Tivoli Audio makes beautiful products.
The Andiamo Bluetooth speaker—part of the new Tivoli Go lineup—is no exception.
The design is attractive, the build is sturdy, and the controls are simple.
What's present as always is the Tivoli price—the Andiamo costs $199.99—and much of this cost seems sunk into the materials and the brand name itself.
While the Andiamo delivers solid audio, it's still mono, and for a portable speaker, it seems a tad large to be toting around town.
For a lower price we'd be more enthused, but as is, the Andiamo is still a lovely piece of design with solid mono audio.
Design
If one thing has remained consistent with Tivoli Audio products over the years, it's the visual design—these products never look anything but classy.
Off the bat, there are some stark differences between a typical portable Bluetooth speaker and the Andiamo.
Available in black or silver with tan highlights, the Andiamo measures 2.2 by 5.3 inches (HW) and weighs in at 1.6 pounds.
it's portable in the sense that it can be charged and used on the go, but it's heavier and larger than a pocket-sized speaker.
It also doesn't charge via USB—instead there's an AC wall adapter included.
Many of the portable speakers we test that are roughly this size are also water resistant to some degree, but the Andiamo is not protected against moisture, so be careful of how and where you use it.
The enclosure is constructed of aluminum, and there's a built-in carrying strap made of Italian leather.
Internally, the mono Andiamo has a single 2.5-inch, 20-watt driver complemented by a 3-inch passive radiator.
The top panel has an alluring grille pattern, the bottom panel has a rubber ring that acts to stabilize the speaker when it's set down, and the side panel is covered in the same leather trim as the built-in handle.
Along the side panel, there's a 3.5mm aux input, located next to the connection for the included power adapter.
There's no included audio cable for the speaker, however, which seems like an oversight at $200.
In a clever bit of design, the controls for the Andiamo are located beneath embossed leather icons—you can feel the buttons depress when you tap the leather surface, and they're easy to operate, but they're hard to see even from only a foot away, thus the design has an uncluttered look without sacrificing functionality.
There are controls for power (along with a status LED), pairing, and volume.
Surprisingly, the volume buttons do not work in conjunction with your mobile device's master volume—if you're at a low volume on your phone, but maxed out on the Andiamo, the volume level will seem fairly low.
What's missing? Track navigation controls would've been nice, but we were most surprised to see no speakerphone functionality—something we typically find in portable Bluetooth speakers of this size.
When you receive or place calls on your phone, music will pause and the call audio will go through your phone itself.
After the call is finished, music playback will resume through the speaker.
Another nice inclusion would have been a kickstand of some sort—as is, this is an upward-firing speaker only, unless you can find a hook nearby and hang it by its strap.
Tivoli estimates battery life to be roughly 20 hours, but your results will vary with your volume levels and your mix of wireless and wired playback.
Performance
The built-in passive radiator does a lot of work inside the Andiamo's enclosure—it will vibrate long tabletops quite a bit, though its rubberized base keeps it from scooting around (for the most part).
But you won't mistake these deep vibrations for actual bass response—this is a passive driver vibrating sympathetically, and it provides a strong sense of lows, but it's not the same as a powered low-frequency driver.
That, combined with some fairly obvious DSP (digital signal processing) at higher volumes, and the fact that the speaker is mono, leads to a listening experience that can sound dynamically limited and, at times, oddly thin for the amount of physical vibration it creates.
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the DSP does it's primary job, however—at top volumes on both the speaker and the sound source, the speaker doesn't distort.
This isn't to say we get much sense of the deep bass on this track—the thumps are often reduced to a thin tapping—but the bass doesn't, at the very least, get the best of the drivers.
Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Andiamo's general sound signature.
The drums on this track can sound overly thunderous on some bass-forward speakers, but through the Andiamo, they again sound like tapping.
It's Callahan's baritone vocals—and some higher percussive hits, later on—that summon the speaker's sense of bass depth.
In other words, there's no deep bass here, as one might expect from a portable speaker this size, but the lows and low-mids do get a certain richness to them that imbues the track with some body.
Mostly though, the Andiamo delivers a crisp, clean sound—the acoustic strums are bright here, and the vocals get a treble edge that keeps things well defined.
This is a bright sound, with some richness.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives a solid high-mid presence, allowing its attack to retain its edgy punch.
The drum loop gets some extra thump in the lows and low-mids and that adds some body to the mix.
The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat, however, are more implied than delivered—we hear their raspy top notes, but there's no real deep bass coming through here.
The vocals are delivered cleanly and clearly, and generally speaking, the Andiamo shines on this track.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound crisp and well defined through the Andiamo.
The higher register brass, strings, and vocals are bright, while the lower register instrumentation has some extra fullness.
Again, the lows and low-mids have a solid richness that stands out here.
Conclusions
For a speaker this size, the Tivoli Audio Andiamo sounds fairly solid—it doesn't offer standout audio performance, and honestly, that's hard to do in a mono-only scenario.
But its richness and brightness deliver an audio experience that has some fine moments.
But there are also the thin-sounding moments, where the DSP seems too heavily applied, and it's hard to reconcile that with the $200 price.
We'd rather save some money for a speaker with excellent audio but fewer design flourishes, or a smaller design that is a bit more in tune with the typical portable speaker characteristics—lighter and waterproof, for instance.
Most of the Bluetooth speakers we enjoy around this price are larger.
If fuller audio is your top priority, consider the JLab Block Party, the Marshall Kilburn, or the far less expensive (but not portable) Ikea Eneby (12-inch).
If the size of the Andiamo is what draws you in, the Bose SoundLink Micro delivers solid portable audio for less money.
If you love the way the Andiamo looks, it's doubtful that its sonic performance will turn you off—just go into it knowing that it's not priced this high because of the superb audio.
The Bottom Line
With Tivoli's Andiamo, you're paying a premium for beautiful design.
Audio performance from this compact wireless speaker is solid, but not exceptional.