Bluetooth speakers - page 6

I got talking to an old man with a long beard yesterday. It was almost down to his jewel-studded belt. And he told me that “back in the day,” “where he comes from,” gentlemen would try to fill their living rooms with ugly black and silver boxes covered with flashing and pulsing lamps. They’d lay rope-like cables around the rooms of their homes, and the “coffee table” – as he called it – would be covered with smaller, button-covered boxes.

These gentlemen would argue with their ladies, who “just wanted to relax and watch a bit of TV for God’s sake WHATS WRONG WITH YOU.”

“Back in the day” was of course “the 1980s and 1990s,” and these boxes were stereo and home theater gear. Now we live in an enlightened age where these things are as beautifully integrated into our homes as, well, as baskets of potpourri, I guess.

Just like the Sound Spot.

We’ve reviewed a lot of Bluetooth speakers here at Cult of Mac, and yet to this day, the easiest one to recommend is still the speaker that launched the category: the venerable Jawbone Jambox.

Well, Jambox, move over: there’s a new king in town. We’ll be hard pressed to recommend you anymore after getting our hands on the JBL Flip, a Bluetooth speaker that has better (and louder) sound than the Jambox, at a cheaper price, and a killer trick up its sleeve: it’s also an external battery pack, capable of charging your iPhone on the go!

Any of you out there familiar with the Muji CD player? It is/was a cute little box which you’d hang on the wall, press a CD onto and enjoy the tinny sound of tiny speakers spitting high-grade digital files into your ears.

Now you can — like any civilized person — ditch the spinning disk and just enjoy the music. Muji has now launched a Bluetooth speaker that looks a lot like the old CD box.

Last week, three earnest audiophiles rang my doorbell and stormed into my living room to show me a handsome Bluetooth speaker that they claimed was going to reinvent the world of Jambox-alikes and transform Bluetooth speakers into “objects of desire.”

The guys in question? Three gents from Grain Audio, an up-and-coming audio company. And the product they wanted to show me was a prototype of their upcoming Packable Wireless System, or PWS: a walnut-enclosed Bluetooth speaker with some seriously good sound for its class.

The PWS won’t be available for sale for a few months, still, but it’s a speaker worth keeping an eye on. Here’s why.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Party rockers were in the house last night at CES. Ion unveiled several new products from their 2013 catalog. Two in particular caught my eye.

Nyne’s new NB-250 portable speaker is a modern update on the venerable boombox: portable and loud.

But it’s a lot smaller and more discreet than a boombox of old.

The Bluetooth speaker comes in a trendy, unobtrusive black shoulder bag for transporting to park, pool or a party. It not only looks good but sounds nice as well.

If the iShower didn’t look like something you’d find next to you if you were laying in a hospital bed, it might just be the perfect summer speaker. As the name suggests, it’s a waterproof speaker whose Bluetooth connection keeps your iPhone safely away from anything wet.

Sometimes you need to give your iPhone just a little bit more oomph. Maybe you need to output just a little more sound so you can DJ the impromptu breakdancing showdown that’s spontaneously popped up in your NYC subway car, or maybe you need to give your iPhone’s battery a jolt after being declared MTA Breakdancing Champion Of The Lower Boroughs And The Universe.

Either way, Spar’s Zephyr has got you covered. Think of it as a metallic JamBox with a lightning rod inside: a Bluetooth speaker and hands-free speakerphone, paired with an external battery that can juice up your iPhone in a pinch.

Lets’ face it — cycling is geeky enough with Lycra, weird cycling shoes and helmets so dorky they look like they were designed by population-control advocates — it doesn’t need the added panache of a Bluetooth speaker bungied to the handlebars.