On Our Desk - 18

AQ Wireless Outdoor Speakers

Manufacturer AQ Speakers
UK price (as reviewed): £89.99 inc VAT
US price (as reviewed): TBC

If there’s one thing the great outdoors needs, it’s a better soundtrack. Babbling brooks, birds singing, the wind softly rustling through the leaves? Rubbish, basically. No-one would ever pay to hear that. Not that anyone pays for music these days. Still, if you do want to listen to your ill-gotten tunes when you’re out of the house, then AQ’s Wireless Outdoor speakers might be what you’re looking for.

They’re blessed with a straightforward name which makes the job of this review significantly easier, since everyone involved knows what’s what. Inside the box are two 3.5w bell-shaped speakers and a white puck-shaped control pod, all clad in white plastic. The pod connects to the sound source and wirelessly broadcasts the audio to the speakers, which both have individual power and volume controls.


The speakers are weatherproof, and while each has its own AC adaptor, they can also run on AA batteries – though they require six apiece. The control pod also needs power, but it can’t run on batteries, so must be connected to the mains. AQ reckons you can get 100M away from the transmitter before losing signal. In testing, the speakers synced up quickly and reliably with the control pod, and were happy to stream music across the lab, which is a roughly 20m sq room.

There’s no danger of the sausages on the barbeque drowning out the music either, as they’re really rather loud. The bass is fairly powerful, although it tends towards boom rather than punch and overall, we wouldn’t describe the sound as particularly detailed.

Of course, judging the fidelity of the sound can be pretty difficult when you’re outside and have to contend with slightly unusual acoustics though. That said though, the downfiring design and plastic construction of AQ Wireless Outdoor Speakers means the sound tends to be noticeably echoey and slightly harsh overall, especially when you’re close by – inside or out.


Probably the biggest drawback is the price though - £90 is a lot when you consider you can get a set of reasonable quality 2.1 speakers from Creative or Logitech for half that. While the AQ speakers are weatherproof, are you really going to want to sit outside in the rain listening to your music?

In fact, you’re only really like to want outdoor speakers if you’re spending a lot of time outside, which you’re likely to only be doing in good weather. In that situation, almost any speakers will do and you’re only going to appreciate the weatherproofing if you’re spending a lot of time outdoors, near a mains power supply and desperate for some music that you can share with your friends. Otherwise, headphones or standard speakers will do the trick just fine – and probably cheaper and with better sound quality.

Put that way, the AQ Outdoor Wireless Speakers are a solution to a problem that doesn’t need solving for most people in Blighty. Ah well.

Verdict: While they’re easy to set up and loud enough that the music won’t get lost, the AQ Speakers are held back by their high price and uninspiring audio quality.