Nude Audio Move L Review

• Brand: Nude Audio
• Model: Move L (large)
• RRP: £99.99

Introduction

Many devices now have Bluetooth integrated, as more and more products are becoming connected to smart devices so you can monitor and control nearly everything day to day from the comfort and ease of your own phone. Portable speakers are a great example of this, with batteries becoming smaller, yet more powerful and wireless protocols becoming more efficient and less power hungry, it’s no surprise Ghetto-blasters are nearly extinct.  So today I am going to be taking a look at the new Bluetooth speaker range from a relatively young company called Nude Audio.

Nude Audio product several different Bluetooth speakers with the current product line up called ‘Move’. Within this range they have a Small, Medium and Large speaker, with a wired Small option also. There are all orientated around their portability so when I review one, I have high hopes that they’ll perform well. The particular speaker I will be taking a look at today is the Move L (large). The Move L retails at £99.99 and is the top end of Nude Audio’s speaker range, which they say is amazing quality for the price as they do not spend anything on celebrity endorsements or sponsorship deals.

The Nude Audio Move L has the following features:

Wireless Music
3.0 Bluetooth wireless streaming technology provides a range of up to 10 metres or 30 feet. Good to go with most smartphones, tablets, laptops and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, including the iPhone, iPod and iPad.

Easy Setup
You need to pair your device only once with the Move L, and it takes just a few seconds. The Move L Bluetooth speaker will remember the last paired device and reconnect with the touch of a button.

Wireless Control 
Once a device is paired, you have complete control of your music from the palm of your hand play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, or skip a track using your media player.

Long-Lasting Rechargeable Battery
The built-in high performance Lithium-ion battery can be charged from any USB source and will retain up to 50% of its charge for 3 months. The LED light and notification sounds will also alert you when the speaker is running out of power.

Designed to Move 
A thick, protective silicon sleeve is smooth to the touch, making these wireless speakers feel at home in your hand while also protecting them from knocks or bumps. When travelling, the Move L fits perfectly into a backpack or suitcase.

Compatibility 
Available in grey and mint or charcoal and coral, the Move L by NudeAudio is compatible with smartphones, tablets and other devices that support Bluetooth wireless audio profiles [Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)”] or have a 3.5 mm audio output.

Dimensions
The Move L is lightweight and compact with dimensions of 110x230x78 mm (4.33 ‘9 ‘ 3) and weighing only 940g (2.07 lbs).

Technical Specifications
Audio: 
70 – 75dB
90dB
100 – 20kHz
Two 40mm (1.5″) full range drivers; one 102mm (4″) passive subwoofer

Power: 
Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery for up to 8 hours of battery life
Charge time: 3hrs
3.7v 2200mAh
5v 800mAh

As you can read, the Move L has fairly some fairly impressive features, so now lets take a look.

Packaging

The Nude Audio Move L comes in a relatively plain dark turquoise box, albeit the luminous pink – or “coral” as they call it, cord and triangle in the bottom corner indicating which model it is.

The back of the box contains a brief run down of the features and a chart indicating the range of the speakers.

Inside the box you have the speaker itself, which comes in a grey bag. Alongside the speaker you have a power adaptor with an UK, EU and US plug, and some booklets of warranty information and a quick start guide.

Closer Look

The Move L is a fairly large curved block, with a “coral” cord tied to the right side via a hole in the body of the speaker. This particular model is the charcoal and coral colours, however, you can also purchase it in grey and mint (light green). The entire speaker is covered in a silicon material, offering it some protection from knocks, drops and even offers some water resistance.

The base of the Move L has the usual details you find on electrical goods such as the CE and FC logos.

At one end of the speaker you have the port to charge the device, USB connection and a 3.5mm port to connect to devices without Bluetooth.

The top of the Move L features the buttons to turn on the device, adjust the audio and the Bluetooth button to pair with your device. The green LED indicates the speaker is on and the blue LED will remain constant when the speaker is paired with your device, or flashes if it is available to pair.

Performance

There are a few ways to test the quality of the speaker, with the first method connecting it up to a PC using a 3.5mm cable to then play music directly from the system and the second method using a Bluetooth device to stream the music to the speaker. This way I can use my iPhone to stream the standard mp3’s you can download through the likes of iTunes and other download sites and test next to lossless audio files on my PC.

First up I hooked the Move L to my PC so I could play some lossless audio files to fully test out the speaker. For general comparison I decided to play Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger – Daft Punk as this has a good range. During playback, the first thing I could hear (or not hear should I say) was a good depth in the bass. At points it sounded fairly washed out, but other than that the mids and highs were near perfect to my ears and sound filled the entire room. At full volume, which is pretty damn loud for such a little speaker, there were no audible distortions. I discovered that the lack of a nice rich bass was the same for all the genres of music I played through them, although again, I couldn’t fault the mid to high range. To test the bass issue further, I played back various tones at different frequencies to discover the extent of the bass limitations (the site to test various frequencies and ranges can be found here and is very comprehensive: http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtestsaudiotesttones_index.php). Using the Low Frequency Harmonic Distortion Sound Test it was apparent that anything below 96Hz the speaker could not handle and thus it sounded distorted or was non-existent, which would explain the lack of depth, but hey, this is a small portable little thing, so I wasn’t expecting it to be perfect.

Next, I hooked up the device to my iPhone to test how well it played and opted to play several tunes from different genres. It was incredibly simple to hook up. All I had to do was press the Bluetooth button, and the search for the device on my phone. When selected the phone automatically paired itself and I could then use the speaker. Just like before, the audio quality was pretty decent for the size of the speaker, although again the lack of bass was slightly disappointing. In total, I recorded the battery lasting a whopping 6 and a half hours, although I had the volume on fairly loud, so if I turned this down, it may have been nearer the advertised 8 hours.

Conclusion

It’s great to see companies taking the initiative to make their devices more portable and user friendly, especially without hugely impacting the cost. I’m confident in saying that Nude Audio have made a great example of this with their Move L, as it is a fantastic little speaker with a big sound. The speaker itself is a nice clean and smooth design, however I’m not keen on the exceedingly bright “coral” (AKA pink to us guys) cord, but it is a nice touch that livens up the overall appearance and certainly makes it so you cannot miss it in shops. I was impressed with the simplicity of setting it up also, the one press, then pair, process is incredibly easy so almost anyone could operate it. The battery life also pretty decent as there are not many other speakers out there that could last as long as the Move L did without compromising sound quality.

This leads me on the a more negative point – the bass. Whilst the rest of the range sounded pretty great, the lack of nice deep and rich bass was missing and left a lot of tracks lacking in that wow factor. That said, the Move L is a small portable speaker, so I was not expecting a huge amount in this department. What was left I was impressed with as it filled the room with nice clear mids and highs and made almost any track, which didn’t rely on too much bass, sound great.

Overall the Nude Audio Move L is powerful, yet compact portable speaker, with simple connectivity but impressive sound. The design is very easy on the eyes and the silicon skin means it’ll have some protection from all the moving about. What it lacks in bass, it makes up for in clear, crisp mids and highs so would make a perfect portable audio solution for anyone on the move, without breaking the bank.