Miniature Irish speaker projects some powerful audio

Irish audio company OneSonic is back with a new portable speaker, the Megamaus. This miniature speaker will not only project some powerful audio, it will also act as a hands-free device for your calls, or as an external speaker for your streaming movie audio.

The small cylindrical speaker is relatively fuss free. Getting set up is a process that takes less than a minute; there is no app to mess about with, just a couple of button presses and you are ready to go.

Controls are equally straightforward. The fabric-covered speaker grills cover most of the sides, with some space carved out for the controls. On one side, you have power, playback controls and a covered USB C charging port and 3.5mm aux connection, along with a micro SD card slot that allows you to play music without a Bluetooth connection. The other has two large + and – symbols for volume.

The ring at the top bears the company’s branding, and both ends have a light that changes according to the speaker’s status – pulsing white when it is trying to connect to a device, and solid white once the connection is established.

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The play/pause button acts as a multifunction button. For music, it will play or pause tracks. If you are connected to your phone via Bluetooth and there is an incoming call, the button will answer the call, or hang it up when you are done. A long press will reject an incoming call, a double press will redial the last call. You can also use it to clear pairing information from the speaker.

The Megamaus has a built-in rechargeable battery that lets you take it on the move. At 10 hours of play time on average, you shouldn’t have to fall back on a power cord but, if you do, the ubiquitous USB C connection will see you right.

Overall, the audio on the Megamaus is impressive. For the size of the speaker, it punches above its weight. The level of volume you can get out is surprising, and there is no distortion even at the highest volume setting.

Bass seems good, although your source material will be the deal breaker here. I encountered some compression on streaming services that shrank the bass a bit, although playing the same track from YouTube fared a little better. It might take some tweaking of the EQ settings to hit a level that you like.

Like other OneSonic speakers, if you have two of these speakers, you can set them up for wireless stereo sound, so they will act as a left and right speaker. It’s easy to do: simply hold the pulse button on each speaker simultaneously for two seconds. You will hear a beep and that’s it, you are ready to go.

You don’t have to be connected to the second speaker over Bluetooth either; the second speaker will simply piggyback on the original one’s connection to your devices.

The effect is quite good. A test of the left and right speakers showed the OneSonic devices performed as expected, and if you throw in the high definition audio support, it adds to the overall experience.

Good

Great audio, especially considering the size of the speaker, and the size makes the speaker very portable. The speaker itself feels sturdy without having too much bulk or weight.

Setting up the speaker was simple, as was the linking process to turn it into true wireless stereo speaker.

Bad

It took a bit of tweaking to get the bass level just right, and a lot will hinge on your choice of source audio.

Everything else

Battery life is decent. You’ll get about 10 hours out of a full charge, less if you like to listen at high volumes, or if you use the speaker as a hands-free device. But a full charge takes only three hours so you aren’t out of action for long.

The device is IPX7 rated, so it can deal with some outdoor use in Ireland, although dust may be an issue.

The verdict

A compact speaker that doesn’t scrimp on the sound quality – plus it’s Irish.