EarFun UBOOM L Review: This Awesome Portable Bluetooth Speaker Is A Steal At $79 (Or Less)!

Ed. Note: The EarFun UBOOM L currently has a 15% off coupon on their Amazon product page, bringing the price down to $68…that’s an amazing deal

You could be forgiven if you’ve never heard of EarFun, as they don’t do a whole lot of advertising or retail product placement. That said, regarding their true wireless earbuds (several of which I have reviewed), they have been racking up tons of awards and accolades, and I can attest to their outstanding quality.

This time around, I’m looking at something different from EarFun, and that would be one of their portable Bluetooth speakers. I don’t review a lot of this stuff, but the folks over in their marketing department said they thought I would love their new speaker, the $79 UBOOM L. I have to admit they piqued my curiosity with that statement, so I asked them to send me one.

Portable speakers are pretty cool for when you want to take some tunes to the park or any other outdoor activity, and this speaker, which is on the larger side, is made to play your music loud with good bass response. For a speaker that measures almost eight inches across with four “speakers,” the price seems to be right.

Build/Features

As I removed the UBOOM L from the box, I was greeted by the solid build quality I’ve come to expect from EarFun. It has good weight and a durable plastic frame. In addition, the metal mesh covering the outside of the speaker is nice and sturdy, with no discomfiting flex.

It has an IP67 waterproof rating, which means It’s good for use at the beach or around the pool, and It’s also made to float just in case someone drops it in the deep end. You can even rinse it off if it gets caked up with sand.

Inside the UBOOM L are two 55mm full-range drivers (powered by a 28W amp) and two passive bass radiators for big sound, and the company says they are tuned by Oluv, a reviewer/influencer with 176k subscribers on YouTube.

On the back of the speaker is a watertight port with a USB-C charging connection (rated for 16 hours playback per 4-hour charge) and a 3.5mm aux port for plugging in a wired source. On the bottom of the speaker are rubber feet to keep the speaker from slipping.

On the top of the speaker are the control buttons, including a power button, Bluetooth pairing button, and play button, along with separate volume up/down buttons. There’s also a button for switching between the outdoor/indoor DSP modes, with the outdoor mode making the speaker sound bigger with a wider soundstage. Additionally, four LEDs above the row of buttons display the battery level.

Finally, the UBOOM L has a microphone on top, so you can use it as a speakerphone. All you have to do is press the play button when a call comes in, and you are then connected to the caller.

Wireless connections are handled via Bluetooth 5.0 for quick and stable pairing to the source of your choice, and if you have two UBOOM L speakers, you can connect them to each other wirelessly and play them as a stereo pair. Unfortunately, I only had one speaker, so I couldn’t try this myself.

Listening To The EarFun UBOOM L

As a two-channel audio guy, I always have to temper my expectations when listening to a “little” speaker like the UBOOM L. But this time, with the UBOOM, I had to temper them a little less. While most portable Bluetooth speakers are either “Bass Cannons” or thin to the point of boredom, this speaker treads a nice middle ground.

The UBOOM L’s bass is deep without being too boomy, which allows the clear midrange to shine through. There is a fair bit of roll off at the very top, which I expect from full-range drivers, but there’s still enough detail to make even audiophile recordings sound interesting.

Listening to Beyonce’s dance track “Cuff It”, the Bass drove the rhythm nicely, and at ordinary listening levels, the vocals sounded very clean. I didn’t feel like I was missing much of the song as you do with other portable speakers. Of course, being a single speaker, I didn’t hear a lot of stereo separation, but if that’s a big deal to you, you can buy another one and use them in stereo mode.

Following my initial sound tests, I also tried listening to the UBOOM L in the Outdoor DSP mode. In this mode, I found the sound to be more spacious and controlled, plus the low end was a little tighter. I actually preferred this mode even indoors, as the soundstage was wider, and I thought the sound was a touch clearer, probably due to the reduced Bass quantity.

In either mode, this speaker will play loud enough to make your head nod vigorously on your next trip to the beach.

On the other hand, while I really loved the UBOOM L’s sound, all wasn’t perfect. Things got a little messy and congested at the top of the volume range, which wasn’t the end of the world since I rarely turned it up that loud. Also, as I said, this speaker lacks a bit of treble detail at the very top of the audioband, which again wasn’t a huge deal to me since the midrange was handled so well.

Additionally, you’re also missing a support app for EQ or firmware updates, but I would gladly forego this at the price.

The Wrap Up

So at the end of the day, I found the EarFun UBOOM L to be an excellent speaker overall. It’s a rugged, well-designed speaker that provides features (like aux input, four drive units, or speakerphone) not found on many speakers that cost almost twice the price. On top of this, it plays loud and sounds really good! I can’t find much bad to say about it other than it has a little distortion at volume levels you have no business listening at, and there’s no customizable EQ, which isn’t really necessary since it’s tuned so well. For $79 (sometimes even cheaper on sale), this speaker is a steal!

Buy It If:

• You like a crisp, balanced sound with controlled bass
• If you need a rugged, waterproof speaker
• If you need a speaker with an aux input

Don’t Buy It If:

• If you need a speaker that’s extra small or light
• If you like a speaker with earth-shaking bass
• If you want a speaker with app-based EQ

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