A.M.P Antec Mobile Products Review

Antec SP1 Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker & Speakerphone

The SP1 speaker is designed to rock your world, it’s a compact little thing but its loud and bulky styling and weighted feel immediately had me thinking that this thing was going to be loud, it didn’t disappoint me in that regard, although my choice in music at the time may have upset anyone within ear shot of my house, more on that in a moment. The first thing that it’s worth showing you here however is the Advert for the SP1, it’s a little “strange” but it does demonstrate some of the versatility of the speaker, as well as some of its less obvious applications.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ZX09DKILnGs[/youtube]

“Liberate yourself from poor-quality sound. Break the bonds of your small tablet, smartphone or laptop and feel your media come to life. Whether it’s listening to music, watching movies, or playing games, Antec Mobile Products’ (a.m.p.) SP1 portable Bluetooth speaker will let you hear your media the way it was meant be heard. And with built-in microphone and controls, you’ll never miss a call; easily switch between your music and phone functions with the touch of a button. For even more convenience, pair the SP1 with your laptop and stay in touch through Skype and Google or pair it with your smartphone and use it with Viber.”

Antec are clearly keen on marketing this as a versatile product and one would hope that it not only performs well in each task that you apply it to but that it would also be highly versatile, especially given that its quite expensive with an average retail price of around £90. For your investment you get the speakers itself, a micro-USB charging cable and a 3.5mm male-to-male auxiliary cable for hooking up your devices. It’s a pretty simple and easy setup.

As you can see from the specification below, its quite big but no so much so that you couldn’t easily chuck it in your bag, carry it in your hand or even just leave it on your desk and it wouldn’t take up an unreasonable amount of space. Bluetooth pairing is capable of music playback and handsfree calls, with a signal range of around 10M, which is more than enough for most usage scenarios, if you’re more than 10M away from the SP1, then you’ve likely forgotten to pick it up before you left what you were doing.

• Size 158(H) x 41(W) x 62(D) mm
• Weight 0.38 kg
• Communication Range 10 M (30 ft)
• Playback Time 10 hrs
• Frequency Response 2.402 ~ 2.480 GHz
• Battery Capacity Li-lon Battery 3.7V
• Bluetooth Standard Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Support Profiles Supports Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) 1.2, Hands-Free Profile (HFP) 1.5, Headset Profile (HSP) 1.1

When it came to testing the SP1, there was only one thing for it, hook up my devices and start playing some music! I was expecting it to be good, what I wasn’t expecting was for it to simply amaze me. Sound quality is top notch, not just for a mobile speaker either, this is good terms of general music performance, rich bass, warm mid tones and crystal clear highs that didn’t falter one bit under the weight of a 6 hour playlist of death metal, prog rock, dubstep, folk music, a few YouTube videos and some games on my tablet. The calls feature works perfectly too and while it’s not the best microphone in the world it’s more than up to the job of a few Skype calls, or just answering the call that interrupted your music playback.

It is a little expensive and I imagine a lot of people will have to think long and hard before purchasing, however it does perform better than you might think, it’s a small price to pay for such a big sound.