A tiny speaker that has a lot to say
Bluetooth speakers tend to get a bit of a rough ride in the media, with various reviews stating a lack of bass, distortion, or too little sound. It's fair enough, to some degree; most of the Bluetooth speakers we've come across could easily fill one or more of those descriptions. However, that perception may well change with this Swedish speaker, though it does come at something of a price.
The Audio Pro Addon T3 is a classic looking portable speaker, housed in a tough plastic chassis of varying colours with elements of faux leather and plenty of brass fittings. It's a bookshelf sized device, measuring 115 x 215 x 135mm and weighing a moderate 2.12kg. The front features a large centre grill covering the 3.5" woofer, with two satellite grills either side to the top corners covering the pair of 0.75" textile dome tweeters.
On top there's a retro-stylish faux leather carry handle, secured at either end with a raised brass and finely turned stud. There's more brass on the control console just below the carry strap, where you'll find a set of slightly raised brass buttons for On/Standby, Pair, ВТ, Aux and a pair of volume buttons.
There's a limited set of LEDs above a few of the buttons, detailing the power and current battery level and charging state, as well as a Bluetooth pairing indicator and aux input indicator. Around the back of the Addon T3 there's a figure of eight power port, full sized USB charging port to connect to your phone while you listen to your music collection, and a 3.5mm audio jack for the aux operation. Finally, underneath, there's a screw secured compartment for the rechargeable battery and a pair of large rubberised dome-shaped feet that raise the front of the speaker to an elevated angle - projecting the sound up and out.
Pairing the Addon T3 is certainly easy enough, just power it up with the Bluetooth on your device on and it'll appear in the scanned devices. Alternatively, you can press the Pair button and within twenty seconds it'll appear on your phone or tablet in the same way as most other Bluetooth devices of this kind.
While the design is rather splendid, the proof is in the listening. Thankfully the Addon T3 doesn't disappoint. There's an excellent range of frequencies from such a small unit, with a good level of bass that hits some quite impressive los and a room filling level treble that manages to pick out individual instruments with an extraordinary effect.
The serious audiophile among you may squirm at the lack of equalising, but there's little need for it with the Addon T3 as there's a perfect mix of audio reproduction that's on a par with a far more expensive hi-fi setup.
Added to the glorious sound production is one of the best battery lifespans of any similar speaker we've come across. The documentation states that, at half volume and on a full charge, the battery can last for thirty hours - and at full volume (again from a full charge) it'll last for twelve hours before needing to be plugged back in If you're charging your phone via the USB port then that number will decrease, but in our tests it lasted several hours before we needed to power it up again - and it fully charged our phone, too.
We're extremely impressed with the Audio Pro Addon T3. It's a superb sounding, looking and feature-rich Bluetooth speaker worth every penny of that £165 asking price. David Hayward
A fantastic speaker with superb sound.