Review: Supertooth Disco Twin

Two is always better than one, right? Two steaks at dinner, two sports cars in the garage, two passes to the Rolling Stones' farewell concert – at least until their next farewell tour.

With wireless speakers, having a left and right channel makes sense. You can place them a set distance apart – say, four to six feet – to achieve the intended stereo experience your music was mixed for.

The Supertooth Disco Twin speakers let you do just this. You can stream from any Bluetooth-enabled device or connect with a 3.5mm audio jack. The portable speakers last about 10 hours per charge at normal volume, or about three to four hours at max volume.

While the quality of the audio stream isn't going to make Polk Audio or Sonos nervous, the Disco Twin offers passable stereo sound, handy portability, and a unique design. Supertooth makes a high-quality speakerphone for the car that does a great job picking up your voice, even with a lot of background noise. They've essentially ported that technology to the Disco Twin speakers.

The twin speakers are black with a dark silver base. Each weighs 19.5 ounces and stands 7 inches tall. There are two 8-Watt speakers inside each unit, pumping out 32 Watts in total.

Setup is easy as long as you do it in the correct order. Printed in light text on the dark silver bass of the left speaker you will see the word "master." That's important. When you sync to the left, the Disco Twin automatically adds the right speaker. If you pair to the right speaker first, however, you'll have to pair to both speakers.

There are no frills here: Supertooth does not offer a mobile app for adjusting EQ. In fact, there are no "approved" apps at all. Once you sync, you're on your own as far as music.

I paired the twins with a Samsung Galaxy S4 in about five seconds. A voice announces left or right when you sync. I even paired the speakers with a Dish Hopper to play stereo television audio. That's a handy arrangement because you can set the speakers on either side of your HDTV. You can't pair multiple gadgets and switch between them, however. And there are no presets for EQ settings – or any way to adjust EQ at all – on the speakers themselves.

At a desk, I also paired the speakers with a Sony Vaio Duo 11 running Windows 8. Once again, setting the speakers about six feet apart worked well to create an enveloping listening experience you can't get from a speaker like the Sony BTX-500 with drivers built into one main unit.

Although the Disco Twin uses aptX technology to increase the bandwidth of the audio stream, most of our test tracks sounded a bit distorted. (And the codec is only supported on newer devices like the Galaxy S4 and not on iOS devices.)

Two hundred bucks isn't a bad price for two Bluetooth speakers. They are small, which makes them portable. You can arrange the set for a true stereo experience – something you won't get close to with many other wireless speakers. Still, the Disco Twin proves all the audio separation in the world can't mask sub-par sound.