One of the more impressive demos from CES comes from a company called Brane X, which is introducing a new portable speaker with a built-in subwoofer. On the surface, that doesn’t seem like a really big deal — you’ve probably heard decent bass from a portable speaker before, but it’s important to understand that you have not.
Subwoofers are by their very nature, typically large, and that’s because of the physics that goes into them. Subwoofers need to push a lot of air to achieve the low frequencies that they produce. Other portable speakers that you can buy either don’t hit the kinds of low frequencies that the Brane can, or they’re huge and require wheels to move around.
The Brane X is not small, but it’s also not terribly large. It’s about the size of a normal subwoofer that you would find on most speaker sets, but what sets the Brane X apart is that within that same footprint, it also holds speakers for the midrange and high end, and by the way, it also packs a 12-hour battery. The sound coming from this speaker is downright shocking. It makes competing speakers seem hollow. It’s really remarkable what the Brane X can accomplish in such a small form factor.
