Long gone are the days of big, bulky speakers! Today, little speakers can easily out-muscle bigger speakers in every way while looking the business too, without costing hundreds.
One good example of this it's the AUKEY Eclipse, a superb sounding bluetooth speaker with big, detailed sound and low end bass, perfect for listening to all genres of music, as well as audio books.
There is no multiroom or TWS (true wireless stereo) feature which would allow you to pair two Eclipse speakers simultaneously for wireless stereo sound and increase the output power. Having said this, the Eclipse speaker is a true stereo bluetooth portable speaker so you get a left and right speaker channels. Not all bluetooth speakers have built-in stereo drivers even if they have dual drivers.
While the sound separation is noticeable, it is limited by the size of the unit. The Eclipse stereo speakers aren't as effective as the stereo speakers on larger units where there is enough distance between the drivers to prevent the speaker sounding like a mono speaker.
The 20W AUKEY Eclipse speaker driver setup consists of two front firing speakers (10 watts each) and two side-firing passive radiators (one on each side) which deliver clear bass without distortion. There is no speakers on the back of the Eclipse speaker so the audio delivery is not all round; however, the addition of passive radiators on the sides means shaking low frequency bass.
On the back of the AUKEY Eclipse speaker (next to the micro USB charging port) you find a 3.5mm audio jack connection port (marked AUX) for connecting the speaker to a non-Bluetooth sound source. There is no micro SD card slot for playing music off a memory card like you can with the AUKEY SK-M31
On the front of the unit, towards the bottom left and right you find a small led indicator and a good sounding built-in microphone for hands-free calling.
Construction-wise, the AUKEY Eclipse measures 21cm long, 11cm wide and 6.4cm thick, and weighs 800 grams.
It features a rubberized base and sides with a woven fabric mesh surrounding the speaker. The chrome finish on the passive radiators, give the AUKEY Eclipse speaker a premium look. The build quality is on par with the SK-S1 speaker.
The user control buttons are located on top. The buttons are raised and rubberized with a clicky operation. There are a total of five buttons which include a power button, Mode button, play/pause button and volume up and down buttons which also control the skipping of tracks.
You can connect the Eclipse speaker to any Bluetooth source, but only one device at a time, at a range of up to 10m (33ft) via Bluetooth 4.2. The ability to use the Eclipse speaker via a 3.5mm audio cable means you can extend playtime, and improve the overall sound quality because wired always delivers better quality sound than wireless.