This speaker is huge. It’s the size of a cooler a person would take camping for a week. It weighs 48 lbs. And for a good reason, too. The Kube speaker from Thomas and Darden[1] is solid and packed with power. The company says it can put out 122 dB of sound. But it’s not a good sound. That’s the rub.
This is a massive speaker that gets really loud but doesn’t sound great at any volume. This speaker costs $2,999. It’s not worth half of that.
Let’s start with the good.
The Kube speaker feels and looks like it’s worth its multi-thousand-dollar price tag. It’s as solid as a tank and looks like it belongs poolside at a boutique hotel I cannot afford. I feel like I need to drink cocktails around it. The company says the speaker is marine certified.
The center is skinned in aluminum while the two ends are encased in a soft-touch rubber. The handles are metal, and the controls glow with an attractive warmth.
There’s a battery in the Kube speaker. The company says it can last for 50 hours at medium volume and recharge USB devices. I didn’t test it.
The ample space between the two speakers is a storage compartment. The speakers themselves only have small speaker cabinets on either end. I guess it’s handy to use part of the enormous speaker as storage, but it would be better if that space served as part of the speaker. The Kube might be as big as some automotive subwoofer boxes, but it doesn’t act like one. And that’s the problem.
Here’s the bad.
The Kube speaker’s sound quality is average. It has the same audio fidelity of most...