Finding a portable Bluetooth speaker that combines outstanding sound quality, stylish design, and affordable pricing is challenging. Introducing the Hammer Wave 2 HBTS007. We’ve been living with this 20W speaker for the past couple of weeks here at Gadget Bridge, testing its fabric build quality, pushing it to its volume limits and analysing its daily usefulness to bring you our thorough real-world review.
In This Article
Hammer Wave 2 Review: Design and Build Quality
The Hammer Wave 2 (Black) hits a sweet spot of having a stealthy, subtle footprint and a lively, party-ready look when switched on. For a budget speaker, it doesn’t fall into the trap of feeling like cheap, hollow plastic with textured materials and great looks.
The Wave 2 speaker has a cool design with a fabric cover in all black, giving it a clean, simple look that adds to its luxurious appearance and durability. The smart design element provides a comfortable grip and allows the speaker to blend easily into various home decor. It’s built to be lightweight and durable, making it a great choice for consumers who want mobility. The Wave 2 is small and versatile, able to be moved from indoor to outdoor environments. Although it is sturdy, it is also light enough to be carried in a backpack, allowing for ease of mobility.
The controls are simple and have conveniently accessible buttons, which add to its usefulness. The rear of the speaker also has modern connectivity options, including a Type-C fast-charging connector, a USB slot, and a TF card slot, providing versatility and convenience for users.
The Wave 2 speaker has ambient breathing RGB LED lighting that enhances the speaker’s visual appeal. The speaker’s all-black body is high contrast, which makes the vivid RGB colours pop. The LEDs can sync with the rhythm of the music, improving the listening experience and changing the look of the speaker in low-light conditions, making it perfect for parties or nighttime use. The Hammer Wave 2 appears as a mature, well-built fabric speaker during the day, but at night it becomes a vibrant, party-oriented speaker for a wide range of users.
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Hammer Wave 2 Review: Performance and Sound Quality
The Hammer Wave 2 speaker sounds great in the real world, which makes it especially attractive to casual listeners. The 66mm drivers deliver a solid 20W RMS, which translates into a powerful sound and a viable option to fill medium-sized rooms or add volume to small gatherings. Wave 2 has a sound profile designed for everyday listening. It has a clean and forward midrange that lends itself well to reproducing vocals, popular music, and podcasts with clarity. The bass is punchy and gives a solid rhythm but doesn’t have the sub-bass depth of more expensive speakers.
If you turn the volume up beyond approximately 85%, you might get a little harshness and distortion, especially in the treble range. For optimal sound quality, set the level to between 60% and 75%, where the sound is balanced and rich.
It has a built-in microphone for hands-free calls, but it’s really basic at best. It offers clear calls indoors in peaceful environments, but the lack of advanced noise-cancellation technology has a significant influence on call quality in loud settings. In calls made from a distance, especially outdoors, ambient noise might interfere, and the voice of the speaker may sound distant. The gadget is good for quick calls while charging but not great for extended conference calls.
The Hammer Wave 2 Bluetooth speaker does not have specialised companion app support, which restricts its utility when compared to rivals that come with modern apps for user customisation. There is an older app, Hammer – Equaliser and Volume, available on the Google Play Store, but this is primarily designed to enhance the performance of Hammer’s earphones and will not work with the Hammer Wave 2 speaker.
Therefore, customers cannot customise RGB lighting patterns, change onboard equaliser settings, or update firmware using an app. Instead, the Hammer Wave 2 is a typical “plug-and-play” affair, with customers needing to change all settings manually via physical controls on the speaker itself. This includes changing LED light settings, skipping songs, and switching to FM radio, which shows a lack of user interaction and customisation.
Wave 2 offers Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity, but it also enables standalone playback, which means you can play music from USB devices or TF (microSD) cards. An inbuilt FM radio adds to the versatility, as the speaker can work without the need for a smartphone.
Final Verdict
Hammer Wave 2 HBTS007 is a budget audio device aimed at casual users and comes with a pleasing design as well as practical functions. Visually appealing speaker with a sleek black fabric design and rhythmic RGB lights, it puts more emphasis on loudness rather than premium sound quality. This speaker is ideal for quiet desk usage and small parties, but it has limits; there is no specific app support, and it may distort at maximum volume. The device has a power output of 20W and supports USB, TF card and FM playback. If you are looking for an affordable and elegant audio solution, the Hammer Wave 2 HBTS007 is a wonderful deal at about Rs 1,299.
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The Good
- Premium-feeling fabric finish
- High-contrast RGB lighting
- Loud 20W output for its footprint
- Versatile connectivity (FM, TF, USB)
The Bad
- Audio distorts past 85% volume
- Very basic microphone for calls
- Lacks deep, thumping bass
- No companion app for EQ adjustments
