Majority Atlas

Verdict

The Majority Atlas is a wireless soundbar that offers reasonable audio for a cheap price. It isn’t the best option in its category with a weak bass and imprecise top end, but it nonetheless offers more in the way of connectivity compared to smaller speakers and is well-built. There are better options out there for taking outdoors, though.

Introduction

The Majority Atlas is a wireless soundbar that packs some interesting features and connectivity options into one of the cheapest speakers of its kind.

At £29.99, it’s far from expensive, and offers a solid blend of decent build quality, useful connectivity, and reasonable audio. While it isn’t going to set the world alight, it’s more of a serviceable choice for cash-strapped buyers.

I’ve been testing the Atlas for the last couple of weeks to see how well it performs, and to see if it’s one of the best soundbars we’ve looked at.

Design

• Solid plastics used in the Atlas’ construction
• Small enough to travel with
• Simple to use

In spite of it being half the price, the Atlas feels as if lives up to the build quality of another more affordable soundbar I’ve tested recently with the Edifier MG300. A 770g weight is seriously light for a speaker like the Atlas, but the plastics used in its construction are of a decent quality.

That light weight also helps make the Atlas a portable speaker, while its 450mm width keeps things compact. This makes it easy to place down beneath a monitor, or take on your travels in a bag, being a wireless speaker and all.

As opposed to leaning into a brash, gamer aesthetic, the Atlas opts for a more egalitarian design with a blend of matted plastics for the main body and grille, as well as a glossy band around the front for some extra flair. It is quite non-descript, but if you want a speaker that’ll integrate well with a wide range of setups, that’s no bad thing.

The Atlas’ controls are kept simple and easy to access, with a set of four buttons on the top corresponding to media playback and choosing the soundbar’s mode. The first button is for play and pause, while the next two are for skipping backwards or forwards. Volume control is handled by the large dial in the middle of the soundbar’s grille on the front, so you’re left in no doubt.

Otherwise, the ports around the back offer excellent connectivity for a soundbar that’s this cheap, with a microSD card slot and a USB-A slot for connecting storage for playing media directly from. There is also a 3.5mm jack, and a microUSB slot for plugging the speaker in to charge.

Features

• Lots of connectivity options
• Solid battery life
• MicroUSB charging feels dated

As previously mentioned, the Atlas’ connectivity is excellent, working over various wired means, including being able to play music files from either a microSD card or USB drive. The USB port unfortunately can’t connect to a host device such as a desktop PC or laptop to play audio like the Edifier MG300 can, which is a shame.

However, for this purpose, the speaker can be paired via Bluetooth – pairing is simple by turning the speaker on. It defaults to Bluetooth output, and the speaker automatically enters pairing mode. It’s a case of selecting it on the host device and it works without a hitch – that was the case on my MacBook Pro or Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

You can also connect via a 3.5mm jack for a wired connection. I should also say that the included cables for charging over microUSB, using the 3.5mm jack, or the USB-A extension cable provided are quite short, even if they are handy to have.

Unfortunately, the Atlas doesn’t have any dedicated music or movie modes, unlike the MG300, but it can operate fully wirelessly under its own steam. With this, it can last for up to 8 hours, giving you a working day’s worth of power before needing to be charged up. This battery life is fine for its price range, although more dedicated outdoor speaker such as the Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 have it beat with 12 hours of runtime.

The Atlas at least lived up to Majority’s claimed endurance in my testing, although the microUSB charging method feels antiquated in 2024 when USB-C is ubiquitous. For a follow-up model, USB-C would make sense, but you get a microUSB cable in the box for charging.

This speaker also carries no water or dust resistance ratings, meaning if you do decide to take it outdoors, you’ll need to keep it undercover. For a speaker Majority markets as being usable outdoors, this is a real shame.

Sound Quality

• Weak bass
• Warm vocals
• Lots of volume

With the Atlas’ price in mind, I didn’t have much in the way of expectations when judging its audio quality. However, I still ended up feeling short-changed against other speakers within a similar price category as this speaker sounded quite thin overall.

There is some low-end present, although the gritty guitar drives and strong bassline of Rush’s Working Man weren’t displayed with as much precision or grunt as I’d have liked. In addition, Let’s Groove from Earth, Wind & Fire felt a little hollow, as did explosions and gunfire in Counter Strike 2 in my testing.

The mid-range is reasonable, with vocals on James Taylor’s October Road and John Martyn’s May You Never served up at the front of the mix with a certain warmth to them, which was pleasant. However, in the case of October Road, and Earth, Wind & Fire’s September, recordings felt hemmed in with a soundstage that didn’t extend beyond the confines of the unit.

The top end here also lacked a certain something with regards to the crispness of the cymbals on Paul Heaton’s Fish ‘N’ Chip Supper, or the iconic competing percussion elements on Steely Dan’s Do It Again.

On the bright side, audio can at least get loud without much in the way of distortion, although the speaker’s volume wheel operates independently of the system volume. Turning up the volume with the dial on the front of the Atlas didn’t change my MacBook’s, for instance, and you can use both to get things really loud if you need to. This isn’t to say that the Atlas sounds bad, because the audio it spits out is serviceable, but there are better speakers available for a similar price.

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