Sony has been pushing hi-res in its wireless speakers for some time now in sleek rectangles like the SRS-X77, and SRS-X99, which are impressive performers when it comes to clear and powerful audio. Now the company is taking its hi-res line, well, down a notch in the flamboyantly-colored new h.ear go.
Sony calls the new h.ear go the smallest, portable, hi-res, multiroom speaker in the world. That’s a whole lot of adjectives for such a tiny speaker, but it is an impressive list. Like the rest of the h.ear line, the new h.ear go comes in a variety of splashy colors, with names like “lime.”
Underneath, the h.ear go is loaded with dual tweeters, as well as dual passive radiators at the front and the back, which results in a relatively full sound for the size, though we only got a glimpse of the sound from the speaker in the noisy halls of CES.
As for connection, you can stream via Bluetooth (hence the portability), but the speaker also connects over Wi-Fi (hence the hi-res) with both Google Cast and Spotify Connect compatibility, as well as the ability to link up with other speakers for multiroom connection throughout your home over Sony’s Songpal App. Sony claims the speaker can be stereo-paired, as well as connected as “a wireless surround extension speaker to boost your home cinema set-up,” though it’s not yet clear how that will work — and truthfully, with a speaker this small, that’s probably not going to be a go-to application.
Battery life for the speaker is rated at 12 hours of runtime per charge, but we’re still waiting to find out just how much the speaker will cost, and when it will be released. Either way, if this feature-packed speaker sits around the $200 price range, it could be a pretty enticing choice in the wireless marketplace.