Bluesound Pulse Flex 2i
£299/$349
COMPETITION IS HOTTING UP in the audio industry with several new Bluetooth speakers reaching a plateau of excellence. And if our favourite still remains the Denon Home 150 (reviewed in issue 211), then Bluesound’s Pulse Flex 2i comes in at a very close second.
The resonant
Available in matte black or white, the
Pulse Flex 2i speaker is a compact, stylish unit measuring 125 x 183 x 100mm that can be connected to via Airplay 2, aptx 4.1 Bluetooth, Wi-fi or Ethernet.
Its single-mould cabinet contains a 25W direct digital amplifier, a 102mm woofer and a 25mm tweeter that help it to produce a rich and resonant sound.
On top of the speaker is a light-up panel consisting of playback controls, volume adjustment and five numbered presets. These presets can include a radio station, your favourite music streaming services or a playlist and they can be applied via the BLUOS Controller app. This free download can also be used to set up and name your speaker and adjust the audio settings to suit the room you are placing it in. Naturally, the Pulse Flex 2i can be used in a multi-room setup with other Bluesound speakers or two of them can slot into a wireless surround sound setup with the Pulse Soundbar 2i or Powernode 2i. It’s a very flexible piece of kit, but even as a standalone wireless boom box it sounds mightily impressive.
By your command
With full support for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, the Pulse
Flex 2i is easy to command with your voice, and it can connect to all of the popular streaming services, including Spotify, Amazon Music, TIDAL, Deezer and Highresaudio (VAULT required). Ports on the back of the speaker also allow you to connect via Micro USB, “While it sounds brilliant, you never forget that what you’re hearing is coming from this titchy unit…” USB type-a and optical, and if you stream your music via USB then MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG, WMA-L, ALAC and OPUS formats are supported as well as the hi-res FLAC, MQA, WAV and AIFF formats. It appears to tick all of the right boxes.
Let loose
Had we reviewed the Pulse Flex 2i before the Denon Home 150 then this speaker would have, quite probably, sent us to our keyboards to machine-gun type all manner of gushing superlatives. However, when compared side by side, Denon’s wireless speaker achieves far greater levels of sound projection. While Bluesound’s speaker sounds brilliant and can be made very loud, you never forget that what you’re hearing is coming from this titchy unit – the audio always sounds slightly contained. With the Denon Home 150 though, the audio is really let loose at the higher end of the volume scale and anyone walking into its vicinity wouldn’t be able to instantly trace the huge sound back to that speaker. And if they could they would never believe it.