Gadgetory

in a heavily saturated portable wireless speaker market it's tough to take a look at any new product and say wow this is really more than a Bluetooth speaker at a glance the IRA on deck looks kind of just like a black and orange e gold color drawer - with a new ring on top however I know to expect much more as creative a claim that this is the most intelligent speaker on the planet with twice the power of the original roar and twenty hours battery life now amazingly the frontal lobe of this mobile operation is the same sound blaster a double x1 digital audio processor that's found in the creative sbx family of sound cards and speakers meaning we've got some serious high-quality digital processing onboard this equipment allows the eyeball to do fancy things like make real-time adjustments to the sound expand and partially rebuild compress audio and deliver optimized low-end of various volume levels on top of this it's all programmable creative or even providing a software dev kit that allows artists and producers to provide listeners with a small file that can customize the irods audio processing and performance at the lowest level pretty amazing this high in sounds then delivered to its environment through a set of creatives all new drivers up front there's two lightweight one and a half inch mid and high range drivers and then handling the low end is the dedicated upwards facing two and three-quarter inch sub woofer driver rounding out the sound delivery are the two passive radiator drivers found at each end of the speaker's similar to its predecessors these new drivers use neodymium technology with more efficient magnets which help keep the iris size down this is all in case in the pneumonic oak or one-piece endoskeletal chasis to ensure there's no I wanted vibrations or shaking impressively all this audio Hardware amounts to a package of the way isn't it just 1.1 kilos or two-and-a-half pounds making a very portable unit overall to me the IRA really does look like a future iteration of the raw and raw to before it it's like the porch to the predecessors Volkswagens the overall shape is rather similar but there are some distinct differences probably most notably the passive radiator panels that once were have now been replaced with a slightly receded speaker grille that matches the front and top of the speaker this means that you don't get that cool visual effect during heavy bass but it looks nice overall I think we can live without it on top the uninterrupted speaker grille has been saddled with a large black ring that allows easy and FC pairing and it lets us know that it's designed by creative to control buttons at the top rear have been upgraded to adaptive and contact sensitive intelligent touch controls meaning depending on the selected mode of the speaker the applicable buttons will light up and offer their functions first is an actual pressable power and bluetooth pairing button followed by mode switch full playback controls and a record button the Royal button is next followed by mic beam mic mute phone dial and end and finally the volume controls all of these touch buttons are responsive and work rather well they certainly make the entire device look and feel more premium to completing the top of the device is a subtle hot blow LED display that shows you what's happening on the device at the time along with dual array microphones for recording and phone calls around the back you find the remaining inputs and outputs at the left is the power input followed by the USB audio port next to that we have the micro SD card slot and a toggle for shuffling or simply looping the media on it there's a three and a half millimeter audio in Jack and optical import and finally a one-and-a-half amp USB charging port for charging other devices such as your smartphone it's cool to have all these options for import especially the microSD card and optical jack in my opinion the overall look and style of the IRA is great it's stylish and professional and Friends that I showed the speaker to were immediately impressed the IRA manages to look as premium as it is it only comes in one color way at this stage and it's a colorway that I'm honestly a big fan of the deep blacks are sleek and the metallic orange features really set the design off the red featurettes are the final fierce touch on an all-around impressive design the self-proclaimed smarter speaker in the world comes with the wealth of features as it expect and customization is the name of the game most of the control and interaction is handled by the AI ROI Android and iOS apps we were able to do a multitude of interesting things first there's a group of pre-configured profiles to suit audio situations such as game on for gaming audio file blitz but unmodified music Cinemania for movies and a couple of others using the equalizer function you can also quickly slide bass and Trevor levels up and down to suit your audio in your personal preference on the flyer with the immersion function you can control how directional the sound spread is which I don't find too useful personally there's a dialog + function that improves speech clarity in particular for podcast movies and games to the smart volume menu offers two pretty cool functions also auto mode makes sure that playback is always at a consistent volume even at low levels and night mode makes midnight movies less disruptive to your household by reducing the impact of explosions and other loud events but also keeping dialogue and other sounds of an audible level there's also a variety of add-ons you can install through the IRA app too with these you can enable functionalities such as an alarm clock a metronome a jukebox and more creative has a software development kit the eye roll - that will hopefully lead to some talented developers creating some pretty cool apps and add-ons for IRA users quite interestingly the IRA has its own PA function so long as you opted for the extra IRA or mic which is available for 80 US dollars the mic is small light and can conveniently clip onto your shirt or pocket easily you can also connect an external mic through a little input jack on the bottom of the mic - if you've got another mic that you want to wirelessly transmit to the speaker the mic functionality doesn't end there either there's a line import - so you can play music through the mic wirelessly to the speaker and lastly port wise is the micro USB charging port the face of the mic features speaker volume controls mic sensitivity controls and finally the emerg button the battery in the mic should last 10 hours and you also get a little foam windscreen to plug onto the top of the mic this cleverly stays put with a small magnet performance-wise the mic was pretty cool I did have some feedback issues if I was too close to the speaker however and I could see this being a potential issue if you're going to use it to make your presentation for example in some ways this PA function is a really cool feature but I do struggle to see situations where I personally find it very useful it is fun to mess around with and with the emot-- button you can put your voice through a variety of pretty funny filters including chipmunk orc alien emo and more if you're into karaoke then you might have fun with the mark but in terms of using it as a hey the speaker is not really loud enough to cover a large area more than most people could just yell instead the ten meter range of the mark means you can't really use it to communicate from afar either for me the best use I can think over the PA function was to hide the speaker behind the couch or under the bed and prank people with a chipmunk voice funny a couple of times but maybe not worth the $80.00 however a separate app named remote assistant allows you to access and control media stored on the micro SD card connected to the speaker itself this is pretty nifty as before your limiters are simply the media playback buttons on the speaker itself with no ability to see track names select individual songs or see what's playing next in terms of the SD card you can also record your voice to it directly and access these recordings through the app - now let's talk about the sound performance as mentioned the IRA features five drivers powered by one amp to one and a half inch front-facing drivers handle the majority of the mids and highs and powered by separate amp is a two and three-quarter inch upwards facing driver that handles most of the low range additionally to passive sideways facing drivers help deliver more bass and more spread of sound admittedly I haven't tested a lot of Bluetooth speakers in this sort of price range however I can comfortably say the I row is the best portable speaker I've ever heard the sound produced is nice and even with a good spread amongst lows mids and highs and the sound dispersion is excellent you don't need to be sitting in the exact right spot in the room to get the right sound above around 75% volume the low-end sound becomes a bit lacking but having said that this is a very loud speaker and the high quality sound lasts into much higher volumes than you'd expect from a speaker of this size one thing we didn't have on hand to test was the eyebrow Rock an external sub woofer the IROC can quickly and easily dock onto through a connector on the bottom of the device this is a cool option to have and I can imagine users leaving the subwoofer in their living room and docking the IRA for added bass and full-bodied sound for movies and music in particular the eye-roll packs a mighty battery inside to 9,000 milliamp hours will give you up to 20 hours of play time depending on volume and mode and you can also charge your phone or the I roll mic for example from a - as mentioned all-in-all the IRA is a pretty amazing piece of hardware on the back of the sound quality and appearance alone it was an absolute pleasure to use and I was very keen to show it off to everyone in anyone with in earshot the functionality of the Iero is unprecedented as far as I know and the ability to customize the sound and more through the mobile apps is really quite cool the eyebrow is listed on creators website for three hundred and seven US dollars and six hundred dollars in Australia so it's far from cheap this is not the speaker for the non discerning listener that just wants a quick sound solution however it is the solution for the audio enthusiast wants a wealth of customization an exceptional digital audio processing and their fingertips so is the eyebrow a Bluetooth speaker you'll be considering why why not let me know in the comments or an F format Hardware on box comm thanks for tuning in for another product review I look forward to seeing you next time