We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. The Zipp Mini 2 ($249) might look similar to Libratone's exisiting line of wireless speakers, but sets itself apart with smart speaker functionality, with support for Amazon Alexa voice commands, as well as Spotify Connect streaming. It produces powerful audio for its size, but it lacks truly deep bass and makes up for it by boosting the lows and low-mids rather than providing much sub-bass presence, and like many smart speakers, it's mono-only. Regardless, the portable Zipp Mini 2 delivers some solid audio in an easy-to-operate, stylish design. Design Measuring 8.8 by 3.9 inches (HW) and available in white plastic with either black, gray, green, or red cloth covers, the cylindrical Zipp Mini 2 does indeed feature a zipper in its design, at the base of the cloth grille. A sturdy leather strap also protrudes from the top of the speaker, but at 2.4 pounds, you'll want to make sure whatever you're hanging the speaker from is also sturdy. If you have two Zipp Mini 2s, you can assign the left channel to one speaker and the right to the other, creating a wide stereo image, but as is, the Zipp Mini 2 is a mono speaker. A single 1-inch soft dome neodymium tweeter and one 3-inch neodymium woofer deliver a frequency range of 50Hz to 20kHz. It has dual passive radiators, and a reflector that pushes audio out in all directions. The speaker can also handle high-res audio, with specs of 96kHz and 24bits. Up top, a touch-sensitive surface with the Libratone bird logo on it handles all basic operation. Pressing the logo reveals a circle of icons that you can use to connect via Wi-Fi, measure the room's acoustics, "love" a song, activate SoundSpace Link (this is Libratone's multi-room, multi-speaker setup), update firmware, and mute or unmute the Alexa mic. When not using Alexa, a male voice guides you through the speaker's menu when you press various options. For basic operations, they're all achieved by tapping the bird logo—a single tap to play or pause, double tap for the next track, triple for the previous track, and trace your finger around the circular button clockwise or counterclockwise to adjust volume levels. There's a simple hush gesture to lower the music volume rapidly—just place your hand over the logo button and keep it there. The Libratone App for Android and iOS assists with setting up the speaker over Wi-Fi, as well as updating firmware. Within the app, you can adjust the speaker's sonics for your environment (settings include Neutral, Floor, Outdoor, Shelf, and Table), but there's no actual user-adjustable EQ to fiddle with. There's also a sleep timer you can set, and you can adjust the LED brightness, or control basic playback functions and volume. Once the Wi-Fi is connected, the Zipp Mini 2 can be used with AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and, of course, Amazon Alexa. Tapping the mic logo in the Libratone app will open your Alexa app and set things up automatically. Once set, you have access to Amazon music and Alexa can be summoned rather easily, either by pressing the mic icon in the app, on the top of the speaker, or by speaking. However, we did notice that the three far-field mics on the Zipp Mini 2 seem less sensitive than other smart speaker mics we've tested—often, when music was playing, Alexa didn't hear us, and sometimes when music wasn't playing, we had to ask Alexa twice before we were heard. Beyond Wi-Fi, the Zipp Mini 2 is a Bluetooth speaker, as well. Pairing is a simple, quick process. There are also physical connections on the lower rear panel. A USB port allows for playback from computers (cable not included), and a 3.5mm jack offers a wired aux input (cable not included). The back panel is where the power button and the status LED are located, just above the connection for the power supply. The included power adapter looks like something Apple might have designed fifteen years ago—smooth, glossy white plastic. It is also huge, as far as power adapters go, and it juts out from the wall enough that it might block other plugs from using the same outlet, and its placement could be tricky in some rooms. A US plug adapter ships with the unit, and snaps onto the wall adapter. The upside of the power adapter is that it has a very long cable (with a cable cinch to manage the slack neatly), and it looks cool—the smooth white design and the attractive clothbound cable are not eyesores, they're just space-eaters. Libratone estimates the Zipp Mini 2's battery life to be up to 12 hours, but your results will vary with your volume levels. Performance On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Zipp Mini 2 delivers powerful low-frequency depth for a portable speaker. It can get respectably loud, and it doesn't distort at top volumes. At more moderate levels, the bass depth is still quite good, but at neither volume will you be tricked into thinking there's a subwoofer hidden in the room. The digital signal processing (DSP) also plays a role in limiting the lows at top volumes—things don't exactly thin out, but the bass does weaken a bit at maximum volume levels. See How We Test Speakers Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Zipp Mini 2's general sound signature. The drums on this track can sound thunderous on bass-forward, powerful systems, but here, they are somewhat subdued. The bulk of the bass presence goes to Callahan's baritone vocals, and even a little bit graces the acoustic guitar strums. In other words, this isn't a deep bass speaker, but it has a richness in the form of low and low-mid presence—sometimes it sounds great, sometimes, as on this track, the richness seems a bit too pumped. At least, that's in Neutral—experimenting with the various sonic modes can help get a more balanced sound signature. On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives plenty of high-mid presence to accentuate the punchiness of its attack, but more notable here is its extra heft in the lows and low-mids. Again, an element of the mix that doesn't necessarily have tons of bass presence (like the acoustic guitar strum in the previous track) gets some serious added depth. It doesn't sound bad, but it is the speaker compensating for the lack of deep sub-bass—the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat here are more or less overpowered by the drum loop. On a system with a subwoofer, it is often almost the other way around. The vocals on this track are delivered with solid clarity in the high-mids and highs, although it is quite sculpted and there is some notable added sibilance in neutral mode. Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound the most natural of the various styles we tested—the Zipp Mini 2 doesn't overly boost the lows to the point that the lower register instrumentation jumps out from the mix as it does on some other tracks. The higher-register brass, strings, and vocals have a clear, crisp presence through the Zipp Mini 2, and generally speaking, the speaker sounds balanced here. We can't help but wish that there was an actual EQ section in the app for users to dial in their own preferences, however—it would be easy to tame the lows and low-mids and tweak the mids to get a more accurate sound signature. The Zipp Mini 2 can be used as a speakerphone. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word recorded, but there was some fuzziness to the recording. That said, the mic level sounded ideal, and there was even some bass depth to the recording, so the fuzzy audio is a minor (and common) wireless speaker complaint. Conclusions For style and ease of use, the Zipp Mini 2 gets high marks. Sonically, it's a solid speaker, but it lacks truly deep bass—something that doesn't surprise us for its size, but isn't ideal for its price. The smart speaker functions work well, even if the mics could be more sensitive, and functionally, the Zipp Mini 2 gets most things right. Our current favorite smart models in this price range are the Sonos One (Gen 2) and the JBL Link 10. But only the JBL model is portable, and it uses Google Assistant rather than Alexa. There's also the larger Zipp 2, which offers more in the way of sub-bass, but it costs $50 more and isn't as portable. So depending on what you're looking for, the Libratone Zipp Mini 2 could fit exactly the right niche for you. Bottom Line: The portable Libratone Zipp Mini 2 holds its own against other smart speakers thanks to its easy-to-use, stylish design.

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