Bose SoundLink Max Speaker Review

The Bose SoundLink Max sports a sleek, oblong design that's somewhere between a purse and a lunchbox. It features a detachable nylon rope handle with a rubber grip, which can be swapped out for different colored variants, as well as a longer rope carrying strap (although these are purchased separately). The speaker is intended to be used standing horizontally. It's constructed from high-quality materials like aluminum, fabric, nylon, plastic, silicone, and steel. It's available in two color variants: 'Black' and 'Blue Dusk.'

This speaker is very portable, and its detachable carrying handle is designed to help you carry it around with one hand. While it's not as lightweight as the Bose SoundLink Flex, it's not exactly hefty and can be easily slipped into a bag or backpack.

This speaker has excellent build quality. The silicone, metal, and plastic used for its body and grilles are high quality, non-slip, and resilient. It also comes with a small, thick nylon rope handle with a rubber grip that feels durable. It's also rated IP67 for full submergibility in water and for protection against dust. Like the Anker Soundcore Boom 2, it can also float in water, which can be handy for your next pool party.

This speaker's controls are located on the top panel. They're intuitive and make it a breeze to input most functions. There's a helpful tutorial in the companion app that runs you through how the physical controls work. The 'Play/Pause' button also has some additional functionality: pressing it twice skips a track and pressing it three times lets you skip back. There's visual feedback in the form of small LEDs over certain buttons that indicate when you've reached max/min volume. There's also a shortcut button located next to the Bluetooth button that lets you switch between Bluetooth and AUX sources by default. However, it can be remapped in the app to be a 'Spotify tap' function that gives you instant access to your Spotify playlists.

• Bose SoundLink Max
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable (1.5 m/4.92 ft)
• Help guide/warranty

The Bose SoundLink Max has a decent frequency response overall. We tested it on its default setting with no EQ applied and found that it offered a relatively balanced sound, with an even mid- and treble-range response that's well-suited to reproducing vocals, whether in music or podcasts. A peak in response around the high-bass helps bring out some punch in kicks and basslines. While the bass range extends lower than the Bose SoundLink Flex, it still lacks a bit of low-end heft. This is to be expected from a speaker of this size, though, and it can be counteracted somewhat by boosting the bass in the companion app's EQ. That's not to say the bass is underwhelming; there's still enough on tap to inject energy into the rhythms in electronic and hip-hop tracks. Sadly, there's no room correction tool to compensate for any resonances in your listening room.

The soundstage performance is very good. This speaker is capable of playing stereo content without downmixing to mono. However, the positioning of the tweeters means that you won't get quite as much separation between the left and right channels as with a wider speaker. Its directivity is also decent, so while audio won't sound perfectly consistent from every angle, it's more consistent than other small, front-facing speakers.

This speaker has a good dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill a large room with sound, plus there's minimal compression even at max volume. As a result, while you'll hear some pumping artifacts in the bass range, there's not too much degradation of audio quality, even if you like to crank your tunes.

The battery life performance is excellent. The manufacturer advertises 20 hours of battery life at around 65% volume, which seems roughly accurate considering we achieved 15.5 hours at a higher volume. That said, the battery life will vary based on an array of factors, so your experience may vary. There's also an auto-off timer that's accessible via the app that can help you get the most out of the battery. You can set it to turn off at increments of 5, 20 (default), 40, 60, or 180 minutes.

During our testing, the charging LED indicated a full charge before charging was complete. It takes around 3.5 hours to fully charge the speaker, but the LED stops flashing after just over 2.5 hours. The speaker only accepts up to 20W of power, so using higher-wattage power bricks doesn't lead to a reduced charging time.

This speaker doesn't have a built-in microphone. Consider the Bose SoundLink Home if you'd like a speaker that you can use with your phone's Siri or Google Assistant.

The Bose Connect App is very good. It's easy to use and gives you access to a broad range of features. Using the app, you can adjust the sound via graphic EQ and presets, remap the shortcut button, and change the Bluetooth source. Plus, you can sync it with another compatible Bose speaker or soundbar via SimpleSync for a more expansive sound. Using the app, you can pair two SoundLink Max units to get left/right stereo playback, with one speaker acting as the left speaker and the other as the right.

This speaker features a single AUX input, so you can connect an external audio source via a 3.5 mm TRS cable. There's also a USB-C input that's used to charge the speaker.

The Bluetooth integration on this speaker is excellent. You can connect up to two devices at once this way, making it easy to split DJ duties. Audiovisual synchronization error is fairly low with iOS devices and even lower with Android devices, meaning you should encounter minimal lip-sync issues when watching video content.