The Ultimate Ears Wonderboom is one of our favourite speakers; it's compact, has performance that belies its size and it's simple - and now there's an updated version.

The succinctly-named Wonderboom 2 keeps a lot of the original about it, with a similar compact form factor, waterproofed to IP67 levels, and available in a range of colours. 

It also keeps the simple approach: it's not a smart speaker or anything else, it is just a compact Bluetooth speaker designed to be used anywhere.

Like the previous version, the Wonderboom 2 can be paired with another Wonderboom and here's where one of the new skills comes it - it now offers stereo pairing, so you can get greater differentiation between left and right channels for more immersive and nuanced audio. 

The stereo pairing is only available on two Wonderboom 2 devices (it's not supported on the original because it has a different chipset) acting in a pair. 

Elsewhere, Ultimate Ears has made an addition to reflect how Wonderbooms are being used. There's now a button on the bottom of the speaker that will let you switch to an outdoor mode.

This mode adapts the sound for outdoor listening, cutting the bass and boosting the treble to push those parts of the audio that you can actually hear outdoors. That makes the music sound a little shrill compared to the more rounded bassy sound - but it's designed to cut through outdoor noise better. 

The new speaker will be available immediately and is priced at £89.99 - which was the RRP for the original. If you're looking for a bargain, however, the original Wonderboom can be snapped up for nearly half that price.

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Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 2

This near-spherical speaker is an excellent addition to gardens or perfect for travelling with.