We’ve all been there. The backyard barbecue is winding down, the drinks are flowing, and someone inevitably floats the idea: Let’s do karaoke. What usually follows is a clumsy scramble to cast a phone to a TV, hunt down grainy lyric videos on YouTube, and suffer through tinny, synthesized backing tracks that sound like they were recorded on a 1990s Casio keyboard. LG’s latest party speaker, announced today, is designed to kill that friction entirely.

Enter the LG xboom Stage 501. It’s the newest heavyweight in LG’s ongoing collaboration lineup with musician will.i.am, expanding on the portable xboom models the company teased earlier this year. But while previous entries like the rugged Rock or the compact Mini were built for solo hikes or kitchen counters, the Stage 501 is unapologetically built for a crowd. It’s a hulking, portable Bluetooth powerhouse that promises to turn literally any song into a karaoke track on the fly.

The magic trick here is what LG is calling its AI Karaoke Master. Instead of relying on a specialized app or pre-produced, vocal-free tracks, the Stage 501 uses onboard processing to analyze the music you’re already streaming. Its built-in Vocal Remover strips the original artist’s voice from the mix in real time, leaving the original instrumentation intact. You get to sing along with the actual band, rather than a synthesized knock-off. Better yet, a Key Changer feature lets you adjust the pitch directly on the speaker or through the companion app, meaning you don’t have to strain your vocal cords trying to hit Mariah Carey high notes if you naturally sing baritone. It’s an incredibly clever use of on-device audio processing that turns everyday listening into a highly interactive, communal event.

Of course, a karaoke machine is only as good as its underlying sound system, and LG clearly hasn’t skimped on the hardware. Tuned by will.i.am and featuring premium acoustic components developed by the Danish transducer veterans at Peerless, the Stage 501 is designed to push serious air. Under the hood, you’re looking at dual 5.25-inch woofers and a pair of 2.5-inch midrange drivers. When plugged into a wall outlet, the system delivers a massive 220 watts of output. If you’re hauling it out to a park or a beach, it scales back to 160 watts on battery power—which is still more than enough to invite noise complaints from the next zip code.

Speaking of off-the-grid parties, endurance shouldn’t be an issue. The speaker boasts up to 25 hours of playback on a single charge. And in a refreshing nod to longevity, LG opted for a detachable, replaceable 99-watt battery, meaning the speaker won’t become a massive paperweight a few years down the line when the lithium-ion cells inevitably degrade.

Aesthetically, the Stage 501 leans hard into a functional, performance-driven PA style, earning nods from both the Red Dot and iF Design awards this year. At roughly 26 pounds, it isn’t exactly a toss-in-your-backpack gadget, but it features a smart dual-handle system to make lugging it around manageable. LG also engineered the cabinet to be exceptionally versatile. You can stand it upright, lay it horizontally, tilt it back like a stage monitor, or even mount it on a pole for a true DJ setup. Add in a dynamic, multi-layer LED lighting system that syncs strobe and accent lights to the beat, and it definitely looks the part of a premium party centerpiece.

What’s particularly interesting about LG’s strategy here is how heavily they’re leaning into automated audio tuning to remove the guesswork for the host. Beyond the karaoke tricks, the speaker utilizes “AI Sound” to continuously analyze the incoming audio and tweak the EQ based on whether you’re playing a bass-heavy hip-hop mix or a live acoustic set. Combine that with “Space Calibration Pro”—a feature that essentially acts as an invisible sound engineer, reading the room’s acoustics and adjusting the output so you get clear audio whether you’re in a cramped living room or a wide-open backyard—and the result is a remarkably hands-off experience.

For the last few years, the portable speaker market has felt somewhat stagnant, mostly just offering slight bumps in battery life or marginally better water resistance. With the xboom Stage 501, LG is genuinely trying to change how we interact with our music in social settings. By stripping away the awkward setup usually required for group sing-alongs and packing it all into a high-fidelity, adaptive piece of hardware, they aren’t just selling a loud box. They’re selling a party in a box, ready to go the moment someone gets brave enough to grab the mic.