Bose Soundlink Revolve 2 vs Revolve+ 2: A Worthwhile Upgrade?

Many companies are constantly revamping and upgrading their products in order to keep up with market trends as well as keeping their customers loyal.

With any sort of technology upgrade you should always expect to pay a bit more money for the features that they see as improving the product.

Sometimes the original is the best, though, and these tech companies can often fall short when it comes to improving their original products. And it can be hard to tell if it is worth spending your money on upgrading from your original product.

This is never more true than in the red hot speaker market. The humble speaker has become a commodity most consumers have in their home in some capacity.

Many of us use them all the time and in different situations, so the market has recently become largely saturated. This means that tech companies are constantly adding things to their speakers to try to improve them and challenge competitors.

One example of this is the Bose Soundlink Revolve 2 and the Bose Soundlink Revolve Plus 2, which has already seen the creation of a second series of products. We are going to focus on the most recent two, the Revolve Plus 2 being an apparent upgrade for the Revolve 2.

Through researching both products, we have created a guide to find out if the upgrade is worth your money. It can be hard to tell, and it can take up a lot of your time – that’s where we come in!

Read on to find out if the Bose Soundlink Revolve Plus 2 is worth upgrading to from the Bose Soundlink Revolve 2.

What Is The Bose Soundlink Revolve Series?

Gone are the days of carrying around a massive boombox on your shoulder in order to get good sound quality.

With modern technology, we have easy access to speakers that are half the size and double the sound quality, much like how the mobile phone industry made everything smaller but more powerful.

This is never more true than with Bose’s Soundlink Revolve series. The speakers are engineered to provide full 360 degree sound to add the correct sonic ambience to a room in your house.

The portability of the speaker means you can place it anywhere in your abode while also moving to take it outside and to the park with you if you wish. The speaker also has the ability to connect to your phone and work as a digital assistant.

These products from Bose aren’t made to be used for DJing, or in club venue settings. Rather, the speaker seems made for the host with the most to add some ambience to dinner parties while also getting some practical use from the speaker in day-to-day life when cooking or adding background music to a dinner.

However, this isn’t to say that the Revolve has bad sound quality, it’s actually well engineered for its purpose. The Revolve has a sleek and subtle design that seems made to blend into the cosmopolitan home.

The Revolve Plus is essentially a bigger version of the original Revolve with some added features that may be desirable to some users. Read on to find out more about the two products and how they compare.

Build And Design Quality

Both the Revolve 2 and the Revolve Plus 2 have similar designs that are altered slightly for different purposes. Both are around the size of a can, the speaker itself wraps around the cylinder shape, which is what endows the speaker with its 360 degree sound. More on that later.

On a design note, the cylindrical design is popular among many audio tech companies as it means you don’t have to point the speaker towards your guests or yourself, simply set it down anywhere and everyone will be in range of the speaker.

The Revolve 2 is smaller than the Revolve Plus 2, which is the main cosmetic difference you will notice. The Revolve 2 is 3.24 x 5.97 inches while the Revolve plus 2 is 4.14 x 7.25 inches.

So the actual size of the speaker is increased by around a quarter which seems relatively negligible, but mainly affects the sound quality. The other cosmetic difference is that the Revolve plus 2 has a carrying handle on the top.

This seems to add to the portability and makes it easier to carry around outside. The handle seems like an invitation from Bose to take the Revolve plus 2 outside and utilize its high-volume potential due to its size.

Both speakers have a rubber bumper on the top and bottom of the speaker which provides a small amount of protection from accidental drops.

This is where your specific usage will come in. If your Revolve 2 is going to be sitting in a room in your house, the handle and size doesn’t really make a difference and comes down to how you use the speaker.

Whereas if you are looking at this speaker as an outdoor, mobile, unit then the handle on the Revolve plus 2 may encourage you to upgrade for practicality.

Something worth bearing in mind is that all Bose Soundlinks, including the first series as well as the plus models, all include the same physical buttons. They are all pretty common for the speaker market and can also be controlled with the voice assistant.

Both speakers benefit from the same IP55 water and dust resistance. This means that in light dust situations and when splashed with water the Revolve 2 and Revolve plus 2 will survive most situations.

We’re talking about a rogue drink spill here, don’t go taking this in the swimming pool. However, the Revolve 2 and Revolve plus 2 have this exact same feature so, again, this doesn’t really warrant an upgrade.

Battery Life

The Bose Soundlink Revolve series has some pretty good battery life numbers. The main difference between the first and second series of the Bose Soundlink Revolve was the addition of more battery life which users will be glad to hear, but how does the Revolve 2 and the Revolve plus 2 compare in terms of battery life and charging time?

Well, the advertised battery life suggests that you get 13 hours of battery life with the Revolve 2 and 17 hours with the Revolve plus 2. They both take around four hours to charge, with a little longer for the Revolve plus.

How much you value this in terms of forking out the money for the upgrade is dependent on your usage again. Four extra hours of battery life may be desirable if you are using the speaker outside regularly.

However, users who will keep the speaker in one place in their house won’t fret too much about battery life as they can just plug it in. 13 hours is already a pretty long battery life that you won’t recognize losing charge unless you never charge it.

Moreover, this battery life isn’t anything to write home about for the rest of the market. Most other speakers usually have a few more hours, but again using this all up in one go is pretty unlikely, although worth considering when taking the speaker out and about this may warrant the upgrade.

Connectivity

The connectivity is very similar for both speakers and in fact is basically identical. Each speaker has Bluetooth v4.1, as long as you buy the second series, as well as NFC for fast pairing.

There is a Micro-B USB for charging and playback and 3.5mm auxiliary input. Again, these are pretty routine features for a modern portable speaker.

This doesn’t change across the Revolve 2 and the Revolve plus 2 so there’s nothing that warrants an upgrade here.

Sound Quality: The Nitty And Gritty

If you are buying a speaker, beyond any clever engineering, the sound quality should be the main thing that causes you to sway. And with the Revolve and Revolve plus models this depends largely on your plans for the speaker’s use.

Let’s get specific, they utilize dual passive radiators, downward facing transducers, and an omni-directional acoustic deflector on both speakers.

This is marketing jargon that basically lists the technology they are using to make up for the fact the speaker doesn’t have a proper subwoofer and driver.

This is the biggest thing to recognize with these speakers, as they lack subwoofers they will never produce studio quality sound so we should change our expectations accordingly, as most speakers within the same market won’t have subwoofers.

By nature, as the Bose Revolve plus 2 is larger than the Revolve 2 its capacity to balance high volumes as well as the volume it can produce will be slightly higher.

Most customers report that the Revolve plus 2 can control the increased decibels of high volume and is generally clearer at high volume than the smaller Revolve 2.

Similarly, the Revolve plus 2 will naturally have better bass capabilities due to it being larger, its transducers etc are likely larger too. So, in short, the larger Revolve plus 2 makes for bigger bass and clearer high volume playback.

It seems that your value in this moderate increase in sound quality will depend on your specific use and context of use. If you are in a larger house, or the speaker is in a larger room, this increase in quality will be noticeable.

Conversely, if you are taking this outside and using it at small gatherings and parties, then the larger sound will be desirable and worth the money with regular use.

However, if you are just going to use this speaker as a static unit in your kitchen or living room that will not regularly be used at full volume, then the increase in sound quality isn’t greatly noticeable.

In simpler terms, the extra cash for the larger Revolve plus will be worth it in large settings and if you regularly use the speaker at full volume.

For the domestic speaker to play songs while you cook and be strong enough to fill a small room when you have guests, the Revolve 2 will be enough.

The Revolve 2, and even the first series of these models, received pretty favorable reviews in terms of sound quality.

For such a small and sleek design, the Revolve 2 does actually produce pretty decent sound in comparison. The Revolve plus 2 simply offers a bigger sound for those who want it.

Accessories

Both the speakers are compatible with the expensive but useful charging cradle that can be additionally purchased alongside the speaker. This is a useful add-on that will make you forget about battery life, but is fairly expensive for what it does.

Pricing

Upgrading any unit, regardless of the product, you can always expect some increase in price, but pricing will constantly change depending on the market.

The Revolve 2 is less expensive than its upgrade, the Revolve plus 2. In terms of value for money, this completely depends on your specific situation, but as the Revolve plus is physically larger the increase in price can be justified on a purely design basis.

However, beyond simply component prices, you may be wondering if the upgrade to the Revolve plus 2 is worth your hard earned cash?

Our Final Say: Is The Upgrade Worth Your Money?

Well, we think this depends on your specific situation. For once, the upgrade here has a specific purpose: the Bose Plus 2 is clearly designed for larger groups and larger situations, and is designed as a larger product to fulfill this purpose.

So, if you are in a larger house, or plan to use this speaker at higher volumes, and you really enjoyed the sound quality and operation of the original Revolve 2, then sure the upgrade is worth your money.

If you want a speaker that is made for outdoor use, has subwoofers and studio quality sound, to blow the roof off your house parties, then this isn’t an upgrade that will grant you this.

Generally, as the Revolve plus 2 is larger, it creates a bigger sound that is made for filling bigger spaces and handling the higher volumes.

So when regularly playing at high volumes and getting a serious groove on, this speaker is probably worth the upgrade as it’s engineered to be a bigger version of the Revolve 2, hence the ‘plus’.

However, there may be some other speakers on the market for similar or less price that could be better suited. There’s generally no real advancement on the Revolve 2 Plus, apart from handle and a little more battery life, beyond the bigger and better sound range and quality.

However, if you already use a Revolve 2 in your house, and you aren’t too bothered about playing at large volumes, and simply want a speaker that is loud enough to fill your living room when you have guests, and to play music while you cook or work, then the Revolve 2 should be more than enough and fulfills its design of a subtle but sonically-powerful speaker.

The Revolve 2 is actually a great purchase for this specific situation, just don’t expect club thumping bass and transcendent sound quality. There are other products on the market for that purpose.