Free the Aves Digital Diamond Bluetooth speaker from its cardboard restraints and first impressions are extremely promising.
Aves Digital Diamond review: Design
Curved chassis? Check. Attractive glossy white finish? Check. Credit card-sized remote control? Check. Inputs and outputs are limited to a 3.5mm socket in each case, but this par for the course for a lot of mains-powered speakers.
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The presence of only three buttons for power and volume up/down help to give a minimalist appearance, but they also allude to the fact that there’s no built-in mic or controls for hands-free phone calls.
Power the Diamond up and the light at the bottom of the speaker flashes blue to instruct you it’s ready to pair with your source device. Once done, it switches to solid blue and you’re good to go.
Aves Digital Diamond review: Sound
Out of the box, there’s a decent amount of scale and power to be had, especially when you switch from listening to smaller, portable Bluetooth speakers. Spin Eminem’s Without Me, and the Diamond doesn’t have trouble filling a medium-sized room.
There’s a decent amount of bass weight and reinforcement too, but the track sounds unsettled. Timing is off and the louder you crank the volume, the more easily the sound starts to unravel: there’s a lack of balance to it that leaves you either pondering over the disjointed bass or the splashy treble.
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It’s worth playing around with the five different EQ settings provided on the remote control, though.
In our opinion Flat sounds a little unexciting and compressed; Rock gives too much of a boost across the board, especially bass; and Pop robs music of low frequencies, instead bizarrely choosing to emphasize mids and highs.
Jazz seems to boost to lows, while Classical seems to give the best boost balance, if you’re intent on using it. We certainly wouldn’t engage X-Bass as this, combined with the Flat setting, just exacerbates any bass issue.
Aves Digital Diamond review: Verdict
The Aves Digital Diamond looks the part, but sonically it doesn’t have the polish or sparkle of the best speakers at its price.
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