While many audio companies typically focus on portability or style, Creative has simply tried to cram as many features into its Roar line of Bluetooth speakers as possible. The new Creative iRoar is larger and more powerful than the Sound Blaster Roar or the Roar 2 (previous Roar speakers were Sound Blaster-branded). It's also much more expensive at $369.99. But this is the easily the most advanced Roar yet, and it puts out some of the best sound we've heard from a portable Bluetooth speaker. While audio performance alone is good enough to justify the price, a slew of features and the addition of an SDK for app development make the iRoar incredibly appealing to enterprising audiophile gadgeteers, and earn it our Editors' Choice.

Design

The iRoar is significantly larger and heavier than previous Roar speakers, measuring 2.2 by 8.8 by 4.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 2.5 pounds. It's almost entirely black, with copper-colored edges around the left and right panels. The front and sides are covered with metal grilles, and an additional, circular grille sits inside a black ring on the otherwise solid plastic top panel. The back panel holds the iRoar's various ports, which include micro USB, 3.5mm, and optical inputs for audio, a full-size USB port for charging mobile devices, a microSD card slot with a Shuffle/Loop switch for the built-in media player, and a separate power connector port. Unlike the UE Boom 2 and some other portable Bluetooth speakers, the iRoar isn't rugged or weather-resistant, which is a bit surprising given how many other feature boxes it check off.

The iRoar eschews the physical controls of its predecessors in favor of a capacitive touch bar with LED-backlit symbols that run along the edge of the top panel, next to the physical Power button. The touch controls include Menu and Volume Up/Down buttons, which are backlit most of the time, along with Track Forward, Track Backward, Play/Pause, Call Answer/End, Roar, Record, Mic Mute, and Mic Beam buttons that only light up when the appropriate source is connected or (for Record and Mic Mute) a microSD card is inserted. A 5-by-7-dot amber LED display under the Menu button shows the active audio source, and can display battery level by holding down the Menu button.

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Features

The iRoar packs all of the extensive tricks of the Roar 2 in its blocky black case, along with some new ones. Like the Roar 2, it can work via Bluetooth, a 3.5mm connection, or over USB with its built-in digital-to-analog converter (DAC). It features the same built-in media player as the Roar 2, letting you play music stored on a microSD card inserted into the slot. You can charge your phone or tablet with the iRoar's USB port, which outputs a 1.5A current from its 9,000mAh battery. It can also accept an optical audio connection, new for the Roar series, so you can use it to replace your HDTV's speakers. You can also pair two iRoars together with an audio cable if you want stereo output. And, of course, it works as a speakerphone. It has two mic modes: You can set it to pick up all the voices around the speaker, or enable Mic Beam to just catch the voice of whoever is directly in front of it.

The free iRoar Dashboard app for Android and iOS devices offers a startling amount of customization. You can select one of six preset audio profiles including Audiophile Bliss (flat response), BlasterX (Creative's own tweaked sound profile), Cinemania, Game On, Live Concert, and Sonic Bass. If that isn't enough, you can create your own custom 10-band EQ profile and manually adjust Immersion and Dialog+, additional settings that respectively tweak the width of the iRoar's sound field and how much voices get boosted in the mix. You can also activate the loudness-boosting Roar mode or the dynamic-range-shrinking Night mode to fit your current listening situation.