Bluetooth speakers - page 6

Now that we can basically all the music in the world anywhere we go, it’s up to us to make sure we’re hearing it at its best. Headphones are great, but when it’s time to share the noise you’ll want to pick up a UE BOOM Bluetooth Speaker. The critically acclaimed speaker will get any room moving with rich, balanced sound, and right now you can get one for just $149.99.

Best List: UE Boom 2 by Ultimate Ears

We loved the original UE Boom and the new 2.0 version is even better. The UE Boom 2 is stain-resistant, stylish, shock-resistant and completely waterproof. We’re not sure who is trying to listen to their tunes underwater, but if that’s your jam … you are good to go.

The Beats Pill+ is on its way and equipped with that Apple lovin’. The successor of the Beats Pill takes a somewhat different design approach from the Beats Pill and comes with some terrific improvements to sound and battery life. Most interestingly, the speaker is the first the company released since Apple’s acquisition last year.

Something very old-fashioned is happening as technology continues to innovate music: We are listening to it out loud again.

The engineers and music geeks at SONOS appreciates personal listening but exists to get us to pull out our earbuds once in a while. It’s latest smart speaker, the SONOS PLAY: 5, is an unassuming package that delivers a vibrant sound with the help of software and the microphones in your iPhone or iPad, which analyzes room acoustics and adjusts the sounds.

Music doesn’t always have to be tightly funneled into our ear canals for us to enjoy it. Audio companies are finding ways to bring a big sound to an open space from a portable package.

Add House of Marley to the growing list of Bluetooth, water-resistant speakers currently vying for our listening attention. The eco-friendly audio company created by the family of Reggae legend Bob Marley unveiled the Chant Sport Tuesday, a 360-degree sound chamber about the size of a water bottle.

SAN FRANCISCO — Ultimate Ears could have borrowed the iPhone 6s tag line to market its new UE Boom 2 Bluetooth speakers.

Like Apple’s latest smartphones, which Cupertino hypes with the clever catchphrase “the only thing that’s changed is everything,” UE’s second-generation Bluetooth speaker is almost indistinguishable from its tubular predecessor — at least on the outside. But upgraded specs and a few pleasant surprises give the Boom 2 a welcome boost.

“There’s something magic about this design,” said Diego Gabathuler, head of brand and global marketing for Ultimate Ears, as he showed off the Boom 2 during a demo at the Cult of Mac offices. “It would have been a shame to take that magic away.”

Don’t let the bottle in the name fool you. The boomBOTTLE+ by SCOSCHE Industries is no place for a beverage. But your ears will quickly realize it is filled with sound.

The boomBOTTLE, rolled out today on the SCOSCHE website, is a portable Bluetooth speaker that has the height and girth of the common water bottle, thus fitting in a drink holder on a bike, boat or camping chair.

Too often, portable speakers are all about the convenience of wireless audio, and less about killer sound. That’s why we were excited to find out about the Sound Step Lightning 2, a sleek, feature rich Bluetooth sound station that’ll still blow the walls off the place. And right now they’re going for a whopping 60% off, just $59 at Cult of Mac Deals.

SAN FRANCISCO — Not content to conquer the Bluetooth speaker market with tubes and bigger tubes, Ultimate Ears made its latest portable audio device look like a lily pad. They made it waterproof, too. The only problem was, the UE Roll sank like a stone.

“As life would have it, it doesn’t float,” said Rory Dooley, Ultimate Ears’ senior vice president, during a visit to the Cult of Mac headquarters.

The solution? Create a tiny life preserver for the UE Roll, and give it away to anybody who orders the hottest speaker of the summer directly from UE’s website (while supplies last).

Beats Pill XL owners should return their speakers for a refund because the batteries could overheat and pose a fire safety risk. Apple recalled the product Wednesday, saying people who return the potentially dangerous Bluetooth speakers will receive a full refund of $325 as an Apple Store gift card or electronic payment.

Save big on top selling gear and services every day at Cult of Mac Deals.

Time is running out to save big on the ExoMount Touch universal car mount, the Bobine iPhone charging dock, the All Terrain Sound Bluetooth speaker and more.

With an ideal design and crystal clear sound quality, the award-winning Sound Kick Bluetooth Speaker is only $49.99 with Cult of Mac Deals. Whatever your music preference, at 50% off this deal hits all the rights notes.

Do you like your music hot? I mean really hot?

If so, the Sound Torch could be the Bluetooth speaker of your dreams. The in-development audio device is headed for Kickstarter with a proof-of-concept video that should make fire marshals nervous.

See it in action, and get a taste of the creators’ crazy ambitions, below.

When I reviewed the first-generation JBL Charge back in 2013, I called it a “colorful pill of a speaker that looks almost like, as an accessory, it leaped out of a new iPod touch commercial.” I loved it for its clear, crisp sound that was loud enough to shake most rooms: It delivered the sound volume of the Big Jambox in the original Jambox’s form factor.

If it’s not plenty clear, I loved the JBL Charge. It ended up being my go-to kitchen speaker for over a year, until I accidentally knocked it into the sink while doing my dishes. As a sign of its quality, it actually kept working, but never sounded quite the same.

Now I’ve tried out the JBL Charge 2. And I’ve got to say, if the JBL Charge was good, the Charge 2 is even better, fixing some of the first model’s oversights. It’s a solid choice if you’re looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker that can do more than just play music.

LAS VEGAS — With its wide base and gently sloping sides, the Archt one speaker looks a little like an egg pod from Alien or the business end of a bomb.

Its outer shell is sleek black plastic, with a flat ring around the top that gives it a space-age feel. If the killer looks aren’t enough to grab your attention, the speaker’s ground-thumping bass will.

“It gets really loud,” Archt CEO Evan Foo told Cult of Mac.

While the all-in-one wireless speaker is certainly loud — it was ballsy enough to cut through the background noise here at the International CES trade show — the goal is to deliver CD-quality sound, no matter the source of the audio.

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s easy to see how the UE Megaboom could become your favorite way to listen to music. The new Bluetooth speaker packs great features into a rugged cylindrical package that won’t go tits up if you drop it or leave it out in the rain.

The UE Megaboom is bigger and louder than its predecessor, the similarly shaped UE Boom. It delivers glittering, precise highs and satisfying bass. It’s lightweight and boasts a 20-hour rechargeable battery. All in all, it’s a perfect device for the way we listen to music in the streaming era.

This post is brought to you by Creative Labs, creator of the Sound Blaster Roar.

The Sound Blaster Roar is the epitome of audio quality, features and great looks combined into one device.

Musicality, accurate timbre, tonality, with deep, tight bass within a portable Bluetooth wireless speaker shouldn’t be a pipe dream. Creative Labs boasts of defying these laws of acoustic engineering with their Sound Blaster Roar.

Their innovative acoustic chamber design allows the Roar to adopt an impressive five-driver speaker design, which includes two high-performance amplifiers and a built-in subwoofer. Beyond the audio quality prowess, this Red Dot design award-winning speaker also includes a whole host of nifty features, doubling up as a portable battery bank, MP3 player, voice recorder and a speakerphone.

Having a day out or a night in with friends who all want to DJ a song or two? The magnificent new Nyne Bass pairs with mobile devices faster than you can say NFC-Bluetooth and lets everyone share their songs instantly — and clear. And loud.

The Bass is aptly named, with tons of low end balanced by rich overall sound. And you don’t need to have company, of course — the Nyne Bass makes an excellent home audio system to have in the kitchen, bedroom or living room. Or garden. Paired to your device using Bluetooth and with an impressive 10-hour battery, you can pick it up by its clever carrying handle and port it around anywhere.

With so many Bluetooth speakers, varying in size and price, it can be hard to find the best fit for you. In this episode of Cult of Mac’s Product Recommendations, we take a look at the Angle speaker by Oontz, a portable Bluetooth speaker perfect for office, bedroom and other settings.

Take a look at the video to see what you think and make sure to enter the giveaway to try your hand at winning one.

Enter the Cult of Mac giveaway: We have two Oontz Angles to give away to two viewers who like and comment on our video, and also subscribe to the Cult of Mac channel on YouTube. Winners will be picked at random and entries end Monday, May 26, 2014. Prizes provided by Oontz.

Designer Chris Weir is dismissive of products that take a Swiss Army knife approach to features. He thinks a speaker should be a speaker — and nothing else.

“It’s a speaker, not a speakerphone,” he says.

He’s talking about his Packable Wireless Speaker System, a diminutive Bluetooth speaker he designed for Grain Audio, a hot audio startup. Weir resisted all temptation to add a microphone (for phone calls) or the ability to charge phones from its internal battery. It’s just a speaker, and a surprisingly good one at that.

In a market crowded with dozens of unexceptional, me-too products, Grain Audio stands out. Not only are all of its products made of wood (solid walnut, not wood veneer), Grain’s products do one thing, and one thing well: Pump out sound.

Tiny portable bluetooth speakers are all the rage these days, and we’ve seen our fair share of them.

Trouble is, the smaller the speaker, the worse it sounds. Honestly, if your bluetooth speaker sounds worse than the built-in speakers on your iPhone, you’ll likely not want to go through the trouble of even pairing the thing up.

The Music Cup bluetooth speaker is small, shaped like a mug, and it sounds pretty darn good.

Ultimate Ears, owned by Logitech, makes my favorite portable speaker ever: the UE Boom. The cylindrical powerhouse of a speaker is rugged, stylish, and easy to use.

Imagine my utter joy when I received Ultimate Ears’ latest entry into the portable speaker market, the UE MiniBoom, and found them to be even tinier and equally rugged and easy to use. Oh, and they sound fantastic, too.