Soundcore Boom 2 holds its ground against bigger Motion Boom Plus

Soundcore Boom 2 has started spreading its massive boom in the form of news. The original Motion Boom was also a huge hit, please check the Boom 2 vs Motion Boom article. In that article, it was comparable because of their size, but today the Boom 2 is taking on the Bigger daddy-like Motion Boom Plus, as they are both 80-watt speakers. Within the Boom series, the OG Motion Boom didn’t really have that boomy mid-bass but had some impressive deep bass (50 Hz), which is crazy to achieve in a small speaker. I like that kinda deep bass, didn’t do justice to the name. However, the Motion Boom Plus and now the “new-new” Boom 2, both have massive powerful mid-bass boom - writing about that today.

Inside-the-box Comparison

Even though their cardboard packaging looks pretty similar from the outside, there are significant inside changes. For the Boom 2, it is now foam inserts to hold the speaker inside, but previously it was cardboard/pulp molds for the Motion Boom Plus. The new black foam inserts look cool and add more protection. With the speaker, you will get a user guide and charging cable on both, but only the Motion Boom+ has a branded strap included. The charging cable is Type-C to Type-C on both. Depending on where you’re located, you will probably get a safety card and a happy card. Overall, the new packaging is slightly better in terms of protection. Check out the manuals for Boom 2 and Motion Boom Plus.

Design & Build Analogy

I like many characteristics of Boom 2’s new design, but also there are some design choices that I don’t like. I don’t really like the look of the front metal grille. Sometimes you can make plastic look like metal or metal look like plastic. I think because of the color and coating of the metal grille, it looks a bit cheap and plasticky. But they did a better job this time with the plastic body and raw materials. The Boom 2 doesn’t feel that cheap, hollow or plasticky like the old Motion Boom. It feels solid with decent build quality but not premium. The passive radiators look more bold now, which I like. The back has Soundcore branding - a sign of quality. Overall, with just good design and solid build, the Boom 2 adds more value.

Now let’s talk about Motion Boom Plus - is it a big brother, mommy or daddy - confused me .. !! So, the Motion Boom Plus doesn’t share the updated look of the Boom 2, instead, it has similarities with the OG Motion Boom. But anyway we’re not writing about that today. I think in some ways the Motion Boom+ looks better than Boom 2. I think the black metal grille makes the big one look sexier vs the silver metal grille on the Boom 2, which makes the appearance look like old radios with that kind of metal grilles. However, the body looks more modern with the Boom 2. The Motion Boom+ has a more rounded body vs a boxy-looking body for the new Boom 2. The M Boom+ gives an even cheaper feeling than the Boom 2. Both have plastic body and decent build quality, but Boom 2 provides better in-hand feel. I think overall, more people will prefer the new look of Boom 2 with bold passive radiators.

Configuration Check

The Boom 2 has a unique configuration compared to other speakers. It has 1 big racetrack woofer in the middle and 2 tweeters on the corners of the front side. This setup can process stereo tracks but you don’t get proper stereo with the Boom 2. There will be less separation than a 2-woofer setup. The 2 tweeters will only affect the stereo imaging. New Boom 2 has 2 fancy-looking passive radiators on the lateral sides. They have massive flex/excursion. The back has a USB-C port for charge-in and a USB-A port for power bank feature. The woofer on the Boom 2 is 120 mm x 90 mm in size and the tweeters are 20 mm in diameter each. The power distribution is 50 watts for the single big woofer and 15 watts each for the tweeters. Maximum output power is 80 watts when the speaker is running on battery power.

Motion Boom+ is proper stereo so it has a separate left and right channel. But it's not going to sound like a true stereo sound system because the drivers are close to one another. It has 4 active drivers on the front side including 2 woofers and 2 tweeters. There are two passive radiators in total on both the left and right sides. The woofers are rated at 30 watts each and the tweeters are rated at 10 watts each. So in total, the M Boom+ has a similar 80-watt rating. Motion Boom+ is much bigger and heavier at 2400 grams vs 1700 grams of the Boom 2 speaker. On the back side, there is the USB-C charging port, a USB-A power out port for external device charging and an AUX-in. The Boom 2 doesn’t have AUX-in port - not very flexible. I think the Motion Boom Plus has a much better configuration.

Sound Quality Comparison

Check the Boom 2 vs Motion Boom article to get even more details about the Boom 2 speaker. First, I will discuss about their frequency response. So the Boom 2 has a v-shaped frequency response that shows a huge lift in the low and high-end. I am analyzing it at 60% volume with BassUp turned on. It’s a massive bass on the Boom 2. The bass and treble are more than 6 dB up compared to the mids. So mids are recessed, but lows and highs are boosted significantly. It’s a proper v-shaped frequency response. Now generally we can say that, that’s a party-tuning and good for outdoors as you lose a lot of details in the mids.

The Motion Boom Plus has a lot of fishy-stuff going on with its frequency response. Even though the frequency response is similar to the Boom 2, which is v-shaped on both, the later firmware on the M Boom+ introduced some peaks and dips. There was an added 6 KHz peak, which was removed later. The frequency response in the image has that 6 KHz peak. Check the video from Alan Ross Reviews for more details. So the Motion Boom Plus also has a huge powerful bass and a lift in the high-end. However, the peaks in the highs are at different places on both. They share similar sound signature but they’ll sound different based on tracks.

Low Volume Check - 50%

At lower volumes, the Boom 2 has a massive bass boost going on. It’s more than 2 dB for the mid-bass and more than 4 dB boost in the upper-bass when comparing its track response to the original. Overall, it’s a huge boost for low-level listening. This makes the sound pretty muddy, which makes you lose a lot of details in the midrange. The boost in the high-end helps to provide some clarity and shimmer, but you don’t hear clarity in the mids. However, the vocals pop and have an okay definition with just okay details.

The Motion Boom+ is a bigger speaker with a bigger soundstage and stereo separation, we need to keep that daddy-vibe under consideration. The smaller Boom 2 will always lose to the big one in terms of imaging of sound. But it’s quite impressive how much power you are getting with that smaller form factor now. They have peaks and dips at different places, but the bass is pretty similar. The smaller one even has a little bit more mid-bass vs the bigger one having more upper-bass. I think overall, the Motion Boom Plus has more details and sounds more mature. The Boom 2 is just too powerful and punchy to hear the mids.

Average Volume Check - 70%

At this sort of average 60 - 70% listening volume, the Boom 2 still shows a boost in the bass compared to the original track, but the boost is not that insane now. Also, as you leave the low volume range, the mids will increase more than the bass because of the limitation of power. So, the mids are brought back to life now at 70% volume. The Boom 2 by default has a brighter nature - the treble boost. That continues here but now it sounds more detailed and mature. It is a little bit more balanced now with no lack of clarity - not bass-heavy now. However, the lack of stereo separation is present but instrument separation is a bit better.

The Motion Boom+ is a big boy that handles the situation better. When comparing the M Boom+ with the Boom 2, the bigger one will always win. But the question is, how big is the difference ..? It's not a huge difference for now, maybe there will be more gap at max volume - we will see about that later. So the Motion Boom+ has a bigger bass, especially more upper bass. The mids are at a similar level with small peaks and dips here and there. The stereo separation is a huge deal with the bigger one. It makes a difference in how you perceive the sound. So the Motion Boom Plus is a clear winner here, but both are powerful.

Max Volume Check - 100%

It seems like, the configuration of the Boom 2 has a clear disadvantage here. But from a different angle, one big woofer setup is able to pack massive power in a much smaller body. So you gain some and you also lose some with the Boom 2 - some innovation. The loudness is pretty great, good for small house parties. It’s powerful but the bass doesn’t seem as powerful as lower volumes. So the mids and highs increase but the bass doesn’t increase proportionally towards maximum volume. The Boom 2 sounds bright but not very screamy and scratchy like other (JBL Xtreme 4) even smaller speakers. The sound can definitely be improved to achieve a more balanced pleasant sound. However, Boom 2 is good for outdoors.

I am surprised that the Boom 2 can hold its ground against a much bigger speaker, the Motion Boom Plus. They are pretty much equally loud, fun fact the smaller one is 0.3 LUFS louder than the bigger one. The Motion Boom Plus has -13.9 LUFS vs Boom 2’s -13.6 LUFS in terms of average perceived loudness. So the Boom 2 is slightly louder but that doesn’t mean it sounds better. They’re both limiting bass, on top of that the Boom 2 is getting extra loudness from highs and the Motion Boom Plus is getting loudness from the bass. That makes the bigger one sounding more smooth, mature and enjoyable. Smaller Boom 2 is somewhat very bright depending on tracks. So, the daddy of the Boom series wins for now.

BassUp ON / OFF

The previous comparison was both on BassUp turned on. I think most people will use them with the feature enabled. But I want to talk about some key points when comparing BassUp turned on vs off. It’s a huge difference for the Boom 2, even at max volume. For the Motion Boom+, it is more noticeable at lower to moderate listening volumes and the bass gets increased quite a bit. For the Boom 2, BassUp has different effects at different volumes. So at lower volumes, it increases the bass response but at higher volumes, the highs also get increased.

Custom 9-band EQ

I did analyze them in their BASS mode, however, if the bass is too much you can turn it off. But what if the bass is too low with BassUp off, you then use the custom 9-band eq. The crazy thing about Soundcore speakers is that they have app support with custom 9-band EQ there. So if you don’t like the default sound signature, you can tailor the sound to your personal taste using the EQ sliders. The Boom 2 has a heavy bass boost when BassUp is on. So you can use the custom EQ to bring the bass down a bit. Also, the mids and highs can be changed too - lots of flexibility for 130 USD. The image shows a custom EQ that produces close to flat frequency response. You can tune the Motion Boom Plus too in a similar way.

Features & Battery Check

The new Boom 2 has a lot of cool features. The passive radiators can glow with lots of lighting effects. Also, the new BassUp 2.0 makes a huge impact on the sound. A lot more bassy and louder sound with that enabled, even at max volume. They say it bumps up the power output from 60 to 80 watts. Old BassUp didn’t have much impact on bass at max volume, but now it’s a nice effective upgrade. Soundcore is saying it has a subwoofer and it’s a 2.1 channel setup, which is not correct - the subwoofer is actually a woofer.

Boom 2 has IPX7 rating, which is only waterproof. On the other hand, the Motion Boom+ is IP67 rated, which means both water and dustproof. Bluetooth version is 5.3 on both. They have support for TWS pairing and PartyCast 2.0 to connect 100+ compatible units. Both speakers have the basic SBC codec - no high-end codecs like aptX. The Motion Boom+ has a carrying strap, which I think is a bonus. They both have the Soundcore app support, which is a huge deal as it has a quality 9-band custom eq to tinker the sound.

The Boom 2 has a 37.8 Wh battery pack vs 46.1 Wh pack in the Motion Boom Plus. The Boom 2 is rated for 24 hours playback, which I think is at lower volumes with lights and BassUp turned off. The Motion Boom+ is rated for 20 hours of playback. The Motion Boom+ doesn’t have beat-synced LED lights. Both have a power bank feature. The charge-in is via Type-C at around 5V / 2A and charge-out is via Type-A at around 5V / 1A rate - this info may not be super accurate. They take close to 4 hours to fully charge, this also may vary.

Conclusion | Massive Bass

I really like the Boom 2’s design, just not a fan of the front metal grille. The glowing passive radiators are amazing when they show crazy flex. Both speakers are 80 watts and show crazy power. But the Boom 2 is doing that in a very smaller form factor with lightweight body. At max volume, they’ve similar loudness. The Motion Boom+ offers a bit better bass response at max volume. Also, the bigger speaker has proper stereo with some other advantages that I described earlier based on its configuration. So clearly the bigger speaker wins in terms of sound quality, but without those fancy features. Even the winning margin is not that huge. I think the Boom 2 can hold its ground really well against that big speaker.

So I recommend both speakers, they are great for outdoors out of the box. But need some tuning for indoor low-level listening - use eq in the app. If you’re looking for a powerful modern speaker that has a small footprint, take the Boom 2 without a doubt. There aren’t many that can deliver power like that in a body like that. Don’t even consider looking for the JBL Xtreme 4 - Boom 2 can kick that ass. The Motion Boom+ is only good if you care about stereo separation, soundstage and imaging. 2 Boom 2’s can do the job too. I lean more towards recommending the Boom 2. Check the official pages of Boom 2 and Motion Boom Plus.

IF you're interested in even smaller speakers, check out my Soundcore Motion 300 vs Bose Soundlink Flex article. Both did well in a head-to-head.

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