The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is a portable Bluetooth speaker with a premium design. It's suitable for listening both inside and outside, with an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance to protect it against the elements. It's really customizable, too, with the more basic Outdoor Mode to enhance sound when you're listening in larger and more open spaces, as well as a graphic EQ and presets available in its companion app. Plus, its Adaptive EQ automatically optimizes the sound based on the unique acoustics of your room.
Our Verdict
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is satisfactory for music. This speaker has an Adaptive EQ tool that optimizes the sound based on your room's unique acoustics. With it on, it reproduces a little extra warmth in the bass range and some extra sparkle in the treble, which is ideal for genres with lots of highs and lows, like rock and pop. Still, its graphic EQ and presets allow you to change its sound if you want something different. It also gets loud enough for most rooms, though there's some compression at max volume.
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Lots of sound customization tools.
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Room correction tool.
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Some compression at max volume.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM isn't designed for watching movies, but it's a fair pick if you just want to stream videos on a paired smartphone. Latency is low when paired to iOS devices over Bluetooth, and while it's a little higher on Android devices, you still don't notice lip-synching issues. The speaker reproduces clear dialogue, too, and it brings some punch to the bass. However, it's not as rumbling or as loud as more dedicated home theater speakers.
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Lots of sound customization tools.
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Relatively low latency.
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Only 7.8-hour battery life.
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Some compression at max volume.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is very good for podcasts. This speaker offers a pretty balanced mid-range, so voices reproduce with clarity and accuracy. It gets loud enough to fill most rooms in your home with clear sound, and thanks to its built-in strap, you can move it with you from room to room during longer episodes. If you place it in the center of the room, you get consistent sound from all angles, too, thanks to its 360-degree design.
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Portable design.
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Lots of sound customization tools.
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Only 7.8-hour battery life.
This speaker doesn't support voice assistants.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is good for outdoor use. It's rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, and the manufacturer says it can withstand some drops and falls without issue. This speaker has a solid and sturdy build, and while it's on the larger side, its built-in strap makes it easier to transport. You can even use its Outdoor Mode preset to enhance audio across larger and more open spaces like your backyard. Its battery life ranks on the lower side, though.
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IP67 rating for dust and water resistance.
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Portable design.
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Lots of sound customization tools.
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Only 7.8-hour battery life.
- 7.4 Music
- 6.5 Videos/Movies
- 7.8 Podcasts
- 3.3 Voice Assistant
- 7.7 Outdoors
- Updated May 03, 2024: We've added a comparison between this speaker and the Brane X in Frequency Response Accuracy.
- Updated Oct 11, 2023: Review published.
- Updated Oct 04, 2023: Early access published.
- Updated Sep 28, 2023: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Sep 27, 2023: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Sep 11, 2023: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is available in either Charcoal Black or Cotton White. We tested the Charcoal Black variant, and you can see the label here.
If you encounter another version of this speaker, let us know in the forums.
Compared To Other Speakers
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is a premium speaker positioned between the Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM and the Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM 3 in size and sound quality. It comes with many of the same features as the HYPERBOOM, including an Adaptive EQ room calibration tool to optimize its sound to your room's unique acoustics. It doesn't get as loud, though, and there's more compression at max volume.
See also our recommendations for the best Bluetooth speakers, the best Ultimate Ears speakers, and the best outdoor speakers.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is a more premium alternative to the Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM 3. The EPICBOOM is a larger speaker, and it can bring a more extended low-bass. Also, it gets louder and has an Adaptive EQ room correction tool, which the MEGABOOM lacks. If you want a more portable device, you may prefer the MEGABOOM.
The Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM is a more premium speaker than the Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM. The HYPERBOOM offers better sound quality, especially regarding dynamics, as it can get louder with less compression at max volume. Its battery life is longer-lasting, too, and it has lower latency over Bluetooth. It's larger than the EPICBOOM and not quite as well-suited to outdoor use.
The JBL Boombox 3 is a better choice for music than the Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM. The JBL reproduces a bit more low-bass, so you feel more thump and rumble in the mix. It doesn't get quite as loud but has less compression at max volume. Plus, its battery life lasts longer. The Ultimate Ears has some additional customization tools, like an Adaptive EQ room calibration tool and more preset modes.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is a better speaker than the JBL Xtreme 3. The Ultimate Ears offers a more balanced sound with better directivity, thanks to its 360-degree design. There's even an adaptive EQ: a more premium feature that will adapt the sound profile to suit your room's unique acoustic characteristics. While they're both quite portable and have an IP67 rating against dust and water damage, the Ultimate Ears is slightly better built. That said, the JBL has the edge when it comes to continuous battery life, and you can pair up to two devices with it at one time, which is great for sharing DJ duties.
The Sony SRS-XG300 and the Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM each have different strengths. The Sony has a boombox-style design, and it lets you pair with voice assistants from your smartphone. Its battery life is longer-lasting, too. However, its sound quality isn't as good as the Ultimate Ears, which has a better soundstage. Plus, the Ultimate Ears has more sound customization tools, like a room correction feature called Adaptive EQ.
Test Results
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is a stylish speaker with a minimalist design. There are two large volume buttons on the front of the speaker, similar to the Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM 3. It's sleek enough to blend in with your home decor and rugged enough to take outdoors.
The Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM is pretty portable. It's between the Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM 3 and the Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM in terms of size, but you can still carry it in one hand thanks to its built-in strap. However, the strap can fall out of your hands, especially if you have smaller hands.
The speaker's build quality is excellent. It's sturdy and well-built, with a well-knit mesh fabric wrapping that doesn't seem prone to rips or tears. It's also rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, so it can withstand some exposure to the elements. According to the manufacturer, the rubber base contributes to the speaker's ability to withstand drops of up to one meter. There's also a cover for the USB-C charging port with a tight seal, which is nice.
The controls are clearly marked and easy to use. They offer good feedback, too, with audible cues when you turn the speaker on/off, activate Bluetooth pairing, and connect to a device. Plus, three LED lights about the volume button give a rough estimate of the battery level. There's feedback for max volume and when the speaker's battery is low. However, there's no audible feedback when you switch to Outdoor Mode, so you're limited to the LED light signals to keep track of that.
- Magic button: Tap once to play/pause, twice to skip a track, or three times to go back to a previous track. Hold to play a preset playlist, which you can set up in the Ultimate Ears app.
- Outdoor button: This tree-shaped button lets you activate Outdoor Mode, which offers a more expansive sound for when you're listening outdoors.
- Bluetooth button: Press to enter Bluetooth pairing mode.
- User manual
- USB-C to USB-C charging cable (108 cm / 3.54 ft)
- Ultimate Ears EPICBOOM speaker
This speaker has a decent stereo frequency response. While it doesn't have quite as much low-end rumble as the Brane X, it reproduces a little extra warmth in the high bass, which slightly muddies voices and lead instruments as it carries into the mids. There's a little extra brightness in the treble, too. You can always switch up its sound with its graphic EQ and presets in the Ultimate Ears app, too.
This speaker has a room calibration tool called Adaptive EQ that automatically adjusts the speaker's sound based on the unique acoustics of your space. We tested the speaker with this feature turned on. We didn't turn on any of the preset EQ modes, though. If you want to see a comparison of the different presets, take a look at the graph here.
This stereo speaker has an excellent soundstage. Thanks to its 360-degree design, it can reproduce consistent audio from all angles.
This speaker gets loud, though not as loud as the Ultimate Ears HYPERBOOM. There's a little more compression when you push it to max volume, too, which impacts the clarity of audio reproduction.
The manufacturer advertises a battery life of seventeen hours, though the speaker only lasted over seven hours in our tests. Battery life can vary depending on your usage habits, which may contribute to this discrepancy. The charge time isn't too long, and there's also a power-saving feature on hand to help conserve battery life.
The Ultimate Ears app is a handy way to control the speaker from your phone. It lets you access lots of different features, like a graphic EQ and presets, which are available as long as you're in Indoor Mode. You can also set a preset playlist from compatible music apps like Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. Plus, you can set alarms and pair the speaker with other compatible devices from the manufacturer. The Sticky PartyUp feature even lets you group multiple speakers that automatically go into Party Mode when you turn them on, so you don't need to group them together each time you use them. You can see a video of the app here.
This Bluetooth-compatible speaker is easy to pair with your devices. If you have an Android 8.0 device or higher, you can use NFC pairing to connect in no time at all. The manufacturer says you can pair it with up to two devices at a time, but during our tests, it disconnected the first device when we attempted to connect to a second one. Over iOS devices, latency falls within good limits, and while it's a little higher with Android devices, you still aren't likely to encounter lip-synching issues. Some apps compensate for latency differently, though.