INTRODUCTION

   Have you ever felt that you've seen everything in your area of expertise (study/work) only to find out that you were wrong? Well i don't know if this happens a lot to you but in the electronics industry there's always something new that manages to catch us off guard either because its superior performance compared to similar products or because it's innovative. Well that happens to be one of the things we all like about this industry (a friend of mine says that there's always a surprise around the corner) so we're not really complaining. Now as you all know portable speakers use one or more drivers and sometimes even a passive bass radiator to produce sound a "rule" which pretty much applies to all kinds of speakers. Well our friends from Bass Egg seem to have a different idea in mind and so today we're testing their latest VERB portable speaker.

   With the Bass Egg, EVERYTHING IS A SPEAKER. But what does that mean??? Traditional speakers employ a moving diaphragm, or speaker cone, to generate air disturbances; these disturbances are what we hear as music. The Bass Egg, on the other hand, has no speaker cone. Instead, it sends vibrations into the object it is sitting on, thus turning that object into a “speaker.” In today’s world of smartphones and tablets, portability is paramount. Consumers want to enjoy their music no matter where they are, and it is no surprise that the portable speaker market has exploded in recent years. But traditional portable speakers are plagued by small speaker cones and small, narrow sound that lacks lower midrange and bass. Simply put, traditional portable speakers can’t move enough air to produce full-frequency sound. Suddenly, with the Bass Egg, everything in your world has the potential to be a full-range speaker. The only limitation is your imagination.. These objects could range from a table, the hood of a car, a skateboard…. you name it. The result? Huge, full-range sound, generated by a device that fits in the palm of your hand.

   When we heard rumors about a portable speaker which could transform most surfaces into a full-range speaker we naturally expected to see an egg shaped device (the company is called Bass Egg) but as you can see from the above picture the device looks much better than that (in a way it looks like the two ends of an egg inverted, an hourglass as some people who've seen it have pointed out). So the VERB is actually a speaker that transfers/projects audio signals via vibration onto most available surface materials like plastic, wood, glass, metal, fiberglass and more (rock and concrete for example are excluded materials). The device packs a total power output of 10 Watts, can achieve a frequency response up to 50Hz-16kHz at roughly 100dB, has both 3.5mm and Bluetooth connectivity and comes ready with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery which can give it up to 10 hours of life. Now we've seen many portable speakers that sport a better frequency range but we like to decide things based on our ears so let's see what the new VERB is all about.