LG’s XBoom 360 makes us question that conventional wisdom. It’s a big, powerful speaker that manages to also fit in as a decorative piece in a home, thanks to an elegant, lantern-like design, a built-in LED light, and a dedicated app that lets you do way more than just play music.
“LG offers an innovative solution for a complete 360-degree sound experience with its XBOOM 360 portable speaker – a stunning piece of audio engineering’’ says Daesun Hwang, General Manager, LG Electronics Home Entertainment, Audio Visual Division. The product is designed to change the way users perceive sound, providing them with equivalent quality and power of sound, regardless of location. Wherever the speaker is placed, LG’s patented sound technology, combined with the conical shape of the body, fills the entire space with natural and consistent high-quality sound in all direction,” he said.
Design
On the design, Hwang said Burgundy is one of those colors that fits in well in a variety of settings, much like the charcoal black and peacock green variants do, and it’s no wonder LG tried to be bold without being loud that way. It likely wanted the sound to do the loud part, which I’ll get to, but as a speaker, it does have a unique profile. Its conical design gives it a fair bit of height at 20 inches and weight at just shy of 13 pounds. LG wrapped the XBoom 360 with burgundy fabric that gives it a nice, sophisticated look and soft texture.
LG’s newest wireless speaker is designed to provide versatility and the multisensory experience today’s consumers demand. LG XBOOM 360 can create the right atmosphere for any occasion thanks to 360-degree mood lighting with three different presets – Ambient, Nature and Party – as well as a range of customizable lighting options and sound effects when used with the companion app. In the app, users will also find the crowd pleasing DJ Effect feature which allows for the mixing of multiple samples as well as scratching and other sounds effects. The speaker offers 10 hours of listening enjoyment on a single charge, includes a built-in metal handle for easy mobility, and has a chic, highly-durable fabric cover that brings instant warmth and style to any setting.
Sound quality
Unlike conventional multi-speaker speakers, which scatter sound in confined spaces and result in uneven pressure and sound distortion, LG is applying its patented new technology for optimal reflector structure to counteract these distortions. This allows the sound to scatter farther in any direction in the space. Improving the user experience, the XBOOM 360 eliminates the need to move and search for the perfect listening position, bringing the closest reproduction of the original sound right to the user’s ears, wherever they are.
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The LG XBOOM 360 gets really loud, which is to be expected considering its size. Unlike a lot of Bluetooth speakers, this one sounds great at all volumes. The speaker houses a 1-inch titanium tweeter and a 5.25-inch glass fiber woofer. A multi-driver system like this can produce different frequency ranges with similar relative loudness (which makes your music sound good).
Even in an instrumentally busy song, the different instruments are easy to hear because of how the woofer handles the bass and mids, leaving the tweeter responsible for the treble. The bass is definitely loud, but you can still make out the guitar licks, and the bassline doesn’t mask the vocals. This speaker is omnidirectional, which means it evenly outputs sound in a 360-degree field
The XBOOM 360-degree sound is ideal for outdoor use, and LG has an “outdoor EQ” mode for just such a purpose, while the default setting tamps things down just enough to serenade you indoors.
As for ports, LG placed them at the bottom, including singular USB-A and aux-in ports. The USB port doubles as both a playback port and 5-watt charger for other devices, so you can use it in a pinch for your phone or tablet.
Setup and configuration
The process to pair with the XBoom 360 was easy. After doing it with both an iPhone and Android device, I then downloaded the app, which recognized the speaker right away. The app acts as the controller for the speaker beyond just the basics. The main buttons are clearly visible at the top of the speaker, a few of which even include Braille for the vision impaired.
The app includes an EQ with seven presets and a custom option that you can tweak how you want. You can’t create and save your own presets, so you need to keep going back to tweak the sole custom one to change how it sounds. Otherwise, you can select one of the other seven presets. This is separate from the Outdoor EQ that I noted earlier, which ramps things up to get louder outside.
LG says that if you turn off any equaliser you may be using on a music app, the XBoom 360 plays with better quality and less distortion
The DJ features let you interact with music playback in fun ways through sound effects. You get drum, club, and other options to create transitions or effects overlaid on top of the track playing. It lays out a bunch for you to start, so you’re not starting from nowhere. The Sampler Creator lets you record five seconds of whatever sound you want to play or mimic and then transfer it over to the DJ Mode. After that, you can play it anytime you want over a song. If you’ve ever wanted to be a hype man, or say something over a favorite song, you might have fun with this one.
In case you really want to get loud, the XBoom 360 does support, adding a second speaker. You won’t get stereo pairing for distinct left and right channels, only mirroring of the audio playing from the master unit, making it ideal for larger parties where one may not be enough.
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