Harman Kardon has had a couple of tries at the Bluetooth speaker market over the years but with a specific market in mind. Their take on portable speakers has, and continues to be, geared towards those who spend their time on the go. They fully owned up to it by naming their latest speaker the Harman Kardon Traveler.
The Feel
Like the Esquire Mini which preceded this model, one quickly gets the feeling that it was specifically designed to be carried around in a pocket. It’s flat, with rounded edges and slips easily into and out of a coat or even *gasp* skinny jeans. The edges are chamfered and there isn’t a straight line around the periphery to get hung up on.
The speaker itself has some nice design touches. Leather covers the top of the Traveler where the power, Bluetooth, phone and volume buttons live give it a high-end feel. Rubber feet along the bottom makes it stand solidly on a flat surface and keeps it from vibrating too much while playing. But the key feature is the fact that the body is crafted from a single piece of aluminum to which the electronics slide into and are set into place.
All that luxury comes with a price. Though the speaker sounds quite good, it doesn’t have the same oomph as some other $149 speakers in terms of acoustic performance. But that that isn’t the point of the Traveler, as we’ll discuss further.
The Sound
The sound of the Traveler actually surprised me. It gets much louder than I expected it too. Listening to instrumental rock music really highlighted the vocals and guitars, but there was still enough kick to the drums to feel the intent. The opening bass track at the beginning of “Would” by Alice in Chains would make most speakers this size have a coronary. The Traveler took it in stride.
Next up Hip-Hop. I tried to melt the speaker with Audi by Smokepurpp, which has a beyond-ridiculous bass track. The vocals stayed crisp and didn’t fall apart under the load. So no problemo for the Traveler…although probably the first and last time that song would probably ever be played on one.
Do you lose some of that bottom end once the rest of the music kicks in? Yes, but that’s to be expected in a speaker with this type of form factor. It’s not for lack of trying, when this things playing at full volume you can feel the air in front of the speaker really being pushed around. Distortion at full volume is slight, and tonality stays pretty consistent throughout all volume levels.
All told it is a huge improvement in sound over the earlier iterations of this series of speakers in terms of performance. It doesn’t have the same bottom end or volume (or IPX rating) as the $149 JBL Charge 3 does, but it’s 1/3 of the width.
The Dual Microphones
The most unique feature of the Harman Kardon Traveler is the inclusion of dual-microphones for telephone conferencing. Included along with that is built-in noise and echo reduction circuitry. This would obviously appeal to those who spend time in conference calls or need an upgrade to the stock speakers on their phones.
We tested this by playing a pink-noise generator in the room with us while making calls. The noise was isolated out by the Traveler and the other party couldn’t hear it. However my screaming kid managed to blast past the circuit…nothings perfect.
It is definitly better than the built-in microphone on both the Apple and Samsung product we tested it on. And of course the bigger speaker made for better comprehension of the person we were talking to.
The Battery
The Traveler has a built-in 2500 mah battery which gives about 10 hours of playback time. Our testing puts it in this range give or take an hour depending on the music played.
The nice thing about the battery is the fact that you can charge your phone or other USB powered device from the Traveler which has a standard 5v, 1A output. That won’t give you a full tablet charge but it’s good enough to give your phone a re-up. Nice feature to have for those emergency charges when on the road assuming you have a charging cable with you.
The Pricing
The Harman Kardon Traveler sells for $149. What you are paying for is the performance to size ratio and the high-end materials along with the superior telephony experience with the dual noise cancelling microphones.
It’s not atypical to see Harman have promotional pricing on their Bluetooth speakers, especially around the holidays which could bring it down to $129 during those times.
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Where to get one
$149.95 direct from Harmanaudio.com: Free ground shipping & returns
$149.95 on Amazon .com: Prime shipping available
Conclusion
If you bring a Bluetooth speaker along when flying and want to minimize the space required on your carry-on, the Harman Kardon Traveler is a strong contender. This is especially true if you fit the core demographic they were going after, the business person.
All the features you would want are there: good sound, long battery life, portable. You can get better performance from other speakers and companies in this price range but none that I have seen that are as small or that feature the dual-microphones.
