SuperTooth DISCO BlueTooth Speaker review

Summer is closer for each day here in Europe, at least that is what I keep telling myself when I freeze on my bike to work. For me summer is sun, beer and music on the beach. The days of the humongous boom boxes is behind us, and god forbid that someone actually picks up a guitar and starts playing. No today we sport smart phones with cool applications for almost any occasion. For the beach there are apps like djay and Reactable for both iPhone and iPad that can turn a portable speaker into a miniature disco. The SuperTooth Disco is a product trying to fill the need for portability, durability and battery power. Some sacrifices have to be made to keep it light, more or less beer proof and able to annoy the neighbours for hours on end.

The specs are not too impressive when reading them off a page on the Internet. 28 watts divided into a 12 Watt Subwoofer and 2×8 Watt Stereo drivers is far less than most of us have for our entertainment systems at home. I have more power even for my computer with some portable speakers from Bose. But those are all what I call installations, and I would not want to take any of my home speakers to the beach or when out camping. 28 watts provide enough power to cover a small room with loud music, and it works well even for a large room at about 30 square metres if you need a simple solution for a party. Outside the spread, and power is decreased significantly. It works well for a small barbecue party, campfire sing-along’s and obnoxious beach antics in smaller groups. For larger parties or outdoor dancing it is not enough by a long shot.

The battery life is really good at almost ten hours if you keep the bass boost off, and volume at about half of full power. The sound is still great, and clear. And even with the bass boost off the unit sports a good overall bass sound. If you want to crank it up, and use the bass boost the battery life drains much quicker. To add time if you really need that extra volume you can always plug in the source using a 3.5 millimetre cable on the back of the unit. To fully charge the SuperTooth it takes about three hours from empty to full. Having a built in rechargeable battery is great as it limits weight and the fact that I tend to forget used batteries inside my electronics.

The design of the SuperTooth is highly functional, and suitable to the intended usage. The surfaces are clean from unnecessary details, and it is easy to clean the unit if someone managed to misplace a pizza or hot dog on it. It comes with a handy cover that you never have to remove. It folds open to reveal the speaker, and a Velcro flap on the back lets you connect charger and line out cable. The limited connection possibilities is not a problem at the beach, but if you want to use it at home for several input devices it gets limited quickly. Something I miss is a dock connector for iPhone/iPod to let me charge or store the source unit straight into the SuperTooth.

Connecting to BlueTooth is easy, but at times I find the unit to be lacking buttons. The on/off button is also the sync BlueTooth button, and pressed too long the unit enters the sync mode. Other than that the controls work really well, and lets me change track within the current playlist and fast forward within a track. The large retro knob for volume is cool, and makes a great connection to the feeling I had when cranking my guitar amp in my youth.

The SuperTooth is an excellent choice when out and about this summer. It offers good battery life, good sound and clean retro design. As long as you take the limitations of sound power depending on size you want to cover you will have a great time with this unit. To me it has been a great computer speaker as well. It fits inside most messenger bags for 15” laptops, and can be a good choice if you need to do presentations and don’t know if there is audio available at all locations. Overall a competent product with a variety of good areas of usage.