Earfun UBOOM L - facts and discoveries

To answer most questions which popped up recently: according to Earfun the UBOOM L should become available in July with a price of $79.99. I am not sure if they can offer some discounts, I suggested them to offer a lower preorder price prior to release or for the first hundreds of orders but didn’t get any response so far. To keep everything transparent: I have no confirmation from Earfun yet how this “partnership” will look like. If I will be mentioned on the packaging or at least on their site etc. neither is it clear if I am going to get a single fee or get some commission based on the sales. I definitely won’t get rich with this project although if it sells well, this could definitely help me with my finances. I am not promoting this product trying to sell you some crap, but I am quite enthusiastic about the results I achieved so far especially because the base to work with is quite decent to begin with.

Today I took the UBOOM L out for a walk. It was the first time I could try it outdoors as we had lots of rain the last days and I must say the outdoor mode is lots of fun. The kick is really impressive and it handles attacks quite well, I couldn’t hear any issues so far. The sound is really huge, sounds quite Boombox like and makes you want to turn it higher and higher. I think I managed to find a nice compromise for the limiter to control bass amount at high levels because I wanted to avoid any distortion by all means and so far couldn’t find serious issues with my reference tracks. I am not sure though if I manage to squeeze out even more loudness out of it or at least retain the current loudness but with less pumping. It’s not intended as some Boombox but I think it did a nice job outdoors with its outdoor mode. The only thing I would still like to adjust is treble though. As you mostly won’t listen exactly on axis outdoors, but with the speaker laying at the ground somewhere beside you with other people sitting around, I think it could get along with even more treble boost. I must check how much it really needs to sound convoncing, I simply found that outdoors treble seemed to be lacking a bit compared to what I perceived indoors.

Thanks to a friend of mine who discovered that there is in fact an own dynamic EQ inside the DSP, I could have a more detailed look at it today. It consists of 3 different filters which can be boosted according to their both thresholds. It took me several hours to come up with something reasonable. It’s actually not easy to control this effect as there is no real manual with some values being not self explanatory. I want the effect to be as subtle as possible but really add some benefit for low levels so that you shouldn’t feel the need to switch to outdoor mode to get some extra bass, instead both bass and treble will be boosted slightly if you decrease volume. Also finding a sweet spot here is not easy and needs lots of listening, but I think I managed something reasonable. The dynamic bass boost doesn’t add any boominess. It’s a peak filter at 55hz and another one at 10k which both start to become active below half volume. It sounds quite natural I would say, with the added bass and clarity at low levels it sounds definitely more exciting than before. I haven’t done any measurements yet but can maybe optimise it more by also seeing what actually is happening and not only hearing.

The plan is to make both sound modes stand for their own. Indoor will be more refined with a tad deeper bass and should be suitable for critical listening. I also tried to extend bass even more compared to before without adding any artefacts. You can see the current and previous filter curve below:

Indoor EQ was already set for deeper bass than outdoor (which on the other hand is way more boosted), but now I did my best to extend it even more while still keeping everything under control, you really need to fight for any Hz possible and although it’s not a B&O bass, it sounds more natural and deeper than the Flip 6. I really like how bassdrums are rendered, but will need to monitor how it behaves at higher levels. The limiter has not enough control to really be able to fine tune bass precisely because there is only a single low-mid frequency which you can set. Nevertheless I hope I can achieve a result which won’t produce any artefacts that we know well from many other speakers I have tested. Therefore lots of listening and tweaking is at my agenda right now, because the firmware needs to be finished this month, so during the next days I will be solely concentrating on optimising everything to offer a product with a top result for the given price and my limited personal skills. Keep in mind I am not a magician, but with some love and passion I think it can be done!