Portable Speaker suggestions

[Smudger]

TheWirecutter go through a load of them and its been recently updated.

TLR they give it to the UE Roll 2.

Hmm, a little out of leftfield... They don't, however, test the UE Boom or the JBL Flip.

[Dooms]

Hmm, a little out of leftfield... They don't, however, test the UE Boom or the JBL Flip.

At the bottom in the competition section:

The Roll 2 plays loud enough to serve up background music, but half a dozen people talking will mostly drown it out, so it’s not party friendly, unless your parties are small and sedate. If you want something similarly portable, rugged, and waterproof but with more volume, check out the JBL Charge 3 or the UE Boom 2 (both discussed in The competition).

The splashproof JBL Flip 3 is similar in size to the UE Boom 2 and currently sells for less than half the price. But it lacks bass and sounds somewhat thin, and deep bass notes make it scoot around on a table. And with the extra volume now available with the UE Roll 2, we think the Roll 2 is a more appealing choice overall.

We had a tough time deciding between the UE Boom 2 and the Bose SoundLink Mini II when we wanted a pick in the $200 range. The Boom 2 plays loud enough to cover a suburban backyard or to drown out voices at a dinner party, but we think voices sound a little more natural and smooth through the SoundLink Mini II. The Boom 2 now has a nice Party Up feature, which lets you play the same audio source through as many Boom 2 and UE Megaboom units as you like. It’s a great way to do multiroom sound on the cheap, but you’re still limited by Bluetooth’s relatively short range. Party Up works well if you want to put Boom 2 units in a few rooms of an apartment or small home; in our tests, however, if the extra speakers were more than about 25 feet away, or separated by two or three walls, from the speaker mated with the Bluetooth source, the sound tended to drop out. The recent firmware update that gives Siri and Google Now voice-command capability to the Boom 2 is nice, but the feature doesn’t respond as quickly as on the Amazon Tap and Echo, and you can get much of the same functionality through your phone no matter what Bluetooth speaker you use. The Boom 2 is IPX7 rated, so you can safely submerge it in water, and it has an iOS/Android app that gives it stereo pairing and EQ features much like the Roll 2’s. It also has a function where you can pause or resume playback or skip tracks by picking up the unit and tapping its top. Anyone who needs something more portable, rugged, and waterproof than the SoundLink Mini II should get the Boom 2.

[Smudger]

Well, I went with the new JBL Flip 4. It was only available from the JBL site, and I couldn't test it until now as it was only her birthday yesterday.
Upshot is: Pretty impressed with it, sounds good, much better than the old one, and the connectivity options are good. One issue I had was that if I had it set to take phone audio as well as media audio, it kept cutting out. As soon as I switched the phone audio off, it was fine. But this is immaterial, as it's her device and I was only hijacking it...

[pandabear]

If you're after something cheap than Anker's stuff from Amazon is really nice for the price and has a great warranty reputation. I have the cube speaker and it's very nice.

[Millennium]

Thread Revive !

I recently bought a rather good £8.99 Bluetooth speaker from eBay. To be fair, it's great for the money I would say, it has FM, it takes a microSD / TF card, it plays music pretty well sq wise. But I have a little money now and I'm wondering if there is a viable upgrade so I can pass on the current BT speaker ta family or place it in my Mum's house...

So I've read this thread and checked some links and the choices suggested about 11 months ago are:

Anker
UE
JBL
AUKEY

I am after something with maybe 50mm drivers but some quality and engineering. I would like to be able to carry it around in a shopping bad (like a grocery bag you may get from Poundland) or even in a pocket (precariously). Most of it's use is likely to be in my front 'courtyard'. It's a reasonably small space with step access from the street to my flat entrance and a very stubborn avocado tree growing in a box.

So... please would you help me out. I want something like a toblerone in terms of shape (obv rectangularish), under a foot in width, with a good engineering pedigree, don't necessarily want to pay over the odds for branding as I would assume some org like JBL would do, and 45+mm drivers. My current speaker has 45mm twin drivers and a frequency response in the spec quoted down to 100hz. I enjoy good lows and highs in speakers and consider myself somewhat of an audiophile with 2 fairly good Hi Fi setups in my living and bedrooms at home.

I don't want a square speaker. Waterproof would be nice but water 'resistant' would be just fine. I'm not swimming I don't have a pool LOL.

I would like to purchase via Amazon or Ebay or anything in the UK or western Europe that takes (preferably) PayPal or perhaps Visa Debit.

Thanks Hexus!

Ideal budget would be under say £60 though I'm an audiophile as I say (HiFi WigWam) so I don't mind spending more if it seems pertinent.

[Smudger]

I'd go somewhere like Currys and do a test of each one. I went for the JBL for the wife, and it has impressed me with the bass and sound quality, but a lot of reviews seem to think the UEs are the best. It's a personal thing, so buying blind would not be a good idea. I'm not sure if many new speakers have been released recently, so the reviews linked in this thread are probably still relevant...

[Blaineoliver]

You want one of these, I can vouch for the sound quality, its both wifi spotify speaker and a bluetooth speaker. It has 8 hours battery life and plays whilst charging (which some don't!)

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/cont...reless-speaker

[cat in the net]

Altec Lansing Jacket H2O 3 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker works very good for me for a few years already.

[kalniel]

You want one of these, I can vouch for the sound quality, its both wifi spotify speaker and a bluetooth speaker. It has 8 hours battery life and plays whilst charging (which some don't!)

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/cont...reless-speaker

Doesn't exactly fit the rectangular request

Bose soundlink mini does, and sounds good.. but over budget by some way.

[Millennium]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm really having a hard time at the moment but if and when I feel better I will head to a Curry's / PC world and try some items out. I'm not all that sure I should even be using the thing I have at this stage (don't wanna go into why....).

Hard Times.

[peterb]

Just had this pop up in my inbox.

https://www.7dayshop.com/products/ev...paign=20180506

I haven’t tried it myself and my recommendation would still be for JBL, but might be worth ondconsidering.

If you do for a test listen, remember to take your music, don’t rely on the store’s which may be ‘adjusted’ to hide imperfections! And the ambient noise levels will be higher and the space it is working in will be larger than at home, so if you do buy, make sure you have an option to return it if it doesn’t sound right when you get it home.

[Millennium]

Just had this pop up in my inbox.

https://www.7dayshop.com/products/ev...paign=20180506

I haven’t tried it myself and my recommendation would still be for JBL, but might be worth ondconsidering.

If you do for a test listen, remember to take your music, don’t rely on the store’s which may be ‘adjusted’ to hide imperfections! And the ambient noise levels will be higher and the space it is working in will be larger than at home, so if you do buy, make sure you have an option to return it if it doesn’t sound right when you get it home.

Thank you PeterB for the suggestion and the advice on picking mini portable rechargeable Bluetooth speakers. The device you linked looks good they just didn't give dimensions (edit: they did, it's just hiding in the main descriptive field or text) though there is a pic with a phone for comparison. I will sleep on it, the discount currently is pretty large.

I was at the river in a park today with some friends from a Reddit based WhatsApp group. My little speaker did pretty ok but quite a lot of bass frequencies were missing I would say, for some of the music I chose to play. There were a couple of people elsewhere in the park with JBL speakers (looked like the same model) having a good time. On the other hand, I didn't play really at full volume since it was messing with some conversations I felt so I may not need louder, just more frequencies ....

I should really ask Hifi Wigwam. It's another great forum and site. {

I guess I will pop into a Curry's (Kensington probably) and try some and maybe make a decision from there.

Okie Dokie.

edit: posted on a hifi / audiophile UK forum - the Wam. Just to widen the audience

edit2: considering this one - Rokono BASS+ (F200) - as well!1

[Millennium]

This one has come up on Amazon today. £39.99. Waterproof
Anker Sound Core Boost 20 W BLUETOOTH SPEAKER WITH Bassup Technology

Didn't look into any other specs yet really. Thoughts if you have time?

[Smudger]

This one has come up on Amazon today. £39.99. Waterproof
Anker Sound Core Boost 20 W BLUETOOTH SPEAKER WITH Bassup Technology

Didn't look into any other specs yet really. Thoughts if you have time?

Anker seem to have a good rep for decent sound quality at a low price, here's the Tom's Hardware review:

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/anker-s...view-4557.html

It's all down to personal taste, and I appreciate it's difficult for you to get out and hear these things for yourself, but you should go far wrong with a UE/JBL/Anker

[circuitmonkey]

I bought myself one of these a couple months back for a holiday and am very happy with it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was looking for something that supported APT-X and was splash proof and this fit the bill perfectly.

It also has a solar panel on top and when I'm not traveling it sits on the bathroom windowsill and as of yet I've not had to charge it.

[Millennium]

I bought myself one of these a couple months back for a holiday and am very happy with it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was looking for something that supported APT-X and was splash proof and this fit the bill perfectly.

It also has a solar panel on top and when I'm not traveling it sits on the bathroom windowsill and as of yet I've not had to charge it.

You know I was seriously thinking of going for the minirig 2 badboi .... but I'm not yet rich and it would represent over 4 days income.

So I'm going to fold and go for your pick. Many thanks

PS if anyone else is thinking of doing the same do beware apparently it's not very loud, the bass could be better, there are quality control issues and it's not beachproof. Also, the Bluetooth range is reportedly not great.