Bluesound’s Pulse Mini produces nice sound, meshes with different Bluesound merchandise for multi-room eventualities, and goes nicely past your commonplace air-pusher with the power to play a plethora of file sorts from USB storage and shared folders in your community, along with on-line streaming providers and radio. It helps Bluetooth, in fact, however you may as well add it to your property community with or and not using a cable. 

This $500 speaker is comparatively cheap by boutique audio model requirements, however that’s a good stack of coin for many customers. And for the worth, it ought to ship a greater out-of-box expertise up entrance and be outfitted with higher controls for the lengthy haul.

First-time setup

The Bluesound packaging appears worthy of a $500 speaker, and the speaker itself comes sheathed inside a material bag quite than plastic. Prime shelf, child! Okay, possibly a shelf beneath black velvet, however I’m a house-pour kinda man.

The ethernet and energy cables are present in cardboard pockets that encompass the speaker within the field, which brings me to my first minor gripe—the absence of three.5mm analog and digital optical (TOSlink) cables. There’s a three.5mm-to-optical adapter, however that’s it. This may very well be thought of eco-conscious quite than parsimonious, should you both don’t want them or have spares mendacity round. However that journey again to the shop for a cable is a ache.

Bluesound is a bit stingy with the assistance, too. There’s a quick-setup sheet, nevertheless it just about begins and ends with telling you to plug the speaker into an AC outlet after which obtain the Bluesound app. That may be high quality if there have been complete assist in the app. There isn’t. As a substitute, the app sends you on-line the place you need to wade by a sequence of “generally requested questions,” which could—or may not—let you know what it’s good to know.

The Pulse Mini options Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ethernet, USB, and streams from providers. There’s additionally a cell app and a Internet interface (surf to the gadgets URL after it’s linked to your Wi-Fi or ethernet). A complete consumer’s information is so as.

Sound

Usually, I’d dig into the design and options at this level, however because the Pulse Mini’s sound is what redeems all its peccadilloes, I’ll go to with that first. To be completely trustworthy, I wasn’t in love with the best way Bluesound EQ’d the Pulse Mini out of the field—only a wee bit too thumpy and flat to my older ears. Happily the corporate gives software program treble and bass controls with as much as 6dB of minimize or increase utilized in a really musical style. I used to be capable of dump sufficient bass and add the contact of shimmer that I personally go for.

Conversely, you may tweak it for sufficient thump that even dancing revelers could have little to complain about—in a small room at any price. The 60-watt Pulse Mini is fairly loud, however it’s after all of the “mini” within the lineup. The marginally bigger 80-watt Pulse 2 is probably going the bolder social gathering animal.