Harman Kardon Allure Review
Harman Kardon is experimenting with all the major (non-Siri) voice assistants. The Harman Kardon Invoke isn't our favorite smart speaker, but it's the only one with Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant. JBL, a subsidiary of Harman, has has a stronger showing with its Google Assistant-equipped Link 10 and Link 300. The $249.95 Allure, reviewed here, is Harman Kardon's take on Amazon Alexa. It's attractive and very powerful for its size and price, but we've heard better audio quality elsewhere.
Design
The Allure ($149.00 at Amazon) looks like a smoky version of the Harman Kardon Aura, or the subwoofer included with the company's iconic SoundSticks desktop speakers. It's a rounded cylinder measuring 7.6 inches tall and 6.5 inches wide, with a top half covered in dark gray transparent plastic and a bottom half consisting of metal speaker grille. Unlike the Aura and SoundSticks subwoofer, the Allure is only see-through around the sides of the top half. An opaque, dark gray cylinder sits...
The Harman Kardon Allure is a powerful Alexa-equipped smart speaker with an eye-catching design and a very bass-heavy sound.
Supports Amazon Alexa voice control; Loud for its size; Attractive design
Audio lacks high-mid presence to balance bass; Cannot control Spotify with Alexa