There is nothing like a well designed speaker to make you fall in love with music over and over again! The ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus is a wireless speaker that is pure magic in today's world where some speakers require 50 watts just to get going!
Designed as a stand up and lay-flat speaker, the ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus has a 22cm long cylindrical body with a circular 10cm wide cross-section and 10cm diameter. The total weight is 1.1 kilograms, making the SoundBank Z8 Plus long cylinder-shaped speaker a sizable and beefy speaker to carry around in your hand.
The user control buttons on the ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker are located on one end of the speaker, while the connection ports and expansion slots are located on the opposite side, all of which are protected by a pop-up rubber grommet that completely seals the ports from dust and water.
Along with the rubber grommet, the ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker has a fabric mesh surrounding its body and sealed control buttons, making the SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker IPX6 waterproof resistant against heavy water splashes and rain. The speaker is not submersible under water though.
There are a total of seven control buttons and two small led lights to indicate charging and current mode, which include bluetooth, wired (aux), stereo (TWS) and two expansion slots that allow you to play audio from a micro SD card and USB flash drive.
Most portable speakers don't feature a USB expansion slot so it's nice to have it though it could be even more useful if the USB slot would also pass-through power to charge external devices like a power bank.
The internal 6600mAh lithium-ion battery can power the Z8 Plus speaker for 18 hours at 60% volume thanks to low power bluetooth connectivity (bluetooth 4.2). Charging it to full from 0% takes 4.5 hours when using a 5V/2A wall charger and 9 hours when using a 5V/1A wall charger. The ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker can only be connected to one device at a time.
The ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker also has two battery-saving modes that are entered automatically should the speaker disconnect and/or music stop playing.
If the speaker loses bluetooth connection, it will automatically power off after 5 minutes. If music isn't played for 5 minutes, the SoundBank Z8 Plus speaker enters stand-by mode which is deactivated by pressing the play/pause button.
Speaking of buttons, they make a click when you press them and have a firm actuation so you have to firmly press each button to operate them. The control buttons include a dedicated Mode button, an EQ button and a TWS button to pair two ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus speakers for wireless stereo sound.
Paring two of these speakers effectively doubles the output power to 40 watts. The EQ (equalizer) lets you choose from three sound effects, including pop, classical and Dynamic Bass Boost (DBB), which emphasizes the bass on low volume.
The volume buttons control the skipping of tracks and you also get a dedicated button for manual bluetooth pairing, answer calls, reject calls and redial the last number. The built-in microphone is good quality and does a good job at picking your voice so callers can clearly hear you during a call.
The ZENBRE SoundBank Z8 Plus horn loaded midrange speaker looks and feels premium, featuring two 57mm speaker drivers side by side, each delivering 10W of power. There is also a 4-inch mid frequency (MF) range and a 120mm subwoofer on the backside for a superb all-around audio sound.
The addition of a horn loaded midrange speaker and subwoofer, means you get dedicated channels for the midrange frequencies and low frequencies (bass), which ultimately means more detailed, cleaner audio.