Soundcore Rave 3S review: Superb wireless mics make this karaoke speaker sing

Soundcore Rave 3S review: Superb wireless mics make this karaoke speaker sing

MSRP $349.00

Score Details

“Party speakers are loud and cool, but the Soundcore Rave 3S is the karaoke speaker that'll take your party to the next level.”

Pros

• Excellent wireless mics included
• AI vocal removal works great
• Super easy to get karaoking
• Powerful 200-watt power
• Rugged and splash proof

Cons

• No wheels or telescopic handle
• A bit heavy
• Not many connection options

When it comes to big, booming party speakers, are you team dance-till-dawn or are you more a card-carrying member of camp karaoke? While there are no wrong answers (we’re fans of both), if your party-speaker priorities lie with being able to belt out Livin’ On a Prayer anytime, anywhere, then Soundcore may have just cracked the code with its new Rave 3S party — nay — karaoke speaker.

I’ve reviewed several party speakers over the years, and although the lion’s share of them have had microphone (and guitar) inputs to accommodate wired mics and even wireless dongles you can plug in for connecting wireless mics, the Soundcore Rave 3S is the best karaoke speaker (I’m just going to call it that from here on out) that I’ve come across to date. Not only does it come with two really good wireless mics that connect with ease and stow away nicely, but the Rave 3S has some excellent AI vocal removal tech (and other fun karaoke features) that can turn any song into a karaoke jam.

The Rave 3S is, of course, also no slouch if all you want to do is party. Its 200-watt output is huge for its size and $349 price, and its LED lightshow is on par with any other on the market. Frizz-up your hair, folks, as we’re half-way there in this review of the Soundcore Rave 3S AI Party Speaker.

Soundcore Rave 3S specs

Design and features

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Bluetooth speakers are great, but what I like about party/karaoke speakers is that you get a lot more literal bang for your buck. Yes, many of them, like the 1,100-watt JBL PartyBox Ultimate, are huge and impractical for most, but when you start getting down to more manageable models like the Soundcore Rave 3S, the party possibilities increase tenfold.

The Rave 3S isn’t small, but its not too big either. Its barrel-esque form stands just under two feet tall and about a foot around. Its solid handle makes its 23.6-pound weight an easy lift, although I wouldn’t want to lug it too far. The 36-pound JBL PartyBox Stage 320, in comparison, features sturdy wheels and a telescopic handle, which would have been a nice touch on the Rave 3S. The Stage 320 is also $600, so maybe I should just hit the gym more.

The Soundcore Rave 3S is effectively portable, and I’ve enjoyed propping the loaner unit the company sent me on everything from stools and chairs to coffee tables, in corners, and more. Its thick, textured plastic armour is strong, and it has sturdy rubber rails on one side for laying it horizontally to experience its spatial audio feature (more on this later).

Behind the Rave 3S’s metal front grill is a row of three vertically-stacked 2.5-inch “full-range” drivers that run from the top down the middle where they meet a big 6.5-inch woofer. Waves of LED lights zigzag alongside the full-range speakers while the woofer is circumnavigated by three rings of LEDs.

As is standard for many party speakers, all the physical controls for the Rave 3S sit on the speaker’s top, and they include the basic power, volume, track skip/play/pause, Bluetooth pairing and Auracast connection buttons (for pairing multiple Soundcore speakers), and a physical button for controlling the LED lights. This is handy when you don’t have your phone nearby and just want to turn the volume down or skip a track.

Additionally, there’s a row of karaoke controls for the included wireless mics (volume and reverb) and the Rave 3S’s cool vocal removal feature (more on all this in a bit). Everything is big, grippy, and easy to access, and is all covered by a splash-proof IPX4 water rating so you don’t have to sweat a wee bit of rain or a spilled vodka-Red Bull.

The back of the Soundcore Rave 3S is flanked by its two rubber mic holders that firmly stow and hold the wireless mics in place, even during transport. On the bottom is a sizeable passive bass radiator port for additional low-end oomf, especially if you stick this thing in a corner.

A tightly-sealed rubber panel cover flips back to reveal the speaker’s modest inputs. There’s a single 3/4-inch (6.35 mm) jack for a physical mic or guitar, a switch to toggle between the two, and a volume dial to control their volume.

There’s also a single 3.5 mm aux input should you want to connect any analog source you like. The Rave 3S’s 12-hour battery is charged via a USB-C input found on this panel, too. A full charge only takes 6 hours.

Wireless microphones and karaoke FTW

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some karaoke, but more often than not when I’ve reviewed party speakers, it’s been a bit of an after thought. This time was different, and I’ll tell you why.

First, the Rave 3S’s wireless microphones are right there, conveniently mounted on the side just begging to be set free. And they’re nice microphones, too — well built, sleek, and with some weight that sings quality. Plus, they’re included. JBL’s wireless microphones, as comparison, are sold separately for $150 a pair. They also need to be used with a wireless dongle that you plug into the 1/4-inch input. Only a couple JBL party speaker bundles come with mics.

With four AA batteries (two for each mic) included in the box, there was no excuse to not fire them up. No fishing out my wired mics or messing with a dongle. But surely, I thought, the mics and karaoke features only work when connected through an app or Bluetooth connection process, right? Wrong again. Each mic has its own power button, and when pushed it automatically connects to the Rave 3S which is signaled by an audible chime. Done.

Well, not quite, it gets even better. Not only is the Soundcore app unnecessary for connection, but each mic has its own volume control (big “+” and “-” buttons), so you can get a nice blend of your voice over the music. And as I intuitively learned without reading so much as a page of the quick-start guide, that pressing the little microphone icon on the mic activates the Rave 3S’s AI Vocal Removal feature. With a song, any song, playing from my paired iPhone and music streaming service app (I used Spotify), I could control the amount of vocals that were stripped from the song, down to almost none at all, right from the microphone.

This is huge for karaoke fans because it means you don’t have to mess with the Soundcore app (although you can, and it does have additional features like vocal enhancement presets) or the physical dials on the speaker (you can do this, too) while you’re in the middle of the best performance of Into the Shallows of your entire life.

The Vocal AI feature works really well, allowing you go it totally alone or add a little help from the actual song. It even has an Auto Guide Vocal feature that detects when you stop singing (maybe you forgot the words) and adds the original vocals back in to compensate. And when you start singing again, the original vocals are gradually faded out. The feature sounds good and works seamlessly.

The whole karaoke experience, from mic setup to pairing a phone to adjusting the vocals and sound effects, was so effortless that my teenaged daughter and her friends just figured it out on their own.

How does it sound?

The Soundcore Rave 3S is one fantastic karaoke speaker. But how does it party? Pretty good, as it turns out, with all kinds of headroom for easily filling small-to-medium spaces with sound. I only managed to push the Rave 3S to 60% of its volume in my living room before having to back it off. For the most part, things stayed crystal clear until I got greedy and pushed it, wherein the speaker starts to fuzz up in the highs. It’s pretty unnecessary to run it that loud, in my opinion, but if larger rooms or banquet halls is your goal, set your sights on a bigger party speaker like the 240-watt JBL PartyBox Stage 320 or the 250-watt LG Xboom XL7

As far as tuning goes, the Rave 3S shares many of the same EQ presets and sound profiles as the  Soundcore Boom 2 Plus boombox speaker I recently reviewed. Soundcore still comes in just behind JBL and Sony as far as overall dynamics, soundstage, and clarity. That’s not a bad thing, considering the premium you have to pay for those speaker brands. Plus, with excellent EQ adjustment options in the Soundcore app, and the Rave 3S’s huge Bass-up feature, you don’t necessarily need to spend extra money to find your own sweet spot — tuning the speaker to every genre I threw at it was as a matter of moving a few EQ sliders or experimenting with a preset.

Perhaps the biggest sound surprise with the Soundcore Rave 3S, though, was when I turned the speaker on its side and activated its “Spatial Audio Mode.” While it’s not great when doing karaoke, the feature delivers a simulated surround effect, with any song, that seemingly comes from all around you. It’s not Dolby Atmos, no, but when playing layered and nuanced music such as the Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots or Pink Floyd’s Darkside of the Moon, you get things like cool isolated melodies, ride cymbals, and vocal harmonies drawing your attention in all directions. Once I discovered this, I just left it on because it was done so well.

Lights and Soundcore app

As far as companion apps for Bluetooth devices go Soundcore does it better than most. The Soundcore app is free and provides easy control and additional features for its products’ audio capabilities, as well as allowing customization of their lighting effects.

In the app’s Audio section, you can control playback, adjust volume, and toggle the BassUp boost. The app also offers four solid preset EQ settings, along with a customizable 9-band equalizer, letting you fine-tune frequencies between 80Hz and 13kHz and save your own presets. Of course, here you also have access to the Rave 3S’s karaoke features, such as reverb and Vocal Enhancer (add warmth or shimmer, for example), as well as the AI Vocal Removal.

The Light tab area opens up the presets for the Rave 3S’s LED lights. And similar to other Soundcore speakers with light features, you get access to a handful of presets that pulse and flash along to your music in a range of different colors and patterns. I honestly don’t really notice that much of a difference between the patterns, but rest assured they add a vibrant, bright party atmosphere, especially in smaller spaces where the light bounces off the walls and ceiling.

The bottom line

The Soundcore Rave 3S is a powerful, great-sounding party speaker, yes, but as a karaoke speaker, it’s an absolute joy. Its wireless microphones alone are worth the price of admission, and I have yet to find a party/karaoke speaker with mics this well designed and easy to connect and use as the pair that come with the Rave 3S.

Not too heavy and not too big, the Rave 3S’s portability-to-power ratio is perfect, with clear, dynamic sound big enough to fill small-to-medium sized rooms, even if all you want to play is music. But if karaoke is your jam, there’s almost no fuss at all — you don’t need karaoke-specific tracks to sing along, the speaker will strip the vocals from any track you stream to it, and you can easily control it all from the mic while you sing or through the Soundcore app.

Should you buy it? Yes. For $350, it’s hard to beat. You could take a look at the JBL PartyBox On-the-Go Essential, too, as it’s the same price as the Rave 3S. It includes only one wireless mic, though, and it’s only 100 watts. Australian company BlueAnt just released its new X5i party speaker that’s more compact, cheaper, and includes dual mics as well, but its 120-watt power won’t touch the Rave and it doesn’t have the brand cache as Soundcore or JBL, so be judicious.

If you love to have singalong karaoke parties, the Soundcore Rave 3S is the karaoke speaker to get.