DOSS Touch Wireless Speaker Investigative Review

If you have not read my previous review of the DOSS Touch Wireless Speaker, I recommend you look at it for an overview of  the unit. This review includes the results of a set of "Bass Performance" tests, designed to discover how to get the best bass from the unit.

Background: Bass sounds are at the lower end of the audio frequency spectrum. The lower the bass sound, the larger the size of the sound wave. To generate a low-frequency sound wave in a speaker, the size of the speaker and the amplifier power needed to drive the sound must be big. That's why you see 250 watt amplifiers and 15-inch woofers. So how can the dinky 1.5-inch speakers in the DOSS Touch unit have any hope of producing a deep bass sound?

The answer lies in the way sound waves can propagate. In brief, if you are a tiny speaker that by itself cannot produce a sound down to, say 40 Hz, then you get help from the surface you are sitting on. In other words, since sound is just vibrating air, the little speakers can vibrate a relatively large surface and the surface will act similarly to a woofer. That's what a "passive radiator" does: it radiates vibrations from the dinky speakers to the surface where the speaker is sitting and the surface vibrates at a much lower frequency, creating a richer bass than the unit by itself can produce.

Okay, okay. So just what effect can placing the unit on various surfaces have on delivering better bass? Here are the results of my own, highly subjective testing. The table shows the degree of bass enhancement provided by each surface or setup, with better bass being indicated by more plus (+) signs.

Music: "What a Feeling" from Flashdance

Bedroom Floor, upstairs, laminate: +++
Bed, bedroom: ++
Bathroom, tile floor: ++++
Bathroom, tile floor, DOSS Touch positioned facing a wall, 8 inches from wall: +++++
Kitchen, Quartz counter top: +++
Open room, DOSS Touch suspended on a 2 foot by  2 foot piece of 1/4 inch plywood: ++++
Open room, DOSS Touch suspended on 2 foot by 1.5 foot plastic storage bin lid: ++
Laminated particle board desk, facing listener, 1 foot from edge: ++++
Laminated particle board desk, unit facing wall, 8 inches from wall: +++++
Listener lying on back, DOSS Touch placed facing listener at bottom of rib cage: ++++

Conclusions
The bounce created by placing the DOSS Touch about 8 inches away from a wall, facing the wall provided the richest, best bass response--and that is a great sound. Just by itself the unit puts out a surprisingly rich low frequency range, entirely unlike the screech and slap "music" put out by the previous generations of tiny speakers.

The other notable discovery is that a listener can truly feel the music by placing the DOSS
Touch on the ribs, so that the base of the unit is over the last two inches of the rib cage. As noted above, that experiment earned a ++++ score on our evaluation.

Random tips:
To turn the unit on, press and hold the round button on the back until you hear the first of three chimes. Then release the button.

For first time paring, put your phone or tablet in Bluetooth ON mode. Then turn on the DOSS Touch. Your phone or tablet will show all the available Bluetooth objects. If you don't see a listing for DOSS Touch right away, click on the Bluetooth address, such as FC:58:FA:EF:C1:DD and soon the name DOSS SoundBox will appear and connect. Next time, pairing will be quick and automatic and the SoundBox will play some tones to let you know that is is connected.

Note that the DOSS Tech will automatically connect to the last device when  you turn it on. So, if you want to connect it to a different device, you must first disconnect the previous one. So, to change from your phone to your tablet, first disconnect your phone.

To increase volume, use your finger to wipe around the blue circle on top in a clockwise direction. When you hear a beep, the DOSS Tech is at full volume. It should be  quite loud. If not, you must increase the MEDIA volume on you phone or tablet.

I've been using the DOSS Touch SoundBox regularly since I got it and I continue to be impressed by the music it renders. When you can't listen to music on your home system, such as at the beach, in the park, on the lunch tables at work, this unit is worth your serious consideration.

Still recommended.