The Urbanears Ralis is a new portable Bluetooth speaker from the Sweden-based company that has built a reputation for solid audio paired with understated, cool designs. At $199.99, it's a good-looking, stylish model that delivers far more bass depth and power than you might have expected from a speaker this size. It's also easy to use, thanks to plenty of physical controls, and it sounds as good—or better—than some more expensive speakers we've tested. It's one of our recent favorites, but it joins a price range with some stiff competition. Whether it's the speaker for you will come down to exactly what you're looking for.

Design

Available in blue, gray, or red, the Ralis measures 7.6 by 7.2 by 5.4 inches (HWD) and features a matte contour and a stylish minimal design. The built-in canvas handle is sturdy, and removable if you use a screwdriver, but it's quite useful since the speaker weighs a bulky 6.1 pounds.

The front panel is all speaker grille, and much of the back panel is, too. Behind the grille, the Ralis employs dual 5-watt tweeters that fire out of the front and back panels, along with a 10-watt woofer that fires out the front grille. The drivers combine for a frequency response of 50hz to 20kHz.

If you want a breeze and there's no fan nearby, just blast a track with powerful bass and turn the speaker around with the ported area facing you—the Ralis really moves some air. This back panel also houses a covered panel that protects the connections for the included power cable, a USB port (for powering mobile devices with the speaker's battery), and a 3.5mm aux input. There's no included cable for the aux input, and no speakerphone functionality, which is slightly surprising given the size and price.

Along the top panel, there are dedicated controls for track forward/backward, play/pause, and volume up/down. The left side houses the power button, as well as a Bluetooth pairing button. It's becoming increasingly rare for speakers to include dedicated track navigation buttons—we're always fans of this versus having a single button or two that does everything but requires multiple taps.

Urbanears estimates battery life to be roughly 20 hours, but your results will vary with your volume levels.

Performance

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Ralis delivers powerful bass depth that doesn't distort at top volume levels. At more moderate levels, the lows still pack a palpable punch, and are nicely matched by the highs.

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Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Ralis' general sound signature. The drums on this track get some added roundness and depth without sounding overly exaggerated. Callahan's baritone vocals are delivered with added low-mid richness and some treble edge, as well. The acoustic guitar strums get a crisp high-mid presence, and generally speaking, the mix sounds sculpted, but balanced. What's impressive is how much the Ralis does with its modest frame and power—it can get relatively loud, and its bass depth feels legit, even if there's no true sub-bass depth here.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain its punchy presence, though it could possibly use a bit more—instead, the higher frequency vinyl crackle and hiss take a step forward in the mix. In other words, there's some sculpting in the higher frequencies, and not all ranges are boosted or sculpted to the same degree. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with gusto—you won't be looking around the room for the hidden subwoofer, but the lows are fuller and deeper here than they are on plenty of portable wireless speakers this size.

For orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, the lower register instrumentation gets some added bass presence that may not appeal to purists, but certainly gives orchestral and jazz recordings a little extra oomph. The highs are generally balanced with these added lows so that things never sound muddy. In summation, this is a highly sculpted, bass-rich, bright sound signature.

Conclusions

You have to admire the Urbanears Ralis for its simplicity—there's really nothing extra going on here, but there's also not much lacking, aside from a speakerphone function and an aux cable. The bass depth is stronger than it is on plenty of speakers that are more expensive—the Marshall Kilburn II, for example, costs more but delivers a thinner bass sound, even with its built-in EQ knobs. The Ralis holds its own and then some, and between those two speakers, I'd happily grab this one first. But in the $200 to $300 price range, there are plenty of winners—consider the Denon Envaya DSB-250BT or the JBL Xtreme 2, both of which are more outdoor-friendly. For less, we like the JBL Charge 4. But at $200, there's little not to like about the powerful output and understated cool the Ralis delivers.

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Further Reading

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• No More Bricks: Sonos Drops 'Trade-Up' Program's Recycle Mode