Being a karaoke person is a difficult life path. It’s your thing, you love tossing back a drink and singing the lyrics to every song you ever heard on the school bus growing up as loudly and as off-key as possible.
You also know that every friend in your immediate circle has the confidence to stand up in front of a bunch of people and sing for any reason, which leaves you living a double life. You spend time with your friends during the day, and at night, you hop from bar to bar, scraping the barrel for every drop of karaoke goodness you can find. Singing with bar strangers is fine, but if you could just get your besties to embrace the karaoke lifestyle, you’d be golden.
Well, that’s where the Ikaro Shell S1 Portable Karaoke Machine comes in! It’s not the largest machine, it’s not the flashiest, it doesn’t come with a song book or a stand, but it is portable, easy to set up and ready to rock in minutes!
The Hobby You Just Can’t Seem to Drag Your Friends Into
Do you have a hobby? Is it something you generally need to do with other people? Is it impossible to get your friends to give your hobby a chance? There are a lot of hobbies like that. Magic the Gathering. Dungeons and Dragons. Axe throwing. Karaoke. These sorts of activities require a lot of buy-in and/or confidence to get into. It’s almost impossible to drag someone who isn’t crazy excited to participate into these sorts of activities, and if you do manage to get them to even consider hopping on board, you need to be able to strike while that iron is hot!
In the case of karaoke, every minute you spend fiddling around with the mechanics of a machine trying to get things set up for them is another chance for them to get bored and change their mind. If they say something like “I guess I could sing a song or two, like, maybe,” you have exactly 10 minutes before the courage to be heard singing flees them. You need to be set up, song selected, microphone in their face within that envelope of bravery or you may never have the opportunity to crack their karaoke shell again. The Ikaro Shell S1 is the perfect device to make that happen. It is an all-in-one super portable and very capable karaoke machine that doesn’t just offer you the appeal of setup speed, but will also add wow factor to the experience with its sleek compact design, bright screen and excellent sound. If that rare fleeting chance presents itself to you, make sure you have this thing ready to rumble!
The Ikarao Shell S1
This is a really cool little karaoke machine. It combines a portable Bluetooth speaker, a karaoke machine, an Android touch screen device and a portable PA system all in one tightly designed package.
The device looks like a standard portable speaker until you open the top to reveal all the extra goodies. Inside you have two microphones set into nice little recessions where they charge and under the lid is a big 10.1 inch touch screen.
Let’s talk about what’s on that screen first. The screen has a built-in youtube player which makes this a great basic portable entertainment unit aside from its karaoke function. It also comes with Karafun, one of the best karaoke subscription services, pre-installed with a free 6-month subscription ready to activate, which means you might not need to dig around for songs unless you really want to sing some of the more obscure songs. Karafun also has a quiz battle feature so you can really double down on the party activities with it. It is generally considered one of the best online karaoke song libraries available and having that bundled into this machine in such a central way is a huge plus. You can also use this as a stereo, including a Spotify app, a small local storage folder and a USB/Aux cable access player, so you can play all sorts of media on this thing!
Moving on to the hardware of the device, let’s talk about the built-in speaker. The 280W stereo speaker setup includes 2 x 3.5-inch woofers and 2 x 1-inch tweeters. The sound is crisp and loud, and extremely clear but not loud enough to work around extremely loud spaces. It’s more of a living room/small backyard sort of speaker. It is tuned for vocals, though, so your voice will sound fantastic through this system! There isn’t anything in the way of distortion, meaning none of that classic crackly, low quality karaoke sound, just good clean vocals. I will say that the bass boost button isn’t the best feature, so I’d recommend just ignoring that.
If you open the rubber input plug on the back, you’ll find a wired microphone input for those of you who just have a favorite mic for karaoke. It has a 3.5mm aux input, so if you wanted to connect an external music player to the machine, you’re covered. Beneath that there is an OTG data jack (something I’m not entirely familiar with), a 3.5mm headphone output for those solo singing nights, and a Classic USB ports for data input. There is a USB-C non-data port that you can use as a phone charger which is interesting and a nice-to-have sort of feature, so no complaints there! Finally, there is an HDMI port so you can plug this into a TV and mirror the main screen to something bigger, which is a great feature!
Once the singing starts there are some neat things you can do to customize your experience. There’s a built-in equalizer which will help to adjust the over-all sound and the levels of the singers and music. There is a built-in auto-tune if you all want to sing like robots from the future, and the classic karaoke reverb is there too, so you can sound like you’re belting out your tunes in a big amphitheater!
Inside the machine is a fairly large battery that they say will last 9 hours with the screen on, but that’s a little wibbly wobbly so I’d recommend always having a plug to keep it charging while you use it. The battery does make it really good for outdoor fun, though. As long as you don’t plan on singing until the wee hours of dawn, it will work great for a karaoke night while camping, in the backyard or during a tailgate.
TL;DR Specs for the Skimmers
Here are some tech specs to peruse.
- Speaker Power: 280W Peak Output
- Speaker Configuration: 2 × 3.5-inch woofers, 2 × 1-inch silk tweeters
- Maximum Sound Level: 104 dB
- Frequency Response: 50 Hz – 18 kHz
- Display: 10.1-inch HD touchscreen
- Operating System: Android 13
- Internal Storage: 32 GB
- Microphones Included: 2 rechargeable wireless microphones
- Microphone Charging: Integrated charging bays
- Karaoke Features:
AutoTune
EQ presets
Echo adjustment
Reverb effects
- Connectivity:
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.4
HDMI output
USB
AUX In
AUX Out
OTG
- Battery Life:
Up to 9 hours with screen on
Up to 12 hours with screen off
- Power Source: Rechargeable internal battery or AC power
- Dimensions: Approximately 13.9 × 6.9 × 6.7 inches
Is it Worth the Money?
At $399.99 this isn’t a cheap item. If you are a big fan of karaoke and the scenario I outlined here strikes a chord with you, then absolutely, this is worth it. If you’re looking for a portable entertainment box that covers a few bases and does karaoke really well, then yes, this is a great buy. If you’re the kind of person who only really does karaoke once in a blue moon, this would likely be overkill. It’s a fantastic product that does what it sets out to do very well and, as a karaoke fan, I highly recommend the Ikarao Shell S1.
About the Author:
Ever since a young George was disappointed with a toy that did match up to the advertising, he became a tireless advocate for consumers. He’ll review anything that folks have to spend their hard-earned dollars on. George is grateful that he gets to use his skills as a writer and an artist to help connect with consumers and help them make the best decisions possible.
This article is for informational purposes only and reflects the author’s independent opinion. Readers should verify details directly with the manufacturer or retailer before making a purchase decision.
