We make a lot of claims about our sound quality being “lossless”, but today we’re going to see what exactly our beta testers are saying about our sound quality in the practical sense. This will be a fully honest review of our sound quality so that you know exactly what you’re getting from our Indiegogo launch! We may post a part 2 to this post this summer once we’ve had even more testers.
Starting with the Numbers
It’s hard to quantify audio quality – even with technical specifications! So we asked our beta testers a few qualitative and quantitative questions about how our speaker sounds and how it compares to other speakers in their homes. Here are the results by the numbers:
- 57% of testers scored us at a 4 or 5 out of 5
- 0% scored us lower than a 3
- 100% of all testers who had an Echo Dot or Google Home rated us as better sounding
- Out of all testers who had Bluetooth speakers within +/- 50% of the retail price of Dio Node, only 1 rated Dio Node as worse sounding
- However, all testers agreed that Dio Node does not sound as good as Sonos or other more expensive speaker models
Some Quotes
On the qualitative side, here are some actual quotes that our beta testers gave. We made sure to source testers from a variety of listeners, including hardcore audiophiles and casual listeners of all ages. We’ve categorized them with personas instead of identifying information like their names, but rest assured that these are all actual people:
- The Young Professional: The sound quality is superior to most other speakers on the market so I get to enjoy the crisp, clear sound at high volumes. Especially great quality for the small size.
- The Smart Home Enthusiast: I would say it is in the middle. It sounded better than Amazon Alexa, but not as good as Sonos. There was not as much bass as Sonos had.
- The Middle-Aged Homeowner: Better than the Google mini that is currently in my kitchen: not nearly as good sound as the Bose [SoundLink Mini II] I have in my office.
- The Acoustics Guy: 1. compressed audio sounded good, some falloff <200Hz & >10kHz as expected due to streams. Any way to adjust EQ of stream (built in apple EQ or 3rd party would be good) 2. overall audio was good- felt a tad heavy along the 270Hz-600Hz range without upper harmonics to support (I.E. singing a 196Hz G3 harmonizes a G4 at 392Hz & G5 @ 784Hz. Fidelity-wise, they’re on par with a couple of my Bluetooth speakers, and are very adequate for many situations and spaces.
- My buddy Jeshua: Oh good it actually sounds good.
(That last one wasn’t a tester, but thought it was a fun mention).
Overall
So at the end of the day, you can rest assured that Dio Node does meet a very solid benchmark for sound quality, beating the cheaper Bluetooth and Google/Amazon smart speakers out there. But if you’re looking for immersive, next-level sound quality, then we highly recommend investing in the acoustically superior (but more expensive) speakers out there like Sonos. Hope this helps clear things up!
It would be helpful to see a comparison of the Dio Node and the Apple Homepod Mini. Thanks!