Verdict
The Soundcore Rave 3S hits the sweet spot between affordability and performance. It's a fun-packed speaker built for good times—with enough volume to keep the party going and a price that makes it easy to justify. Just be ready to work around a few minor annoyances.
The Good
- Powerful 200W output with a strong bass presence
- Two wireless mics included
- AI voice remover makes any song perfect for karaoke
- Excellent value for money
The Bad
- Care needed when charging due to poor door design
- Mic gain and volume aren’t separately adjustable
- AuraCast limited to Soundcore-only speakers
If you’re looking for a Bluetooth speaker that brings the party and leaves enough cash in your wallet for snacks and drinks, the Soundcore Rave 3S might just be your next best buy. With 200 watts of power, dual wireless mics for karaoke, customizable light shows, and even spatial audio, this speaker is designed for backyard bashes, poolside sessions, or anywhere you want to turn up the volume.
It also costs about half the price of JBL’s comparable PartyBox speaker! But of course, no speaker is perfect—and while the Rave 3S has a lot to love, it also has a few rough edges you’ll want to know about before adding it to your cart.
Design and Build: Chunky but Tough
Right out of the box, the Rave 3S makes a solid first impression. Literally. At around 10kg (22 lbs), this isn’t the most portable speaker out there—but that heft comes from the beefy 6.5-inch woofer and triple 3.5-inch full-range speakers inside. In return, you get serious power that feels ready for outdoor action. So it’s actually relatively light-weight when you consider what’s inside it.
The speaker is sturdy and well-built. It’s rugged plastic exterior ensures that it will survive the odd knock, and the IPX4 rating makes it ideal for poolside placements or garden parties. Just don’t toss it into the pool—this isn’t a “floats and plays” kind of speaker.
Up top, you get an intuitive control panel with all the essentials: volume, Bluetooth pairing, BassUp (for that extra low-end punch), lighting controls, and karaoke-specific buttons like reverb and AI voice removal. More on those last two shortly.
Audio Performance: Big Sound, Even Bigger Bass
This speaker is made to be loud—and it delivers. The 200W output pushes enough sound to easily fill a large outdoor space, and with BassUp enabled, the low end really thumps without getting muddy.
Despite the focus on party power, the mids and highs don’t get completely lost. Vocals stay clear, and there’s a decent sense of separation, especially for a speaker at this price point. The Soundcore app also includes EQ presets and a 9-band custom equalizer if you want to tweak the profile even further to your taste.
If you’re into movie nights or outdoor projector setups, you’ll appreciate the Spatial Audio mode, which kicks in when you place the speaker on its side. It adds noticeable width to the soundstage and really enhances the immersion.
Karaoke Features: Surprisingly Fun and Functional
One of the standout features of this speaker is its karaoke setup, and luckily the Rave 3S comes with two microphones neatly stored in its rear. No added cost needed to get up and running. They’re easy-to-use, lightweight, and most importantly – wireless, running off simple AA batteries. There is one issue I have with them though.
The mics don’t have independent gain and volume controls. Gain dictates the sensitivity of the mic, whilst volume dictates the volume by which your voice comes out of the speaker. So, if you have a quieter voice, you’ll need to crank it up to be picked up, but then you’ll come of the speaker incredibly loud. That said, for rowdy group karaoke, it works well enough.
The coolest feature of this speaker has to be it’s AI voice removal tool. This strips vocals from just about any track on the fly! It doesn’t completely eliminate the original vocals, but it gets surprisingly close—especially at higher settings—so you can hardly hear the original vocals at all. It turns any Spotify play list into an instant Karaoke sing-a-long marathon! You can turn this feature off entirely if you’d rather not use it.
The Rave 3S also has a handy ‘Auto Guide Vocal’ feature that lets the original vocals of a track play when you’re not singing and then fades them out when you are singing. Perfect for when people start forgetting the words to songs!
You can also tweak your own voice using the ‘Voice Enhancer’ mode. This allows you choose from 4 different voice effects to either brighten or add weight to your voice. There’s also a ‘Reverb’ mode that unsurprisingly adds reverb to your voice to sound as though you singing in anywhere from a hall to a concert.
All of this just enhanced the fun and makes karoake singalongs easy and fun. Ideal for family gatherings, birthdays, or casual parties.
Connectivity and Light: Loads of Options
Connectivity isn’t an area that the Rave 3S is lacking in either. Other than wireless bluetooth, all the physical connections are hidden between a rubber door on the back of the speaker and allow for: USB-C charging, an Aux-in port for attaching a musical instrument – including a gain control, and a switch for switching between mic and instrument mode.
One small issue is the charging port door. It doesn’t stay open cleanly when charging, which puts pressure on the cable. A quick and easy workaround is to place something in the door to keep it open – which is what I do. So it’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s a minor design oversight that could have been avoided.
The Rave 3S also comes equipped with a significant number of lighting modes that can be configured using either the controls on the top of the speaker to cycle through the options, or via the soundcore mobile app for even more control. It adds a visual flair to the speaker without being too gimmicky. and add some personality to any party setup.
AuraCast: Good Idea, But Limited Execution
One connection option that the Rave 3S comes with is Auracast. This is a great addition to any speaker as it is a Bluetooth standard and in theory should let you pair multiple speakers wirelessly to play the same audio across all speakers – regardless of brand.
The problem? Right now, the Rave 3S only pairs with other Soundcore AuraCast speakers. Attempts to connect to other speakers, such as the JBL Clip 5 and JBL Go 4 which also support AuraCast, didn’t work. Hopefully, Soundcore rolls out a firmware update to open this up in the future, but at launch, it’s a bit of a letdown.
Price and Value: Stellar for What You Get
At $350 (including two mics), the Soundcore Rave 3S offers exceptional value—especially when compared to something like the JBL PartyBox 320, which costs $600 on it’s own, and $750 if you include the additional cost of two mics!
Even better: Soundcore often runs bundle deals, like two Rave 3S units for $600—a fantastic setup for stereo party sound without breaking the bank.
Final Verdict: A Fun-Focused Speaker That Nails the Brief
The Soundcore Rave 3S isn’t trying to be a high-fidelity audio masterpiece. It’s a party speaker through and through—and in that role, it absolutely excels. Between the massive sound, karaoke extras, app customizations, and rugged build, this is a speaker that brings the energy wherever it goes.
Sure, the mic settings could be more flexible, the charging design could be improved, and the AuraCast feature is more “promise” than “performance” at the moment. But for the price? Those are small trade-offs for what is otherwise a loud, lively, and incredibly fun speaker.
