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Any Blu Tooth speakers that are not blatent ripoffs?

IHateMyJob2004

IHateMyJob2004

Lifer
I'm considering getting one of these things for my wife for x-mas.

But the prices on them are ridiculous. Based on price/quality ..... I will not get Beats or Bose if Bose makes these things. Any other brands that I should consider?

I could just get some PC speakers and tell he r to use the headphone jack. It's probably the best option for price/performance.
 
i have a logitech ue boom and really like it. i've had people at my parties and at the beach ask me where i got that thing because it does sound pretty damn good for what it is.

http://www.amazon.com/UE-BOOM-Wirel...d=1450580855&sr=1-1&keywords=logitech+ue+boom

that appears to be the new model but i have the original. i got it on sale at walmart for like $125 last summer.

EDIT:

here is a thread i made last summer about it asking for some other ones too that people recommended, may have more info in there for you.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2438859
 
I got a TDK TREK-360 which was pretty good. Outstanding sound quality considering the size. Every couple months Best Buy has it on sale for $50.
 
I don't know why anyone would bother worrying about "quality sound" when it comes to Bluetooth speakers. By the time your compressed .mp3 (or .aac) file is recompressed to run through Bluetooth, most of the HiFi characteristics will be gone. Just buy one that's loud enough with the features you want and call it a day.
 
smitbret said:
I don't know why anyone would bother worrying about "quality sound" when it comes to Bluetooth speakers. By the time your compressed .mp3 (or .aac) file is recompressed to run through Bluetooth, most of the HiFi characteristics will be gone. Just buy one that's loud enough with the features you want and call it a day.
Click to expand...

What is the bit rate of bluetooth?

256k ... ya, that's not bad. Audiophiles couldn't pick out MP3 compressed vs uncompressed in tests. So I'm not that worried about it.
 
Last edited:
purbeast0 said:
i have a logitech ue boom and really like it.
Click to expand...

They just came out with the UE Boom 2 & it is getting excellent ratings as well:

http://www.amazon.com/UE-BOOM-Wireless-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B014M8ZO8S/

* $170
* 360-degree sound @ up to 90dBA
* 15-hour battery life (reviews say 10 to 13; 2.75-hour charge time via Micro-USB)
* 100-foot Bluetooth range
* IPX7 rating (waterproof for up to 30 minutes & shockproof)

They also have the Mega Boom for $250 if you need something even more powerful:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TXBOWVA

Both are expensive, but you get what you pay for!
 
IHateMyJob2004 said:
What is the bit rate of bluetooth?

256k ... ya, that's not bad. Audiophiles couldn't pick out MP3 compressed vs uncompressed in tests. So I'm not that worried about it.
Click to expand...

I could, 4 out of 6 times. but it was close. Also different MP3 codecs (Lame, Fraunhofer etc have all got slightly different characteristics and quality potential.

That being said the point you are getting at is right.

Normal Bluetooth will take your already compressed MP3 and then recompress it into it's own format (with less focus on quality than a good MP3 codec) to be sent over a 256k pipe in the air. This is because originally only 256k of bandwidth was set aside for audio.

Then the AptX protocol was developed which allowed for the full bluetooth bandwidth to be used with a much better algorithm for encoding the audio. It's worthwhile getting a device capable of AptX so long as the device you are sending from also supports AptX. I can easily hear the difference.

I personally have these speakers http://mashable.com/2014/11/06/denon-envaya-dsb-200-review/#abzTmk96Kaqs

They are head and shoulders above most, but a bit pricey. They have a built in sub and stereo tweeters. The bass can be a bit much if you are too close to it, but they sound well balanced from about 1.5 meters away. They also support AptX.
 
I'll 3rd the UE Boom. I build speakers and don't usually even bother with things like bluetooth speakers, but damn this unit has impressed me with its battery life, portability, durability, and SQ.
 
IHateMyJob2004 said:
I'm considering getting one of these things for my wife for x-mas.

But the prices on them are ridiculous. Based on price/quality ..... I will not get Beats or Bose if Bose makes these things. Any other brands that I should consider?

I could just get some PC speakers and tell he r to use the headphone jack. It's probably the best option for price/performance.
Click to expand...

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nooooooo.
 
IHateMyJob2004 said:
What is the bit rate of bluetooth?

256k ... ya, that's not bad. Audiophiles couldn't pick out MP3 compressed vs uncompressed in tests. So I'm not that worried about it.
Click to expand...

It goes way beyond that. The actual max bitrate can be over 800Kbits using the newest version.

The problem is the available codecs used. There hasn't been any real way of supporting codecs like aac, mp3, and wma directly so afaik no phone/speaker connections actually does it. It is in the specs but I think there needs to be another standard introduced to get receivers on board with it. I think the confusion comes into the fact that music players handle the codec and simply pass PCM data to the bluetooth chip where it converts it to SBC. So the bluetooth chip doesn't get any say on the format it is sent.

So what codecs ARE used? The defaults standard SBC that all multi channel speaker devices support is based off Mpeg 2 (dvd) audio and is royalty free. The next and only step up is AptX, a codec that not only requires a license fee but requires both sides of the hardware fence to support it via firmware (so it cannot be added with a software driver).

The nice thing about AptX is it is designed in a way for only a little audio quality loss caused be re compressing already compressed audio. So if you use lossless or high bitrate AAC, you will probably not notice it over a speaker set.

I use AptX capable receivers for both my bedside and my car deck with little issue, only hooking up my earbuds for a more private listening session.
 
Well I ended up buying a roar. Got it off ebay as a new/open box for $75 shipped. Be here in a few days, will give my impressions of it if anyone cares....
 
Well I got my roar and all I can say is WOW! Not only does it sound bad ass, but one thing that all the reviews left out, is it plays in stereo as well, and if you get the first gen, btw is on sale for $125 shipped, you can sync them up to play in stereo side by side as well if you want to widen up the experience, I was sooooooo lucky to find a open box on ebay for $75, I hope I can find another one soon to put them apart from each other to hear how thats gonna sound.
 
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