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Ultimate Ears Epicboom
The Epicboom is an exciting new option with stonking sound and power, although its price is a little harder to swallow.
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Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3
The Megaboom 3 is a tried-and-tested great from UE, with excellent sound, great ruggedness and a good price.
Key Takeaways
- The Epicboom is a substantial and heavy speaker compared to the Megaboom 3, making it less portable but more powerful in terms of volume and fidelity.
- The Megaboom 3 offers longer battery life at 20 hours compared to the Epicboom's 17 hours, but the Epicboom features USB-C charging for ease.
- While the Megaboom 3 is still the default choice for most people due to its affordable price and reliability, the Epicboom offers upgraded sound and new features for a more future-proof option if you have a higher budget.
Ultimate Ears has a long list of great Bluetooth speakers for you to choose from, going from diminutive options to way bigger room-filling speakers.
Its latest addition is the Epicboom, and it makes an interesting comparison to the existing Megaboom 3, a long-term standout in the UE lineup. So, which of these two chunky speakers is best for you? We've got all the key details compared right here for you.
Price, specs and availability:
The Epicboom is Ultimate Ears' latest launch, so it's now available to order from UE directly (with more retailers expected to be added pretty soon).
By contrast, the Megaboom 3 has been around for quite some time now, meaning it's widely available but can also frequently be found at a welcome discount to press home its price advantage even further.
While we'll break down their differences section-by-section in this article, the table below should give you a useful overview to compare the specs of the two speakers, too.
Ultimate Ears Epicboom Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 Connectivity Bluetooth, NFC Bluetooth Weight 1.9kg 925g Battery 17 hours 20 hours Ports USB-C microUSB
Ultimate Ears Epicboom vs Megaboom 3: Design
These two speakers from Ultimate Ears have pretty different looks and feels - the Epicboom is a substantially chunkier speaker, albeit in one main dimension.
Unlike the Megaboom and many of UE's other speakers, it isn't just a tube, but rather is a sort of oval shape that makes it stand out from the rest of the lineup and the Megaboom 3.
This means that the Epicboom takes up a bit more space (although we don't have its dimensions to the millimetre, we've seen it and compared) - and there's also a key difference where weight comes in.
The Epicboom weighs basically twice as much as the Megaboom 3, making it a much more substantial speaker to carry around, even with the included carry strap.
With two colours to choose from, you also have less choice in terms of finish with the Epicboom. The Megaboom 3 has been around for years now, so there are loads of colours to pick from.
Ultimate Ears Epicboom vs Megaboom 3: Sound quality
We haven't been hands-on with the Epicboom quite yet (although that will change in the very near future, so we can't currently vouch for its exact sound signature.
However, we've talked to Ultimate Ears about it and it's been pretty clear that the Epicboom basically sits only under the Hyperboom in terms of volume and fidelity in its lineup of Bluetooth speakers.
That makes it significantly more powerful and impressive than the Megaboom 3 - which isn't to say the latter is suddenly a bad speaker.
We've been using it happily for years, impressed by its volume and accuracy, and it's got a nice powerful amount of bass of its own.
If you're looking to power a small gathering or take a speaker out to chill in the park, the Megaboom 3 is more than capable, and it can get massively loud.
It's just that the Epicboom takes all of that and supersizes it, becoming a speaker that can power a big party, not a small one.
Ultimate Ears Epicboom vs Megaboom 3: Battery life and features
Despite it being much, much newer, the increased size and power of the Epicboom means that it actually misses out on truly exemplary battery life, sitting at 17 hours on a charge.
This means that the Megaboom 3 is ahead on that front at 20 hours. However, where charging is concerned that narrative is flipped. The Megaboom 3 is a much older speaker, and that means it still uses micro USB as its charging point - fiddly and prone to bending and breakage, as well as slower speeds.
The Epicboom is upgraded to USB-C to align with all your other gadgets, and that's huge for a quality of life improvement (also enabling quicker charging at two hours to fill up completely).
Past that, though, these speakers are remarkably similar. They're both Bluetooth-only, so you don't get any Wi-Fi features or other forms of connectivity (although the Epicboom has an NFC tag for quick connections).
They also both boast the same level of impressive water and dust resistance: IP67, making dunks completely fine - although they'll both actually float for water-borne sound.
You can pair each with other UE speakers (and each other) to get stereo sound, and they're controlled through the very same app, so that experience should end up being pretty similar.
The Epicboom has a few new touches, though, including an outdoor mode that changes its EQ for better outdoor sound (with a dedicated button) and some more controls on the top of its body.
Still, given it's been five years since the Megaboom 3 first launched, there's no silver bullet on the features front for the Epicboom.
Ultimate Ears Epicboom vs Megaboom 3: Which is right for you?
For now, we think the Megaboom 3 is still the default choice for most people looking into picking up an Ultimate Ears speaker - there are still some things we'd change (and we hope a new version comes soon) but it can be picked up at simply irresistible prices at times.
Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3
The Megaboom 3 is a stalwart - it's been an excellent choice for years, and remains just that now.
That said, the Epicboom is a speaker we're really looking forward to testing rigorously, and its upgraded sound and newer features mean that it's a more future-proof option if you have a higher budget. It'll also power a bigger party thanks to its heftier size.
Ultimate Ears Epicboom
The Epicboom is a really interesting new addition from UE - but we'll have to test it to see if it can live up to its price tag.