Review: Bose SoundLink Max Bluetooth Speaker

In 1968, just four years after he founded his eponymous company, Amar Bose published a paper titled “On the Design, Measurement and Evaluation of Loudspeakers.” It argued that the listener’s subjective perception, rather than any technical measurement, is the most effective way to assess sound reproduction. It might have been the first time Bose (as an audio company) had overtly flown in the face of popular opinion, but it wouldn’t be the last.

The new SoundLink Max might be the latest manifestation of this kind of attitude, albeit in a slightly less confrontational way. The range of products bearing the SoundLink name has served Bose well over the years, and it makes sense that the largest and most expensive of the lot should be called Max. But in its own way, SoundLink Max defies popular opinion and current market trends.

The SoundLink Max is a $399 Bluetooth speaker. That’s it, that’s all. No smart functionality, no Wi-Fi connectivity, none of the stuff you might reasonably have begun to expect from a portable, battery-powered speaker costing significant money. Admittedly it includes SimpleSync, a Bose tech that allows it to pair with other, appropriately specified, Bose speakers or soundbars to become part of a rudimentary multiroom system. But really: popular opinion? You know what you can do with popular opinion.

And besides, you want a portable speaker for listening to, don’t you, rather than the ability to ask it questions about the weather? And where this fundamental requirement is concerned, the Bose SoundLink Max needs no excuses made for it. And even before it makes a sound, it looks and feels the part.

Looks the Part

At 4.9 pounds and 4.73 by 10.42 by 4.13 inches (HxWxD), it’s definitely “max” by portable speakers standards. Its rope-and-silicone carry handle takes a fair amount of the strain, though, so it doesn’t feel quite as heavy in the hand as you might think. The handle can also be easily detached, if you fancy swapping it for the shoulder-strap alternative (and if you have the necessary $45 to buy one).

The speaker and the shoulder strap are both available in either black or “blue dusk” finishes. For some reason, the carry-handle can also be purchased (for $25) in “carbon blue” (which is darker than “blue dusk”), “chilled lilac,” “hyper citron” (an acidic green-y yellow), or apricot if you fancy a rather more sudden-looking appearance for your speaker.

Control is available either via a few physical controls on the top of the speaker (power on/off, Bluetooth pairing, volume up/down, play/pause and “shortcut”) or via the Bose control app that’s free for iOS and Android. Here’s where you can decide what you’d like your shortcut to be (choose between “aux in” or "resume Spotify"). It also has some EQ adjustment and a few presets to select from, volume control, connection management (there’s multipoint connectivity available here), voice-prompt adjustment, access to updates, and all the usual other stuff. It’s a clean, stable app that hasn’t had any meaningful updates in quite a while now—mainly because it simply hasn’t needed any.

Battery Buddy

An IP67 rating lets you know it’s more than capable of surviving in any realistic environment, and the rugged silicone-and-aluminum nature of its construction means it’s ready to accommodate even quite careless owners. But once you’ve heard your SoundLink Max in action, I reckon you’ll be inclined to take reasonable care of it.

It uses Bluetooth 5.3 for connectivity, and it’s compatible with SBC, AAC, and aptX Adaptive codecs. There’s a USB-C socket on the rear for charging the battery—it will play for 20 hours or so from a single charge, and can go from flat to full in around five hours (or “an eternity,” as it’s known in portable audio circles).

The USB-C slot can also be used as an output, so if your smartphone is threatening to go flat in the middle of the party, the SoundLink Max can come to your rescue. There’s also a 3.5-mm analog input next to the USB-C, so an auxiliary source of music can also be plugged in if required.

Sound is served up by an array three transducers (two 89-mm full-range drivers and one 23-mm high-frequency driver) arranged across the front of the speaker, reinforced by a couple of 104- by 79-mm “racetrack” balanced mode radiators—one fires out from either end of the speaker from behind the perforated aluminum grille. This lineup is powered by Class D amplification.

Bose, as has been the company’s established practice since Amar first suggested this stuff isn’t relevant to the user experience, is not revealing the details of available power or a frequency response figure. Once you hear the SoundLink Max in action, though, it swiftly becomes apparent that the numbers in each of these respects are perfectly adequate.

Full Frequency Friend

Bose is breaking no new ground in prioritizing bottom-end presence and punch in the design of a portable speaker. But it is one of the very few that hasn’t completely lost sight of the fact that there are other areas of the frequency range that need to be dealt with.

So, while a FLAC file of KH’s spring-loaded “Only Human” is punchy to an almost comical degree, the low-frequency stuff cranked out with something very close to glee, the SoundLink Max is absolutely not a heedless thumper. The bass activity it hands over is controlled, steers clear of the midrange, and has a degree of variation, both tonal and textural, to balance out the wallop. The leading edge of low-end sounds is described with straight-edged precision, so rhythmic expression is good, and momentum is never in doubt.

And it means that the midrange is left alone to the point that it’s perfectly able to get on with its own thing. Which means a spacious, reasonably informative and quite convincing rendition, especially where vocalists are concerned. There’s plenty of flavor and attitude to the way the SoundLink Max presents a singer, and plenty of space on the well-defined and acceptably open soundstage for it to happen.

At the top end the Bose summons some quite carefully judged shine and bite to treble information, but with enough substance to them to prevent it becoming edgy or hard. And that’s the case even if you decide to listen at considerable volume—and don’t doubt that if there’s one thing the SoundLink Max is capable of, it’s considerable volume.

Integration of the frequency range is fairly smooth, and the tonal balance is pretty consistent. There’s a fair amount of dynamic headroom available, too, should it be required—though it’s true to say that even when it’s playing at quite modest levels, the Bose somehow manages to sound loud. So the shift from “actually quiet” to “really very loud indeed” isn’t as pronounced as it might be.

Less Frills, More Thrills

The same is true of the stereo separation that’s on offer here—there just isn’t much of it. Perhaps it’s obvious that a relatively small box, the front of which is crammed with speaker drivers, can’t deliver a real sensation of two-channel separation. Bose seems to think it can, though, so I guess this is just where we differ.

Aside from the slightly closed-in nature of its presentation, the only other area in which the SoundLink Max falls fractionally short is detail retrieval. Frankly, it’s not great at it—the broader, more obvious details in a recording are all identified, but quite often the more minor, more fleeting details go astray. Bose is far from alone in this where products of this type are concerned—but nonetheless, it’s a point that’s worth making. Mind you, it’s also worth bearing in mind that in the context of everything the SoundLink Max gets right, it’s less of an issue than it otherwise might be.

Ultimately, the SoundLink Max makes a virtue of its own limitations. If you want a speaker that’s loaded with extended functionality, look elsewhere. But if you want a speaker that is not going to flinch at some careless treatment in less-than-ideal environments, that sounds as robustly muscular as it feels, and that will entertain you for hours on end—and what’s more is laudably focused solely on these things—Bose has the ideal (although admittedly expensive) solution.