It’s a crowded field, that field of Bluetooth speakers. Last year’s SOL Republic Deck stood out for a couple of reasons: It had a party mode that let you and your friends troll one another by hijacking the speaker and playlist. It also got loud. Really loud.
But the original Deck disappointed when it came to bass performance. The speaker was admirably distortion-free at high volumes, but it lacked that low-end punch. The new Deck Ultra aims to amend that situation by taking the first Deck’s features, multiplying them by two, and boosting the bass by packing everything into a thicker body.
According to SOL Republic, the new Deck Ultra gets twice as loud as the first-gen speaker, and also has an extended Bluetooth range of 450 feet. One of the best features of the Deck series is its input/output capabilities, which lets you use the speaker as a Bluetooth receiver of sorts. It’ll stream music as a pass-through to any component connected to it with a 3.5mm cable. The new Deck’s battery life has also been doubled up to 22 hours per charge.
Heist Mode, the aforementioned friend-trolling party setting, is also still in the mix. It lets five people connect to the Deck Ultra simultaneously and take turns playing DJ (or interrupt whatever someone else is playing). There’s an NFC chip embedded in the top of the speaker to ease Bluetooth pairing, and you can also connect a device physically via a 3.5mm cable.
The louder, longer-life, and bass-heavier Deck Ultra is also cheaper than the original speaker. It’s available immediately in two color schemes---gunmetal gray and light blue---for $150.
