While it might look like one of Doctor Who’s arch enemies, there’s nothing remotely evil about LG’s RP4 portable speaker. On the contrary, as someone who’s shared a house with one for the past few days, I can confirm that the RP4 (or XBOOM360 RP4 to give it its rather excitable full name) is actually rather friendly. Even a bit lovable. And surprisingly, perhaps, its cuddly nature lies as much in its sound quality as its unique design.

That design really is an eye-catcher, though - so unusual that while it doesn’t completely defy description, it’s probably easiest to simply suggest that you divert your eyes away from these words for a moment and soak in the RP4 pictures that litter this review.

The LG RP4 loves the great outdoors.

While the pictures give you a sense of just how unusual it looks, though, they don’t fully explain why the design is 100% a result of the RP4’s sound design, and not just the eccentric result of some sort of drug-fuelled product planning meeting.

The cylindrical, topless cone look, for starters, is there because of the speaker’s ‘killer app’: Its use of a large, circular, up-firing driver cut into the speaker’s upper third. This is designed to produce a 360-degree sound so that anyone standing in a circle around it enjoys exactly the same sound quality as everyone else in the circle. Such completely omnidirectional sound is sure, of course, to make the RP4 a big hit at parties, where people tend not to congregate in a straight line in front of a traditional forward-facing speaker.

The RP4’s party credentials are dialled up to legendary by the addition above the main up-firing driver of a down-hanging LED cone light capable of pumping out - again in every direction - a pretty much infinite array of colours in multiple music-following mood pattern variations. The conical shape of this light also helps spread out the sound from the main up-firing driver, of course.

The RP4 looks nothing if not distinctive.

Hidden in the felt-covered top section of the RP4 is a large compression horn tweeter that again is designed to disperse its high sounds in a 360-degree splay. Its high rigidity helps it produce unexpectedly clear treble sounds too; in fact, it can vibrate at 10kHz without the tweeter material being damaged.

The main 5.25-inch woofer has been improved over LG’s previous attempts at creating a ‘disco Dalek’ by making it from a lighter material that boasts better elasticity. This enables the RP4 to produce deeper and more dynamic bass sounds, as well as cleaner vocals.

The widening shape of the bottom part of the RP4 cone, meanwhile, serves as a low frequency duct, and if you look closely at the speaker’s bottom you’ll see that there’s a gap between the bottom of the felt section and the actual bass that allows the speaker to keep its hefty amounts of bass airflow moving.

As you can see from some of the photos, the RP4 is much bigger than most domestic wireless portable speakers. So much so that the carry handle attached to its top might prove to be a bit optimistic for some of my more feeble readers!

The RP4 features a set of indicators and touch control buttons on its top edge.

At the same time, though, it’s not nearly as absurdly huge as some of the most egregious (for want of a better word) ‘party speakers’ around these days. In fact, having lived with it for a few days I’d say its size is pretty much perfectly pitched to make it a genuine crossover product, capable of handling both outdoor party and indoor personal use.

The light show part of the RP4’s design offers three different light ‘moods’, Ambient, Nature and Party, with nine separate presets designed to generate different styles and experiences. At one end of the spectrum there are gentle green lighting modes to make you feel in peaceful harmony with nature, while at the other there are brash, pulsating modes of vibrant, cycling colours to get you in a party mood. You can also set up your own favourite colour combos if you wish.

Some of the light mode names are a bit ‘dad dancy’. Passion of Youth, Cheerful Celebration or Gorgeous Night View, anyone? The light modes themselves, though, do provide plenty of genuine variety to help take your musical mood up a gear.

The light cast out by the large LED cone really is quite intense, and spreads - in all directions, again - an impressive distance from the RP4’s bodywork. More sensitive souls finding their stomachs churning at the very thought of all this aggressive spectacle, though, will be pleased to hear that there is an option to just turn the light off.

The RP4's main driver has surprising sensitivity and detailing to go with its 360-degree splay and ... [+] power.

The RP4 is at its coolest when it’s functioning completely wirelessly, playing content streamed from your phone while running on its built in batteries (which are rated to deliver 10 hours of playback on a full five hour charge). It does, though, feature a couple of built-in connections. A point for the charging cable is rather awkwardly tucked on the RP4’s underside, while a cover near the speaker’s bottom edge can be popped off to expose 3.5mm Auxiliary and USB inputs.

The RP4 doesn’t ship with its own remote control, but a set of touch controls has been built into its top edge. Most people, though, will control the RP4 using LG’s Xboom app for iPhone or Android. This recognises the presence of the RP4 once Bluetooth connection has been established and provides a custom set of controls that includes easy selection of the different lighting modes, and the opportunity to pick an EQ setting from a range of themed audio presets.

My review RP4 arrived sporting a smart Burgundy felt livery, but equally fetching Charcoal, Peacock Green and Beige options are also available.

The RP4’s sound quality is a really pleasant surprise. OK, yes, it’s not the sort of ultra-refined, warm toned, beautifully staged stereo magnificence that a hi-fi buff might crave, but it’s a heck of a lot more pleasant, balanced and just flat out listenable and enjoyable than you might expect from a speaker of this party animal ‘type’.

And you'll get exactly the same sound regardless of which seat you sit in.

There’s so much to unpack about its sound, in fact, that it’s hard to know where to start. As it’s arguably its killer app, though, let’s start with its 360-degree omnidirectional sound. Basically, this does exactly what it says on the tin, throwing out sound in a pretty much perfect circle so that everyone in its vicinity will get exactly the same sound experience as everyone else. Or to put it another way, anyone who finds themselves doing a drunk Conga round it will get a completely consistent audio experience throughout their foot-kicking ‘journey’.

I’d honestly expected this 360-degree effect, and the design that gives rise to it, to contribute to pretty lame core sound quality. Remarkably, though, the RP4 is so easy on the ear that my household very quickly adopted it as the main source of music around the house (and is suffering withdrawal symptoms now that those pesky LG types have made me hand the RP4 back).

What’s most surprising is how ‘together’ music sounds. I’d expected all kinds of potential baggy bass, harsh or misplaced trebles, mid-range muddiness and ridiculously guttural and ugly bass. These sorts of party speakers are, after all, so often all about low frequency sounds and, frankly, not much else.

This RP4 light setting makes you feel warm even when, as always in the UK, it's bloody freezing.

The RP4 actually presents a very balanced sound, where bass is certainly very much present but functions, correctly, as a mere foundation to a track rather than the only thing that matters. The mid-range is surprisingly open and dynamic too, providing ample room for vocals of all ranges and tones to breathe and find their place without becoming artificially exposed on the one hand, or overwhelmed by other mid-range instrumentation on the other.

Even really shrill vocals like those of Bjork on Homogenic don’t hit the ear harshly or unevenly, and the balance between this album’s heavy bass tracks, rich synths, strings and strident vocals is startlingly well struck. It actually appears as if the RP4 has been tuned by, shock horror, someone who cares about music, rather than someone who just cares about pumping out enough bass to take on the quadruple 12-inch subwoofers fitting in your neighbour’s pimped Ford Fiesta.

The sound manages to adapt to a remarkably wide range of music too, from dense pop and rock to spartan vocal-led pieces and instrumentals. Its weakest suit, hardly surprisingly, is classical. This tends to sound rather thin and shrill without the bass or percussive underpinnings to balance the speaker set up out, or rich vocals to provide it with a clear focus.

The RP4 is portable, for sure - though my arm was shaking a bit as I held it out for this photo.

That said, even classical music doesn’t sound disastrously bad, though - especially if you stick with studio rather than live concert recordings. I honestly never thought I’d actually fancy adding some sophisticated ambience to a garden party by pushing Albinoni’s Adagio for Strings through a beat box accompanied by a Peaceful Rest mood lighting effect, yet here we are. The RP4 has changed me. And I’m not ashamed.

Another pleasant surprise is how much detail the speaker manages to pull out, despite having what is in some ways such a simple speaker arrangement at its disposal. Subtle vocal inflections and breathing are all present, as well as even the most subtle percussive effects. And apart from when you’re using the Classical preset, such details don’t stand out more than they ought to.

Pacing just occasionally hovers on the edge of become dirgy, but nearly always stays just the right side of it. And the pacing actually works extremely well for most pop and rock - regardless of whether the rock is of the stadium or thrash variety.

Apart from the slightly off Classical one and a slightly dense sounding Standard mode, the RP4’s presets are key to its surprising musical appeal. Applying the correct Pop or Rock presets to the right sort of music is particularly transformational, shifting the tone and weighting of the sound exceptionally effectively in each case. For the record the options available are Standard, Bass Blast, Pop, Classic, Rock, Jazz and Outdoor.

A more professional shot of the RP4 for anyone fed up with my amateur efforts.

Note that the Outdoor mode expands the dynamics and places more emphasis on the sound’s extremes to push the sound further from the RP4’s body.

If your music tastes extend to weird stuff not covered by any of the presets, you can also set up your own custom EQ mode.

I guess one other point I haven’t mentioned yet that’s kind of important for a speaker like the RP4 is that it can go loud. Far louder, in fact, than either your ears when you’re using it inside or your neighbourhood when you’re using it outside would ever be comfortable with. It can start to sound a touch compressed in the upper register when driven really hard, but this really is only at volume levels beyond anything 99% of users would even dream of using for 99% of the time.

The RP4 does, of course, have its limitations. There’s no sense of stereo at all; the system essentially delivers a single point source of sound that radiates out in a perfect circle. Though to reiterate this point, the amount of detail, dynamic range and clarity it gets out of this single speaker origin is pretty remarkable.

The RP4's top edge.

Another issue that might be a problem for relatively peaceful households is that the RP4 does need to be running with a fair bit of volume for it to really spring into life. As a rule of thumb, we’d say you need to be able to see the main driver moving quite clearly before you’re at a volume where the RP4 will really deliver the goods. A subtle background speaker for dinner parties it is not.

This is probably - along with the pulsating lights! - the one thing about the RP4’s performance that reminds you that it has real party speaker ambitions. That said, for the avoidance of doubt, the level of volume it needs to hit before it bursts into life is certainly not something that overwhelms a normal sized internal room. It’s just a level where you’ll want to be focused on the music, rather it being background noise to a conversation.

Perhaps because of its single source (given that its tone and balance are actually rather good) the RP4 can become a touch tiring to listen to over really extended periods. But typically, unless it’s Slipknot we’re talking about two or three albums in before you might want to give it a rest, not just a couple of songs.

The £399.99/$279.99 RP4’s unexpectedly good surprises far outweigh its (largely predictable) limitations. So much so that while our turntable was never in danger of losing its position as my household’s go-to system for serious curtains-drawn, eye-closed listening sessions, the RP4 was very quickly adopted by everybody in my household as their main day to day ‘go to’ for music, leaving multiple Amazon Alexas and even a perfectly respectable table-top hi-fi trailing in its wake.

Deep down inside I suspect I probably shouldn’t like the RP4. But so help me, I do. A lot. Feel free to come at me for this if you must, hi-fi bros, but be warned; as well as delivering big and enjoyable sound, a tightly gripped RP4 also provides a hell of a boost to a decent right hook.