Portable speakers

Two winners in this category — we decided we simply couldn’t recognise one but not the other. Both are high-value Bluetooth speakers, the Envaya being $319, wider and nearly three times as high as the Bose, with a fairly enormous power brick to plug in when on mains power, and a USB-A socket which can charge your smart device as it plays. But whip away the mains power and the Envaya keeps playing for around 10 hours thanks to its internal batteries. The unit itself can lie flat on its back or, more usefully, stand upright with a very natty pinchto-open ‘kick’ stand. For the fashion-conscious, the Denon also has an unusual bit of built-in customisation. The main unit comes in a choice of black or white, but each model arrives with a choice of four cloth covers to go under the grille, to change the colour which shows through the holes to your choice of ‘lunar’, ‘fandango’, ‘sunset’ or ‘indigo’ (for those not au fait with paint chart descriptors that’s grey, pink, orange or blue).

In the sound stakes the size allows its performance to be larger, deeper and more natural, with stereo 52mm drivers and a single 100mm passive radiator in the middle. Basswise, while the Bose presents a lifted impressive upper bass, the Denon feels more like it’s managing an unforced lower bass; deeper, more real. It also includes the higher-quality apt-X Bluetooth codec, should you have an Android device which supports it (Denon calls aptX “CD quality”; it isn’t), and NFC pairing too. It’s a great little speaker. More info: www.qualifi.com.au