Bose’s new SoundLink Max has a little handle and big sound

Say what you will about Bose’s more ambitious swings — I appreciate that it takes them in the first place — but today, the company is releasing a new product in a category that it’s always been pretty excellent at: Bluetooth speakers. Bose is more or less supersizing its SoundLink Flex into a new, larger model called the SoundLink Max. Considering how Bose’s acoustic processing has for years squeezed impressive sound out of relatively small hardware, I’m excited to hear what a bigger device is capable of.

Coming May 16th for a price of $399, the new speaker is loaded with three transducers and two custom-designed passive radiators. So right there, you’re already in for quite an improvement over the mono SoundLink Flex.

Now, I can get pretty annoyed when tech companies charge a lot of money for Bluetooth speakers that only do Bluetooth, so I’m glad to see that Bose has outfitted the SoundLink Max with a good-old aux input. A button on the speaker can be assigned either to Spotify Tap or to switch over to whatever’s plugged into the aux jack.

But in reality, most people are going to go wireless more often than not, and the company has thankfully included AptX Adaptive codec support for higher-bitrate streaming than the standard AAC and SBC that the speaker also supports. Battery life is rated at around 20 hours, and like many other portable speakers today, it’s got a USB-C that can be used to juice up your phone when you’re away from an outlet.

Measuring 10.42 inches wide, 4.73 inches high, and 4.13 inches deep, the SoundLink Max weighs just under five pounds, and that was enough for Bose to include a (removable) rope handle. The company is also selling a larger rope carrying strap if you want to toss the speaker over your shoulder. Just like the SoundLink Flex, Bose is offering the Max in either black or light blue, and it’s rated IP67 to withstand the elements.

Stay tuned for impressions of Bose’s SoundLink Max in the next few weeks. New Bluetooth speaker season is upon us. I’ve also been testing Sony’s $500 ULT Field 7 lately, and lemme tell you, that thing is more speaker than most people could possibly need for the warmer months. But it’s also in a completely different size class than the SoundLink Max. I’m hopeful that Bose’s secret sauce will let its latest speaker defy expectations.