoor speaker, with a waterproof IP57 rating and an promised average of 12 hours of battery life (although I got less). It can get very loud, at a maximum of 98 dBs, and it doubles as a soundbar and subwoofer combo, making it great for watching movies.
However, all that versatility comes at a high price of $499. If you're looking to blast the Brane X at max volume, also know that playing over Bluetooth will lead to some compression. There's also no speakerphone option despite its many microphones, and you'll need to depend on the DC charger, which isn't ideal for portable speakers.
The Brane X is ideal for someone looking for a wifi speaker that can do a bit of everything. It's a good one-stop speaker that you can take to the beach, use as a soundbar, party with in your living room, or take on a whim to your next adventure. It definitely rivals the Sonos Move 2, and I would recommend it to anyone who isn't in the Sonos ecosystem already and/or loves to feel bass in their life.
Specs
Battery Life: About six hours of battery at a moderately high volume (about 12 hours at a moderate level, according to Brane).
Connectivity: Wifi supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac standards, Bluetooth version 5.1, streaming services compatible with AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Amazon Alexa.
Bluetooth: SBS, AAC, aptX, aptX HD
Inputs: Auxiliary input 3.5 mm jack for wired connections.
App: Brane companion app for fine-tuning bass, customizing EQ settings, managing speaker groups, and adjusting various settings.
Drivers: One 6.5" by 9" Repel-Attract-Driver (RAD) subwoofer, two 2.5" midrange drivers, two 0.75" dome tweeters.
Power Output: Four Class-D digital amplifiers delivering a combined output of over 200 watts (98dB).
Water Resistance: Rated IP57, making it waterproof and dust-protected.
Size: 6.1 inches x 9.3 inches x 7 inches (H × W × D)
Weight: 7.7 lbs
