Macworld - USA (2020-02)

FEBRUARY 2020 MACWORLD 105

The
power and
Bluetooth
buttons are
found on the
side near
the bottom,
along with
a tiny status
LED.

Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” from
Graceland. Once again, the Rålis had a
deep rich sound with great rendition of
Simon’s vocals. The bass was a bit boomy,
but the effect worked better on this track
than most.
Moving on to pure rock, I cued up Jimi
Hendrix’s version of “All Along the
Watchtower” from Experience Hendrix—
The Best of Jimi Hendrix. As expected by
now, the Rålis sounded great on the
vocals and guitar, while the bass was still
slightly boomy.
Turning to classical music, I played
Three Ballads from the Catskills: III. The
Old Spotted Cow, written by Norman
Cazden, my wife’s father. The performance
was by the Oslo
Philharmonic Orchestra
under Igor Buketoff.
Interestingly, the bass
was not as boomy on

this track as I had heard on the others, and

there was good delineation of the

instrumental solos and sections.

Finally, I listened to the Canon in D by

Johann Pachelbel as arranged for the

Pachelbel String Quartet and recorded on

its eponymous album. The Rålis had a

nice, rich sound—a bit thick, but with good

definition of the four instruments. I found

myself really liking the sound of the cello

coming from this speaker.

URBANEARS RÅLIS

COMPARED TO THE JBL

XTREME 2

For comparison, I put the JBL Xtreme 2

next to the Rålis and played the same

tracks on both. I reviewed the JBL Xtreme

2 for TechHive (go.macworld.com/jbx2),

and I like its sound very much. Also, as of

this writing, its price is $219.95 on Amazon

and JBL’s website, which is very close to

the Rålis’ list price of $199.99.

In general, I found the JBL to be less

boomy than the Rålis, though it still had

plenty of bass. This was especially

apparent on “Dark Moon, High Tide,”

“Un Espejo,” and “All Along the

Watchtower.” Interestingly, “The Boy in

the Bubble” sounded slightly closed in

with a bit less bass.

I thought the orchestral track sounded

a bit strident on the JBL, while the string

quartet was a bit thinner. However, these