Review: Trettitre TreSound1 Wireless Speaker

There is no shortage of cheap Bluetooth speakers from manufacturers that you’d never see on store shelves in North America, but far fewer that make a play for the high end wireless speaker market. It’s difficult to get consumers to part with big money on a speaker that doesn’t carry a familiar name. China’s Trettitre is giving it a go with the $699.99 TreSound1, a sample of which was sent to me by distributor Linsoul Audio.

Premium – But Polarizing – Design

The TreSound1 has a very unusual appearance, one that draws immediate attention. Trettitre says it incorporates a “mountain” design. To me it looks like a warhead. It’s not just the form factor that makes the design polarizing; the controls take minimalism to an extreme. There are no buttons to mar its surface. On/off and volume control is accomplished by twisting the metal end of the cone, with no option for pausing or skipping tracks. The very tip is an LED that glows orange when a device is connected via Bluetooth. There is also ambient white LED lighting beneath the speaker when powered on (with no option to dim or turn it off).

Aside from the LEDs, you won’t find any plastic on this speaker. The TreSound1 is built from wood (real wood, not even MDF) and steel. Trettitre emphasizes the craftsmanship that goes into building it. The speaker weighs a hefty 13.2 pounds, and that’s without a battery – because it is not a portable, so there is no battery. The metal acoustic grill and control dial are perfectly formed and have a very high quality finish. The wooden bottom half of the speaker is treated with multiple layers of lacquer resulting in a high-gloss, piano finish. My white and silver review unit practically glows. It looks very expensive. There’s no denying that the TreSound1 is a looker, it just might not fit in everyone’s decor.

You’ll need to deal with a sizeable power brick to power the speaker. Fortunately, Trettitre supplies a decent amount of thin power cable from the brick, so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to hide it out of sight.

In short, the TreSound1 looks like no other wireless speaker I’ve tested before. It’s as much a piece of art as a piece of audio equipment.

Performance: Not Quite the Sum of Its Parts…

On paper, the TreSound1 should sound pretty spectacular. A 60W Class D amplifier is powering five drivers: a pair of tweeters, a pair of full-range drivers, and a big downward-firing subwoofer. That woofer is housed in a wooden acoustic chamber. The setup offers 360-degree audio.

With some songs, the combination is almost perfect. The TreSound1 did a bang up job with Erasure’s “Always” – the thundering bass and bright highs delivered clear, energetic sound with impressive low end punch. Thanks to the subwoofer, Mike Mills’ bass drove R.E.M.’s “Texarkana” while still allowing the vocals to shine. I was happy to crank these up, and with 60W on tap, the TreSound can fill a good-sized room with music.

Unfortunately, with too many tracks louder volume resulted in sound that was almost painfully distorted as the subwoofer and/or tweeters got too aggressive. “Always” and “Texarkana” sounded great at high volume. Too many other songs did not. For example, Stone Temple Pilots’ “Vasoline” and Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” both sounded fine up until about 50% volume, but at anything over that the bass would quickly and progressively become thrashier and more distorted.

Generally speaking I noticed a trend throughout the different genres of music I played of bass that could get out of control, highs that were often a little too bright, and midrange that was too often underwhelming.

There is also no way to tailor the audio other than whatever built-in EQ your smartphone offers. In addition, there is no way to customize that 360-degree audio based on the speaker’s location. There is a considerable difference in sound quality between placing the TreSound1 in a corner or near a wall versus having it sit in the open. Other surround style speakers in this price range – like the Sony SRS-RA5000 I reviewed in 2021 – address the issue with an integrated microphone that calibrates the sound based on the environment, compensating for issues like nearby walls that will reflect sound.

The company spikes out the TreSound1’s Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity, with Qualcomm CSR aptX and support for 24bit/96kHz high-fidelity audio. With the right source, this should offer very high quality streaming audio. However, aptX support does not extend to iPhones and Trettitre makes no mention in documentation about supporting Apple’s AAC codec. If it’s lacking that doesn’t mean iPhone owners can’t use the speaker, just that they won’t get quite the same experience that most Android smartphone users would.

The choice of Bluetooth wireless connectivity offers the advantage of easy setup and pairing. However, many wireless speakers in this price range instead opt to use Wi-Fi, which offers higher quality audio streaming and the ability to connect to/control the speaker from anywhere covered by the Wi-Fi network.

The bottom line is that the sound this speaker puts out can be good, but it can also disappoint. That’s a problem given its price.

TreSound1 Key Specs:

• 3-way speaker design with 360-degree sound
• 2 x 1.25-inch silk film neodymium magnetic tweeters, 2 x 2.25 double neodymium magnetic full-range drivers, 1 x 5.25-inch subwoofer with 2-layer compound paper cone
• Frequency response 38Hz – 20KHz
• Class D amplifier 2 x 15W, 1 x 30W
• Bluetooth 5.1 with Qualcomm CSR aptX and support for 24bit/96kHz high-fidelity audio
• 3.5mm audio input
• LED Bluetooth indicator, white LED ambient lighting
• Integrated volume, On/Off control
• All wood and metal design
• 16.9-inches tall, 11.8-inches diameter, weighs 13.2 lbs
• Available in piano finish Snow Peak (white), Majestic Mountain (black), Green Hill (green), and Red
• Includes cloth dust cover and pouch for power cables
• Price $699

TreSound1 Recommendation

I really wanted to love the TreSound1. While the design may not be for everyone, there’s no denying the speaker exudes premium quality. The glossy piano finish stands out, as does the use of wood and metal where so many wireless speakers are dominated by plastic. I liked the ambient light, which was a nice touch.

But for that $699 price tag, a wireless speaker can’t just look good. It needs to sound great – consistently, not just with some songs – and it really needs an app or on-speaker controls that offer the ability to optimize that audio.

Disclosure: Linsoul Audio provided a TreSound 1 speaker for evaluation purposes but had no input into this review.