To reset your speaker use a paper clip to push the reset switch through the pin hole located underneath the speaker. Battery Life / Charge Time Battery charge time – approximately 3 hours (Beacon 330 may take longer). EQ Setting (Beacon 330 only) Sadly for Roberts, that convenience almost pales into insignificance when reminded of the R-Line S2’s sound quality. Battery life is 15 hours – presumably each circle on the top plate counts for five hours – and recharging the battery to full takes three hours. The Bluetooth classification isn’t revealed in the specs, but we’re assuming its Bluetooth 5.0.

The Beacon 330 offers five EQ modes to choose from: Normal, Classic, Bass Boost, Outdoors and Speech. Press the power button – not too hard or long, or else you’ll turn the speaker off – and press either the volume “+” or “–” buttons once for Classic, twice for Bass Boost and four times for Outdoor mode. The small LED light beneath the Equalizer bar will flash a set number of times to indicate the mode the speaker is in. In the event of a malfunction due to electrostatic discharge, mains power supply transients or short interruptions, reset the product to resume normal operation. If you are not able to perform the reset operation, removal and reconnection of the power supply may be required. If the product is used in an environment with any ESD Immunity / Radiated Immunity / Conducted Immunity disturbance, the product may malfunction. It will automatically recover to normal when the ESD Immunity / Radiated Immunity / Conducted Immunity disturbance is stopped. Recycling Of all the sound profiles available, Normal and Classic are your best bets, with Classic adding a little more size and pushing out vocals more. Outdoor makes it sound bigger but also a little less defined, while Bass Boost makes the shallow bass slightly tighter but the vocals sound reined-in. They all sound fine, but neither mode grabs your attention.

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At this price, you’re better off hedging your bets and rolling with multi-room prodigies like the Sonos Play:3 or Bluesound Pulse Flex instead. Roberts clearly isn’t targeting the house-party crowd with the Beacon 330, instead seeking to please the discerning listener that likely makes up the majority of its consumer base. Even after taking this into account, I still feel the 330 would benefit from a bit of extra oomph across its EQ profiles. If the audio from your connected device stops then the speaker will shut down automatically to save power. The Beacon 330 is a respectable sounding portable speaker with great looks. How much that appeals depends on whether you value style as much as – if not more so – than the audio. You shouldn’t buy the Roberts Beacon 330 if…

Roberts says the material provides benefits to the sound for optimal acoustic transparency. At either end of the cloth are gold trims, with the logo at the bottom featured in a gleaming gold finish. Despite the use of plastic for the casing, it’s an eye-catching look. A DAB Bluetooth radio is essentially a digital radio with the capability of using a bluetooth connection to stream to other digital devices that have music subscription services on them. When you activate the bluetooth function on your DAB radio, you will be invited to pair with another nearby device – such as a smartphone. Do that, and you can then select the music you want to play from your smartphone, using the DAB Bluetooth radio like a set of speakers.

Everything you need to know about Beacon

The sound will change as you step through the options. After a few seconds without button presses the speaker will store the new setting. Five EQ options – Normal, Classic, Bass Boost, Outdoors and Speech – can be cycled through by short-pressing the power button then either the volume up or down button. When you hit the power button, a small LED reveals which mode you’re currently using via a set of distinct flashing patterns. Alternatively, even when the speaker is already connected, a long press on the Bluetooth button will disconnect the current device and make the speaker discoverable so that a new device may connect. The EQ LED will light or flash according to the current setting. The current battery status will also be shown. It gives a better impression of itself with its mid-range and treble performance. The mid-range offers decent amounts of detail and nice form with vocals – Jill Scott’s voice in He Loves Me [Lyzel in E Flat] is given space and clarity, and the same can be said for Sting’s Shape of My Heart and the Stereophonics’ Maybe Tomorrow. Treble is clear, defined and likable, neither bright nor harsh in how it’s described. It’s with slower-paced and relaxed tunes where the Beacon 330 finds its groove.