It’s rare to see wood used in the design of a wireless speaker, but manufacturers should take note of the Tibo Vogue 3 - it's an example of how classy a product can look if it goes down the more traditional hi-fi path.
Not every wireless speaker needs to resemble a child's primary-coloured toy.
More than just a multi-room wireless speaker, the Tibo Vogue 3 is part of what the British company is billing as “the world’s largest range of smart audio”.
Essentially, it’s compatible with the AI platform Alexa and will become friendly with Google Assistant technology later this year, joining the ominous march toward the First World’s “smarthome” future.
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Multi-room
To include Alexa in your multi-room set-up, however, you’ll need one of Tibo’s Choros speakers in your chain. Here, our focus is on the Vogue 3 and multi-room app.
This portable wireless speaker has up to eight hours of battery life. It can be used alone, in stereo or as part of a family - inputs allow for play via wi-fi, Bluetooth, micro-USB or 3.5mm aux socket.
It probably isn’t the kind of speaker you’d leave by the side of a pool or knocking around in your rucksack, but the fact it straddles portable and home multi-room markets is a rare kind of versatility.
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Sound
We start with one speaker playing Tom Vek’s We Have Sound via Tidal. And while the Vogue 3 isn’t the last word in timing or low-end precision, it performs the opening rhythms of C-C (You Set The Fire In Me) with a satisfactory groove.
There’s a good amount of detail here too, setting synthesizers and electric instruments against the acoustic percussion in a decent amount of space without them sounding at all detached.
There’s also an expressiveness that conveys the urgency of tracks such as I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes and the laid-back suave of If You Want.
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Switching to a more intimate presentation of vocals in Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, the Vogue 3 is also able to convey the solitude and vulnerability of this album with a decent grasp of smaller-scale dynamics.
The overall balance, while delivering a lot of bass for a speaker of its size, is fairly even. It uses that low end to add stability rather than boom through what ought to be a delicate performance.
Overall, it’s a worthy showing, though it’s just pipped by the more insightful and composed Audio Pro Addon C5.
Based solely on performance, we’d choose the latter - but that does mean sacrificing portability which, for those seeking ultimate versatility in their multi-room setup, could be a drawback.
There are gains to be heard in the sonic performance of the Vogue 3 when played as a stereo pair. There is an obvious upturn in space and solidity, which becomes a real feather in Tibo’s cap here.
Obviously this doubles the price but, if you were shopping for a multi-room system, there is great benefit in investing in a second Vogue 3 to play them this way.
Unfortunately, it does also unearth a couple of bugs in the Tibo control app. The channels aren’t always synched in terms of volume, and there is sometimes lag in the speakers catching up with the change of a track.
Verdict
There’s much to admire in the Vogue 3, not least in the materials it uses and the quality of its construction. And we'll give Tibo benefit of the doubt (up to a point) with its control app - it may be only an update short of working with real fluidity.
Sonically, we prefer Audio Pro’s Addon range. But here is a rival that, with its portability and Alexa compatibility (when used with a Choros model) will certainly pique the interest of a different kind of multi-room audience.
See all our Tibo reviews
