The Harman Kardon Esquire 2 ($199.95) is a portable Bluetooth speaker that’s meant to be on a desk, especially for a business executive. With its four-microphone system, the Esquire 2 is just as good for conference calls as it is for use in closed-door office settings (or hotel rooms). As is typical of Harman Kardon designs, the speaker looks simple, sophisticated, and luxurious, and it’s pretty powerful for such a slim, portable system. Is the price a little high? Maybe. But what the Esquire 2 lacks in deep bass response, it makes up for in great design and features that, for many buyers, will be enough to justify the price.
DesignThe Esquire 2 has a similar rectangular surface shape to the Esquire Mini ($74.99 at Amazon), but at 3.6 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches (height-to-width ratio) and weighing 1.3 pounds, it’s much larger than the Esquire 2. Available in black, gold, or silver, the Esquire 2 features a slightly convex speaker grille surface on the front with the Harman Kardon logo printed in the center. The kickstand pops out of a panel on the back, allowing it to sit on a desk like a horizontal picture frame. The top panel houses buttons for power, Bluetooth, answer/end call, and mic mute, as well as a volume control that works in conjunction with your mobile device’s master volume levels. The right panel has a micro USB port (a micro USB-to-USB charging cable is included), a 3.5mm aux input for wired listening (no audio cable is included), and a USB port for charging your mobile device using the speaker’s battery. The left panel has four pinhole microphones that use Harman Kardon’s VoiceLogic technology picks up audio from a 360-degree range while eliminating ambient background noise. It makes for clearer calls than most Bluetooth speakers, which is important for business professionals. Harman Kardon estimates theHarman Kardon speaker’s batterylife to be about eight hours, but that varies depending on your volume levels. For such a portable (and expensive) speaker, it’s a shame that the Esquire 2 doesn’t come with more accessories, like a carrying bag or the aforementioned 3.5mm audio cable for the aux input. PerformanceOn tracks with intense bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the Esquire 2 delivers a pretty nice deep bass. At top volumes, it can distort, but it avoids distortion mostly by avoiding the deepest frequencies altogether. At moderate volumes, the speaker gets pretty loud for its size, but the bass response lives more in the lows and low-mids—there’s not a lot of powerful sub-bass, which isn’t surprising given the speaker’s size, but a minor bummer given its price. When listening to Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a song with less bass, the Esquire 2 was much more attuned to it, projecting a full-bodied, rich sound. Callahan’s baritone vocals are filled with plenty of low-mid richness, but there’s plenty of crackle and edge in the highs to keep his voice clear and at the forefront of the mix. The drums on this track don’t get much bass boosting, which isn’t to say they sound weak—they just sound full and natural, rather than the thunderous sound they can get when the bass is over-boosted.
In Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop is delivered with great presence in the high-mids, giving the percussive instrument a nice sharp edge that allows it to slice through the forefront of the mix. The sub-bass synth hits that underscore the beat are noticeably dialed down a bit here—we hear more of their piercing highs than their tremendous depth. The crackle of the vinyl record loop, which is usually low enough in the mix to go unnoticed, is more pronounced here, meaning the Harman Kardon Esquire 2 battery is doing some serious sculpting in the high-mids and highs.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” sound lively and beautiful through the Esquire 2. The strings, brass, and vocals in the upper register command attention with their crisp, bright presence, but the instrumentation in the lower register gets a wonderful richness that’s often surprising on speakers of this size. What the Esquire 2 lacks in bass power, it makes up for with rich lows and low-mids.
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