Am I a teacher? No, not unless you count the lessons I teach to the random kids in Fortnite no-build lobbies who think they’ve got better aim than me. Still, when BenQ reached out with the opportunity to try their new learning-and-teaching focused treVolo U dialogue speaker out, I was pretty excited. A lot of wireless speakers I come across seem designed more for blasting bass-heavy music than any other uses, so the idea of a more versatile home-use speaker that could make my work meetings comfier and maybe improve gaming audio from my laptop and handhelds seemed too good to pass up.
Now, while I’m coming at this from the perspective of a gamer (one of the most threatening sentences in the English language), it’s important to note that a lot of the technology in the treVolo U Dialogue Speaker is meant for dialogue-focused scenarios. If you’re someone who struggles hearing voices during Zoom calls or you want to practice a new language without struggling with your tablet’s tinny speakers, this is the speaker for you. You can connect the treVolo U Dialogue Speaker over Bluetooth pretty easily or use the included 3.5mm aux cable, and once you’re set up, there are three different Sound Modes to swap between with a button on the speaker to help fine-tune your experience.
I found myself using the first two modes the most – Music mode and Video Learning mode. Both offer pretty crisp and rich sound, without any overbearing bass tones but still enough oomph thanks to the depth of the speakers. The third mode, Live Learning, seems fine-tuned to specifically focus on and enhance voices – at the cost of making everything else sound pretty tinny and flat. If you’re watching a video with low volume and struggling to hear it or you can’t understand someones voice in a video call or livestream because there’s a bunch of background noise, this mode does wonders for isolating voices and making them sound perfectly sharp. I was really impressed by how good of a job this mode did of enhancing vocal clarity, but because of how it destroys the richness and quality of any non-vocal audio, it isn’t wise to use the mode for any casual media consumption or gaming or music.
If you’re looking for the kind of speaker that lets you blast music or deliver sound-system levels of volume, the treVolo U Dialogue Speaker definitely won’t impress you. While it delivers crisp and clear audio, it isn’t very loud at all. Because the volume buttons on the speaker sync with and control the volume slider on whatever device you connect it too, you also can’t over-extend the volume on this thing by maxing out your device and the speaker. If you’re watching a quiet movie on your laptop, it’s going to be pretty quiet on this speaker. That being said, though, the quality of the audio is still an impressive upgrade for most devices – it’s a clear improvement over my laptop’s audio, and it also offered some enhanced richness and depth when connected to my Switch or my Steam Deck that the devices themselves lack.
There are a lot of auxiliary features to the treVolo U Dialogue Speaker, but I’m not really sure how useful they are. the Safe Volume detection button will use a visual sensor to see how far away you are from the speaker, and adjust the volume accordingly – but the speaker really isn’t loud enough to un-safe, and if it’s too loud you can also just press the volume buttons. The built-in voice assistant feels similarly unnecessary – with so few functions available to me, I’m not sure if I need to rely on a voice assist tool to change volume or Sound Modes. The speaker can also sync with your connected devices audio-assistant, but why waste a few extra seconds telling my treVolo U Dialogue Speaker to activate Siri when I can just…activate Siri?
