It’s always nice to have your tunes along when you travel. Whether you prefer sorting by genre or playlist, listen to entire albums in chronological order, or are lured to the storytelling of podcasts, our audio choices often enhance our journey.
I’ve taken the Ultimate Ears Megablast speaker along on my recent road trips, and it’s been a great companion.
The most powerful of the brand’s offerings to date, the Megablast speaker comes with Amazon Alexa built in and connects directly to the cloud. Connect via Wi-Fi or any mobile hot spot to get portable, voice-controlled music from just about anywhere. Additionally, you can set timers, check the weather, control smart devices, and more. When you’re out of Wi-Fi and hot spot range, connect to your device via Bluetooth to keep the music flowing.
Sound-wise, the larger format of the Megablast gives Ultimate Ears the space to use their biggest, highest-quality active drivers and also delivers the most powerful and deepest bass possible. The new, wider architecture of the speaker in a 360-degree distribution delivers loud, clear audio, with greater dynamic range, farther and more evenly than any speaker in the company’s portfolio.
You’re bound to want to bring your speaker along in a variety of conditions, even setting it by the pool for sweet, summer sounds. It’s a good thing, then, that the Megablast has an IP67 water and dustproof rating, which means it can be totally submerged in water for up to 30 minutes. It’s also drop-proof—but don’t go testing that by tossing it from a mountain peak.
The speaker is 9.3 inches by 3.5 inches, which might be a tad too large to lug along when you’re flying carry-on only or want to keep things light. But for road trips, and even in your backyard, it’s ideal.
The Megablast speaker comes in graphite (dark gray), bluesteel (blue), merlot (wine red), and blizzard (white), and lists for $249.99 on the Ultimate Ears site.