While voice controlled smart speakers are all the rage these days. For those that don’t want an artificially intelligent ‘ear’ perpetually listening out for your next command, there’s the Huawei Sound.
While similar in size, this shiny newcomer is more speaker than smart – but not in a bad way. There’s no need for voice detection, an AI brain or microphone array, leaving room for 3 full-range speakers, 2 passive units and one 4-inch subwoofer. The net result is a surprisingly loud Bluetooth speaker with 360 degree sound.
The Huawei Sound is the second model in a collaboration between Huawei and high-end French audio specialist Devialet. The first was the Sound X, released in 2019. While the Huawei Sound reviewed here is smaller and less expensive (AU $329 RRP), it still features many of the audio tuning features found in the Sound X.
Good looks
Huawei Sounds is quite striking with a glossy piano black finish. Moving towards the base, the glossy surface morphs into a black mesh fabric that conceals the 3 full-range speakers. The 4-inch subwoofer resides in the middle of the cylinder, while two opposing passive radiators are positioned on either side. Dimensions are 147mm deep and 186.7mm high, and a surprisingly hefty 2.2 kilogram weight.
All up, the design is unique, premium and versatile. On the downside, the glossy black finish is a fingerprint magnet. As it’s a primarily a wireless speaker controlled through a phone, hopefully you won’t need to touch it much. Huawei provides a smudge cloth just in case.
Connection options
There are a number of ways to stream music to the Huawei Sound. Mainly this involves connecting your phone wirelessly and playing songs from your music library of choice. Keep in mind that since this isn’t a voice controlled smart speaker, there’s no option to ask it to play songs directly.
You can connect by Bluetooth to your Apple or Android smartphone, or use a computer. Otherwise, the Huawei Sound can connect to Wi-Fi (802.11ac) networks. You’ll need to use the Huawei AI Life app to set this up. There’s Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support too, which is a great way to access large music libraries stored on a networked media server.
Lastly, and unlike many wireless-only speakers, there’s a 3.5mm AUX-in jack. While a cable is not included, a hard-wire is a fantastic option for playing HD audio files at the highest quality.
Lossless audio streaming
Most people will stream ‘normal music over Bluetooth from Spotify or Apple Music. However, thanks to the Devialet collaboration, the Huawei Sound is built to stream high-fidelity audio. This is possible with Hi-Res Audio support and Bluetooth 5 using the LDAC codec. So if your phone supports LDAC, as many modern Android smartphones do, you can stream lossless music from services such as Tidal or Amazon Music HD.
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There’s a 3.5mm AUX-in jack -
Tap your (Android) phone on the speaker to share music
While LDAC can transfer data at up to 990kbps, or 3 times faster than standard Bluetooth, it would be good to see Qualcomm’s aptX HD codec included for wider smartphone compatibility. If you have an iPhone however, you won’t be able to stream lossless quality, just regular music.
Using the HUAWEI Sound
Controlling the Huawei Sound is quite simple. Once plugged in, you can adjust the volume, enable mute or access functions with the capacitive buttons on the top. There’s a colourful LED ring that glows different colours depending on what you’re doing. It turns blue when in pairing mode, glows red when muted and displays a mix of blue and orange segments for the volume level. Muting the speaker is as simple as placing your palm on the top of the unit – and is a handy option.
For Android 5.1.1 or later devices, you can take advantage of the Huawei Share feature. Just tap your phone on the speaker, and after a few seconds, it will start playing music, movies or audio books from your phone. Huawei Share uses NFC (Near Field Communication) to make the initial connection, and then automatically pairs via Bluetooth. It’s not supported on iPhones, however. On the downside, even with Bluetooth 5, the Huawei Sound can’t connect to multiple devices at once. However, this is still possible using UPnP over a Wi-Fi network.
The Huawei AI Life app can set audio profiles, update firmware and link to your Wi-Fi network. It must be downloaded from the Huawei App Gallery, not the versions available on Google or Apple’s App Stores. This is confusing as you’d expect all versions to work with the Huawei Sound. However, support will be added in an upcoming app update. In the end, we relied on Bluetooth pairing and the default audio profile for our tests.
How does it sound?
To start, the Huawei Sound is remarkably loud considering its small size. This is thanks to the 4-inch 40 Watt subwoofer setup and two passive radiators. Leveraging Devialet’s patented Push-Push configuration, the two passive radiators reinforce each other to minimise vibrations at high volumes.
Bass response is managed by Devialet’s Speaker Active Matching (SAM) technology. SAM tailors the sound in real time to match the speaker’s characteristics. Huawei says that the unit can reach 90 dB and remain distortion free, which we found to be true when cranking the tunes up to 11.
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You’ll need to find space for the power brick -
Power plugs into the base and runs though a cable groove
As an omni-directional, 360-degree speaker, it doesn’t matter whether it’s placed in a corner or the centre of a room. Sound ‘directionality’ is created by the 3 equally spaced 5 Watt loudspeakers that each cover 120 degrees. Also at work is Devialet’s SPACE soundstage technology. This uses a specialised algorithm to separate the audio signal into direct sound, reflected sound and ambient noise.
Testing 1-2-3
For our test, we played a variety of music from different devices over Bluetooth. When streaming standard quality music from Spotify and Amazon Music, the Huawei Sound produced a pleasing and fairly balanced result, with slightly more emphasis on mid tones than room-shaking bass. Oddly, when we streamed some of Tidal’s Master-quality music (Hi-Res Audio) from an iPhone, the bass dried up and the mids and trebles became uncomfortably sharp. Reverting back to standard audio files produced much better results. This could be due to iPhones’ inability to send large lossless-encoded audio over Bluetooth. We also checked Master quality music streamed via LDAP from a Huawei Mate 20 Pro. Here, it we found much improved fidelity, tonal separation and more perceptible soundstage across the board.
Our testing software revealed an audio profile that’s bass-mid centric, so it will suit most tastes but perhaps not quite those that play just instrumentals and vocals. Mid-bass starts to build from 64Hz to 100Hz, thanks to the two passive radiators. Then we see a strong low-mid range at 200-500Hz, and a gentle decline to 18kHz.
Next, we compared the Huawei to Apple’s HomePod to see how it fared up. While there’s certainly plenty of volume on both, the Huawei’s low-frequency performance felt muddy compared to the HomePod’s richer, pervasive low-end bass.
We compared playback of Bjork’s Hunter from ‘Homogenic’ (1997), which has an eclectic mix of vocals, instruments, and drum cascades moving from left to right. The HomePod demonstrated noticeable separation and distinguished vocals and mids. The Huawei Sound, again, lacked cohesion with low frequency tones to even things out. This could potentially be improved with a bit of tweaking via the app.
It should be mentioned that the HomePod benefits from adaptive computational audio and beam-forming tech, and is about $100 more expensive. Also, Apple’s original HomePod has recently been discontinued, likely because consumers couldn’t stomach the high price tag.
GadgetGuy’s take
Overall, the Huawei Sound is a solid performer. Both Devialet’s audio tuning expertise and the lossless audio support raise the bar at this price point. iPhone users don’t get to experience all of the benefits, but you’ll need listen closely to tell the difference in most occasions. The Huawei Sound looks great too, is solid and certainly loud given its compact dimensions. It’s also easy to connect to Bluetooth, plus the LEDs and capacitive controls are great. While there are many streaming speakers, if you want one that’s a cut above, the Huawei Sound is a great option.
For more about Huawei on GadgetGuy, click here. For more of our speaker articles, click here.
In the box
- HUAWEI Sound x 1
- Power Adapter & Cable x 1 User Guide x 1
- Wiper x 1
- Warranty card x 1
Specifications: HUAWEI Sound
| Price | AU $329 RRP |
| Warranty | 1 year |
| Speakers | 1 x 4 inch Woofer 2 x Passive Units 3 x 1.5 inch Full-Range Speakers |
| Dimensions | 147mm(D)*186.7mm(H) |
| Weight | About 2.2kg |
| Colour | Black |
| Frequency Range | 55hz-40Khz |
| Touch-Buttons | Mute Volume +/- Multifunction |
| Memory | RAM: 512 MB DDR ROM: 8GB FLASH |
| CPU | CPU Model: MediaTek MT8518 CPU(GHZ) 4 core 1.5Ghz |
| Connectivity | WIFI 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4GHz WIFI 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 5GHz Bluetooth 5.0 (LDAC 2.0.65, 96kHz/24bit) UPnP NFC 3.5mm AUX-in jack |
| Power | 24V/2.71A |
| Software | AI Life App |
| Temperature | Operating Temperature:0°C~40°C Storage Temperature:-20°C~+70°C |
To visit the Huawei Sound product page on the Huawei website, click here.
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