Sharp PS-921(BK) Bluetooth speaker Review

Introduction

If you’re the sort of person to propose “all back to mine” after they’ve called last orders, the Sharp PS-921(BK) Bluetooth party speaker aims to do your playlist justice.

Armed with an array of disco lighting sequences, 3D spatial audio and bass boosting options, this portable boombox with a 14-hour battery life packs a punch in the features department at an attractive price.

But if you’re planning on following the 2025 Pinterest trend for ‘sensational soirées’, will this splashproof speaker impress your guests or leave them looking for the nearest exit?

With competition from brands like Sony, JBL, Soundcore, LG and others, Sharp has its work cut out to be the bell of the ball. Let’s get this party (speaker) started.

Design

• Durable cylindrical form factor
• Compact and portable
• Physical rubberised buttons

Despite rather modest proportions for a party speaker, the PS-921(BK) is designed to be seen as well as heard with red accents, plenty of signature Sharp branding, and large rubberised buttons breaking up the sea of black.

A 50:50 mix of rugged plastic and metal front grille, it’s a rotund hunk featuring dual two-inch drivers and a very visible four-inch subwoofer that faces you in a gargoyle-like fashion. Atop the back you’ll find a carry handle for portability, which unfortunately does a fine job of cutting into your finger joints.

That said, weighing just 2.7kg and reminiscent of an office-sized instant coffee tin, the PS-921(BK) is every bit as portable as Sharp make out, and easily transportable from room-to-room, patio to pool, beach to bar, or hotel suite to hot tub… if that’s how you choose to live your life.

The majority of the top plate is reserved for the aforementioned array of control buttons catering for everything from source, play/pause, Bluetooth pairing and skip to volume, 3D/bass, and lighting effects. With no companion app in sight, you’ll get accustomed to these very quickly.

Flanking the bottom curvature of the control panel is a line of multicolour LEDs denoting everything from source selection to volume level and bass mode, but the illuminating experience offered by the PS-921(BK) doesn’t end there.

Hit the lightbulb button and its party piece LED effects kick into gear, circumnavigating the subwoofer in a continuous multicolour ring and complemented by a streak of jagged bright white light on either side. More on Sharp’s disco inferno a little later.

Spin the PS-921(BK) around and hidden behind a black rectangular rubber panel, you’ll find access to a USB port for flash drive content, a 3.5mm aux port, and a port for mains charging. Located dead centre underneath the unit is an M6 screw thread built into the base for stand or wall bracket mounting.

An IPX5 rating means its water resistant if not waterproof. By all means take it to the pool and place by the hot tub, just don’t expect it to survive if it falls in

Features

• Disco lighting
• 3D spatial audio/Bass boost
• Duo Mode True Wireless Stereo

The PS-921(BK) is a glower and a shower, with its full spectrum lighting effects constituting the speaker’s party piece. Give the lightbulb button a short press to cycle through a multi-coloured swap shop of sequences that illuminate the ring around the subwoofer.

Choose from a rainbow spectrum, colour rotating flashing, gradual colour pulsing, or a colour equaliser effect. A two-second press activates solid or flashing white side LEDs to complete the light show. A four-second press switches everything off and allows your dopamine levels to stabilise.

Whether you want a disco show will depend on your mood and the occasion. In truth, it’s always going to be Marmite but if you’ve decided to buy a party speaker, the odds are that lighting effects played a big part in your decision and to that end, the PS-921(BK) performs admirably.

The big kicker here is no companion app. While the plug and play nature of the PS-921(BK) offers beautiful simplicity for Bluetooth pairing and streaming songs, it’s a hindrance when the lighting effects can’t be controlled remotely from a phone and only on the speaker itself. 

Time for a little bit of bass and a little bit of space. The PS-921(BK) has a low-end theory when it comes to frequencies and takes a stab at spatial audio thanks to the 3D/Bass feature.

Toggle between Bass Off, 3D Off; Bass Off, 3D On; Bass On, 3D Off; and Bass On, 3D On. Take your time to experiment here before finding the Goldilocks setting to please your earholes, and you may need to mess about with your source device EQ settings as well — remember, no companion app.

The PS-921(BK) loves to deliver belly rumbles and if that’s your thing, we’d heartily recommend Bass remains on at all times.

Spatial audio, however, is notoriously hard to implement effectively in any iteration, but on a speaker devoid of 360-degree sound it’s even more challenging because the technology relies on creating the perception of audio coming from various directions.

What’s odd here, is that you have a spherical speaker with the perfect form factor to deliver an immersive, spherical 3D soundstage, but you’re hamstrung by front-facing drivers only. Boast about the feature to your friends in the pub, just don’t expect it to impress at the after party.

Arguably better at delivering a bigger soundstage is Sharp’s Duo Mode — the option to add a second PS-921(BK) via Bluetooth for True Wireless Stereo with a left and right channel.

I’m yet to test this feature, but the idea of a wider, stereo soundstage with double the bass sounds like a winner where entertaining is concerned. When stand or wall-mounted, I’d envisage you would have a fairly formidable and undeniably affordable party PA on your hands.

Connectivity

• Plug and play simplicity
• Instantaneous operation
• Strong source selection

For reasons unknown, the PS-921(BK) makes a strange didgeridoo sound when you switch it on, followed by a spoken word source selection in a male American accent. Identity crisis aside, it’s fun, clear, concise and instantaneous.

The same goes for every aspect of the speaker’s setup and performance — a toddler could master it in minutes, Bluetooth pairing takes milliseconds, and the muscle memory for flicking through lighting or 3D/Bass options quickly becomes embedded. Great for getting the party started.

A note on source options. While it would be great — for DJ controllers especially — to have an RCA input, an aux in for devices and a USB port for flash drives full of tunes (32GB max capacity) is a decent selection and provides solid alternatives to Bluetooth.

However, while plugging in a flash drive automatically plays its contents, there’s no way of selecting playlists or songs aside from blindly skipping tracks. If shuffle roulette sounds like fun, then great. If you’re worried your Jive Bunny back catalogue will rear its ugly head, it’s best avoided.

The USB port doubles as a charger for mobile devices, but you’ll still need to use Bluetooth to play content from it.

Battery life

• Built-in recharge battery
• Mains charger included
• 14 hours playtime

Great for after parties, not so much for all day raves. The PS-921(BK) offers a pretty mediocre 14 hours of playtime between charges and that’s if you keep the disco lights off and don’t use the USB port to charge your devices.

Get your glow on to enhance the party atmosphere, and you can expect to shave significant time off that total as the lighting effects invariably draw additional power from the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

It’s difficult to give a quantifiable number here owing to other factors such as volume level, lighting mode intensity, and usage patterns, but you could potentially be looking at a few hours if going with always-on as opposed to an audio-only operation.

Of course, if you happen to be near a power point, plugging into mains power allows for continuous use of both sound and lights while recharging the battery, which takes circa three hours from flat to full.

Sound Quality

• Admirable overall
• Booming bass
• Lacks nuance and frequency separation

As a party speaker with booming bass that won’t get muddied at max volume, the Sharp PS-921(BK) offers plenty of bang for your buck, and the overall sound quality is on the right side of crisp.

If Classic Unwind on BBC Radio 3 is your go-to, don’t expect the most mature or balanced sound. Subtlety and frequency separation are not ideas this speaker is willing to entertain, but then it never claims to be a boon for mindfulness.

Ennio Morricone’s iconic ‘L’estasi dell’oro’comes across as a bit of a mess and lacks impact without a true stereo soundstage, but emerge unscathed into boom bap hip hop and the PS-921(BK) starts to make sense.

This is a party speaker, after all, and so the big bass, forceful kick drums, and clear, distinct vocals of Kendrick Lamar’s GNX (via Apple Music) don’t disappoint. The same goes for Mandigo by Wu-Tang Clan and a bout of bounce-inducing Boiled Peanuts by Doechii.

With 3D and Bass both on, the listening experience was pretty mystifying. Turn 3D off and keep the Bass on and we think you’ll find your happy place with the best balance of bass-heavy lols and overall audio clarity.

The relative complexity of Scrambled Eggs by Moonchild Sanelly, Blu DeTiger’s cover of Murder On The Dancefloor and Lexa Gates’ Lately, Nothing are handled in impressive-enough fashion, while Deep Dish’s remix of Madonna’s Music proves this is a speaker unafraid to go hard when called upon.

Should you buy it?