Monoprice Harmony Capsule 200 Speaker Flexes Specs Over Sound

The Monoprice Harmony Capsule 200 Portable Bluetooth Speaker is big and chunky—for a speaker meant to be portable. My first thoughts then shifted to assuming its size would translate into an impressive sound when I played its first song, but that wasn't the case. The bass isn't big or impressive, and sound clarity is lacking. Luckily, the speaker is small where it counts: in its price. Even though the speaker has a little trouble reproducing songs in the best possible light, it isn't totally irrelevant. It has unique features for a Bluetooth speaker, such as an auxiliary input and a microSD card slot. Its best feature, however, is its budget price. The speaker retails for $69.99 and has been seen for less than that, too. If you have $70 to spend on a secondary wireless speaker, this one might be able to fill that need. It's a budget speaker that could work for kids, outdoor use or a number of other special cases, but it probably shouldn't be your one and only speaker.

TL;DR

Pros:

• Strong water resistance (IPX7)
• Multiple connection methods, including a 3.5 millimeter jack

Cons:

• Bass presence is lacking
• Sound can be muffled and muddied at times
• Buttons can be hard to press

Buy at Monoprice.

Harmony Capsule 200 Features

The specs of the Harmony Capsule 200 are impressive—on paper. It has dual 52 millimeter and one 66 millimeter drivers. It uses Bluetooth 5.0 and is advertised as having EQ tuned for high volume playback. Its IPX7 water rating will allow it to be submerged 1 meter for 30 minutes. You can connect two of these speakers together for left and right stereo. There's a microphone that can be used to take calls. It also has a 3.5 millimeter input port for wired music connection and a microSD card slot to load music on and play from directly—no wireless connection needed.

Ways the Monoprice Harmony Capsule 200 Disappoints

If you need an inexpensive speaker to connect directly to a phone through a headphone jack, this one can do that. If you need a speaker you can hand to your kids and not worry about, this one can be neglected and still live to see another day. There are plenty of reasons to buy this speaker and not feel bad about it. But, ultimately, this is a budget speaker, and you shouldn't be fooled into thinking it's not. This is a good speaker to use outside around the pool because it can survive the water, but it's not great to travel with because it feels like it's bigger than it needs to be. Its size doesn't give it much of an advantage over other speakers like the Tribit StormBox Micro 2.

I also directly compared this speaker with the Huawei Sound Joy, which has a similar design but is smaller. The Sound Joy ran circles around it in clarity and low-end bass reproduction. The Sound Joy is also more expensive and has limited availability in North America. The exterior of the Harmony Capsule 200 is a mixture of rubber and mesh fabric. This is great for durability. None of the buttons, however, are easy to press. The front of the speaker includes large volume buttons, but it can be difficult to feel when you actually press them. Unfortunately, the sound is the biggest disappointment, because, after all, this is a speaker meant to play audio. Mat Kearney's "Closer to Love" is a good example of vocals that sound muffled. This exemplifies the more seismic problem that, by default, the speaker has very muddy midrange frequencies. This makes vocals and lots of instruments in songs feel more distorted than they do on other speakers. Half Alive's "Make of It" has really booming bass, and you can hear it on the Harmony Capsule 200, but it's a fraction of what it is on other Bluetooth speakers on which I listened to the song. It's a little confusing how a speaker can drown in midrange, while also sounding a bit hollow, but it happens here. Additionally, bigger speaker drivers are better, but in this case, the driver size doesn't seem to translate to booming bass.

It is true that the speaker does sound (slightly) better at higher volumes than it does at lower ones. But since not everyone can party all the time, it doesn't help all the times you want to listen at low or medium volumes.

Should You Buy the Monoprice Harmony Capsule 200?

If you're in the market for a portable Bluetooth speaker and simply browsing to see what's available, then you can go ahead and skip this one. This shouldn't be your primary way to listen to music. If, however, you have circumstances that dictate special considerations, such as needing offline playback, you can get by inserting a microSD card with audio files (free of copy protection) directly into this speaker. Above all, the price should be right. The standard retail $69.99 is pushing the limits of a good value, but when it goes on sale, it becomes a much better deal. Buy at Monoprice for $69.99. Newsweek may earn a commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. We participate in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.