Review: Sony SRS-X33 - who is going to be killed this time?

<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-n0QTHss4QcB1EnoNtIaSRvZvEB982aEJ-7B6N95phrnxMRAvQio7-XDBPbQq8Wx28kLqla2YbWF92KomHg_PAfgHljM9mwX1Tx5c_HuiizqzOwrrj88UMzyXt14ckcx4WkokyWs229d5/s1600/x33-title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-n0QTHss4QcB1EnoNtIaSRvZvEB982aEJ-7B6N95phrnxMRAvQio7-XDBPbQq8Wx28kLqla2YbWF92KomHg_PAfgHljM9mwX1Tx5c_HuiizqzOwrrj88UMzyXt14ckcx4WkokyWs229d5/s640/x33-title.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>  <br />When I reviewed the <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-sony-srs-x3-bose-soundlink-mini.html" target="_blank">"Bose Soundlink Mini-killer" Sony SRS-X3</a> nearly one year ago, I was quite taken with it because it was the first smaller portable speaker that achieved a similarly full-bodied sound as the Bose Soundlink Mini. No other speaker so far, managed this. And the SRS-X3 even did some things better than the Bose, because it was less boomy overall but had better and less directional treble response at the same time while the Bose is rather missing any upper treble at all.<br />The SRS-X3 was not perfect though, it suffered from considerable intermodulation distortion at levels already close to half volume. Bass reduction at higher levels as well as strong dynamic compression was pretty obvious and last but not least the battery life was a joke if you really wanted to use it at higher levels.<br />Shortly after the SRS-X3 the <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.com/2014/09/review-jbl-charge-2-failed-new-benchmark.html" target="_blank">JBL Charge 2</a> was announced and the JBL managed to top the Sony by nearly all aspects. Unfortunately the JBL suffered from some <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.com/2014/09/review-jbl-charge-2-failed-new-benchmark.html" target="_blank">initial DSP-processing issues</a>, which finally were fixed with the <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.com/2015/06/jbl-charge-2-141-firmware-fix.html" target="_blank">latest firmware</a> now. But the JBL Charge 2 made the Sony SRS-X3 obsolete thanks to a much more consistent sound across the whole volume-range, a punchier more dynamic sound and much better battery life.<br />Now Sony came up with the successor to the quite popular X3, which managed to find lots of fans in the meantime. Let's see if the new Sony SRS-X33 can kill the old X3 or even kill all the competition.<br /><br /><a name="more"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrxfqzFjLfTe8t3wYECvnslcJQjFriMfnLkxn5k-bw6mvXdaHctKLf5eIruC-rZMiLl5KLcPuCorl7db7j91kC5OuNn_gSE27klzNvi_t_FlzxSnvqsLG7Bkm9JC2iBPEg1DFFsNtOgPm/s1600/x33-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrxfqzFjLfTe8t3wYECvnslcJQjFriMfnLkxn5k-bw6mvXdaHctKLf5eIruC-rZMiLl5KLcPuCorl7db7j91kC5OuNn_gSE27klzNvi_t_FlzxSnvqsLG7Bkm9JC2iBPEg1DFFsNtOgPm/s640/x33-top.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzQpHlA-kW2KWximatVu3aOOgteOD6s0YfVSRvENk1TrKCJjXeHhYSHA1NWRngEDFt2f6J7kVBqPsL4hXdnW00M4v6IRk4-uV9j-CapPG5cRgvkMQqMBjucbeNjXkgYcEzraGR0MIFRJN/s1600/x33-back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzQpHlA-kW2KWximatVu3aOOgteOD6s0YfVSRvENk1TrKCJjXeHhYSHA1NWRngEDFt2f6J7kVBqPsL4hXdnW00M4v6IRk4-uV9j-CapPG5cRgvkMQqMBjucbeNjXkgYcEzraGR0MIFRJN/s640/x33-back.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />First thing you will notice that both are still looking pretty similar. I don't have the X3 anymore at hand as I had sold my own unit, but the X3 is just slightly higher. The X33 has some substantial weight and feels even heavier than before because it is smaller. The buttons as well as ports at the back remained pretty much the same, just the audio-in button is missing.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuQF1zt4GPVzY6iCv59ih5yx7toU_R2ZG_HaI3c34um9eZNLToAm6HdBYYoSNOPG93QuvMu3fpdfFtMn9RWHm9gLDt1tWk5Ud0k2x_rMv0b9MVzy_1RgClldZP-za9xoWxC6fzSTsAVjA/s1600/x33-bottom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEuQF1zt4GPVzY6iCv59ih5yx7toU_R2ZG_HaI3c34um9eZNLToAm6HdBYYoSNOPG93QuvMu3fpdfFtMn9RWHm9gLDt1tWk5Ud0k2x_rMv0b9MVzy_1RgClldZP-za9xoWxC6fzSTsAVjA/s400/x33-bottom.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEw7li7uyfAXjAuUQvb-HmVFO3Kg1sj3Q8ZktqMr0CEEZNcV-qpmiZVlEU0L_zGA4jvKIBuRwTleEFLmRWyFp5hx_YRrhB-qtxdjYt2tOOXArsrQZg5v355sWYMbJ_xPq2mWYgp72wapcZ/s1600/x33-reset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEw7li7uyfAXjAuUQvb-HmVFO3Kg1sj3Q8ZktqMr0CEEZNcV-qpmiZVlEU0L_zGA4jvKIBuRwTleEFLmRWyFp5hx_YRrhB-qtxdjYt2tOOXArsrQZg5v355sWYMbJ_xPq2mWYgp72wapcZ/s400/x33-reset.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The X33 switches automatically to aux if a wire is attached. When looking closer you will also find a new recessed reset-switch at the bottom plate, apart from that no real differences here. Also handling-wise both speakers have much in common. You will get again the same turn-on and turn-off tones, they are not very loud thank godness, maybe Sony even made them slightly softer compared to the X3. The biggest change though is that volume control on the X33 is mirrored now between speaker and iOS device. This is a big improvement as the X3 did lots of strange things and changed its sound dependent on the input level and speaker level. Now this is not possible anymore at least with iOS devices, with Android you can probably still set the speaker to maximum while keeping the volume low on your streaming device. I am not quite sure about the effects though, but on the X3 bass amount would be considerably lower than if you did the opposite: turning your player to maximum and keeping the volume of the speaker rather low.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRA2W-4whuJiwAyaqrLRow2YUBDy2yV2mXnWCmsS3i45buwLp2cZFq0AAyFHGJPE44npBoQUMF9DzlIWbijJJidUCJWhCRoTv4GDNPkmi_y1eeQmAMp4NSKgHrqteb1nace1eW-hBK__jA/s1600/x33-charge2%252B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRA2W-4whuJiwAyaqrLRow2YUBDy2yV2mXnWCmsS3i45buwLp2cZFq0AAyFHGJPE44npBoQUMF9DzlIWbijJJidUCJWhCRoTv4GDNPkmi_y1eeQmAMp4NSKgHrqteb1nace1eW-hBK__jA/s400/x33-charge2%252B.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Og2wAaDZKFqc9LgjfQPMP-Olkfr6c-mjx87rJ-zXuokzjrUd2T0RhrSoeh6ThKHuYo3L6YaRl3QIbZ53DsVdp4D0eEuvYrJMnor5qq04_IhVE6ElmA5WGA9slS5d3NRDF2sIz9FCJpbv/s1600/x33-charge2%252B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Og2wAaDZKFqc9LgjfQPMP-Olkfr6c-mjx87rJ-zXuokzjrUd2T0RhrSoeh6ThKHuYo3L6YaRl3QIbZ53DsVdp4D0eEuvYrJMnor5qq04_IhVE6ElmA5WGA9slS5d3NRDF2sIz9FCJpbv/s400/x33-charge2%252B2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The X33 has 30 dedicated volume steps in contrast to the X3 which had only 15. The stepping is set pretty sensibly and allows for quite a fine volume control even at low levels, unlike with the JBL Charge 2, which manages to double its loudness with each of its first 3 volume steps.<br />The X33 still doesn't support any multipoint pairing, or stereo-pairing with another unit, but it gained LDAC compared to the old model. I am not sure if going for LDAC instead of AptX was such a smart decision. Sony always tried to make their very own thing, and it seems as if LDAC was something like their newest own creation. So far only some selected Sony players support LDAC and I doubt a speaker with tiny drivers like the X33 can take advantage of any hi-res material out there. It might be different with really good headphones or grown-up speakers, but usually the frequency response of all these smaller portables already rolls-off above 16kHz due to missing any tweeters. This tiny full-range drivers cannot handle the full spectrum but still try to cover around 60hz-16kHz, thus problems with intermodulation etc are inevitable. Besides most of us who are well above 40, won't even hear quite much above that. This whole high resolution audio hype right now could definitely fill another long post, but I don't want to go into this right now. It is just a pity that no standards like AptX are supported at least along with LDAC...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_5nQIA3hKkm1v0h5w96Dm7koxuNaVU4NyM5HCQi5PlnmOq6kTWrL51w74Rfl6Uq02Cfhy9Xn3z608Lg61NdsNqQeHMtXV25Gh0CYQ91-GN8Szq-Zx0e7W4l7aF1Tx-hGi8WdoCixvMKR/s1600/x33-bose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA_5nQIA3hKkm1v0h5w96Dm7koxuNaVU4NyM5HCQi5PlnmOq6kTWrL51w74Rfl6Uq02Cfhy9Xn3z608Lg61NdsNqQeHMtXV25Gh0CYQ91-GN8Szq-Zx0e7W4l7aF1Tx-hGi8WdoCixvMKR/s640/x33-bose.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />If you are interested in some other details of the X33, please also have a look at my original <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-sony-srs-x3-bose-soundlink-mini.html" target="_blank">review of the X3</a>, as both still seem to share many common aspects. I complained a lot about the X3 battery as it didn't last very long at high levels with the speaker reducing the volume to half on its own pretty quickly. Unfortunately it seems to be exactly the same with the X33. I tested the behaviour of the battery under controlled conditions this time and noticed that the speaker would play at maximum volume for about 1:35h, then it would again automatically reduce volume on its own and continue to play another 2:20 to finally shut down before even reaching 4:00 hours. It seems as if there is not much improvement here. I guess that the X33 uses still the same batteries as the X3, but I would have to remove the rubber feet and open the bottom plate to really get sure.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-iaKVmGXep94YO3Ib7ptIYxgryXRW9K3bI0_iRuX6MN5ffqpqJYnqOqbIc92YyQY0YKcssM5Ll8hI9iWSrEFPbeSVYLnTrVViTTsqcnp1xyNjTD3d92609WlYnYn6w9KM-fHaTTVmrah/s1600/x33-denon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-iaKVmGXep94YO3Ib7ptIYxgryXRW9K3bI0_iRuX6MN5ffqpqJYnqOqbIc92YyQY0YKcssM5Ll8hI9iWSrEFPbeSVYLnTrVViTTsqcnp1xyNjTD3d92609WlYnYn6w9KM-fHaTTVmrah/s640/x33-denon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />As that much is in common with both speakers I would rather like to concentrate on sound quality alone and how it competes to the current line-up of top contenders. Unfortunately I don't have any X3 at hand right now, so I cannot compare both directly. But I will try my best to compare them as good as I can.<br /><br />First thing you notice is that the X33 manages to sound simply "mature" just as the X3 did, but the X33 sounds different. I wouldn't say it sounds better, but definitely different. While the X3 had a strong bass and treble emphasis, the X33 sounds more balanced now. There is still some bass-boost, especially at lower levels, but it is more consistent now and the sharp treble-peak is softened out. The X3 was quite a good low-level perfomer and the X33 continues with this fashion, because it sounds best at low levels, it remains some kind of "sound-chameleon" because the sound tends to change quite a lot depending on which level your are going to listen. The X3 managed to adjust its sound from a heavy full-bodied one to a distorted tinny one at high levels. The X33 is better in this regard as it tries to keep more bass at higher levels, but I would say it fails. The X33 still remains a low-level speaker and I wouldn't like to use it at levels above half volume as this will result in an overly compressed and artificial sound. It sounds close to funny when cranked to the maximum and you might have a hard time to recognize your favorite songs. The dynamic compression is becoming so strong, I have not heard anything similar yet, not even from a radio station which often compress the hell out of the music. At the same time the X33 still won't quite reach the maximum volume of the X3, but the X33 will sound more full-bodied at least, albeit strange and not really natural. What is more worrying that the X33 gets out of control pretty quickly. Although intermodulation distortion is better under control than on the X33 and far not as obvious, some other bass distortion is introduced now and already starts at levels around half that was not present on the X3. Bassdrums sound distorted and ugly and bassnotes are not clean anymore but rather with some dirtiness. I was quite shocked to hear the result. At first I was quite surprised by the nice and round sound of the X33, but as soon as I started raising volume it became more and more frustrating. Compared to the JBL Charge 2 at low levels the X33 will sound more full bodied with a deeper reaching bass and with less metallic treble, but already close to half volume the JBL will have an obvious edge with a much more dynamic sound, while the X33 will become mushy and distorted. At maximum volume despite some stronger compression on the JBL as well, it will still sound much more punchy, while the Sony starts sounding like some unwanted special effect. It is similar with the Denon Envaya Mini. At low levels the X33 will easily outpeform the Denon with a more mature sound and more sparkling treble at the same time. At higher levels an obvious lack of upper bass becomes noticable with the Sony, while the Denon manages to keep its level and despite lacking the deeper bass part of the Sony the Denon will sound more natural with the ability to present much more separation between each single instrument, while the Sony has the tendency to blur everything. Volumewise all of them are more or less comparable. The Sony appears slightly louder than the Denon, but it does so by applying strong compression, while the Denon remains quite dynamic. The JBL Charge 2 still manages to keep most of its bass even at maximum volume thus will sound most convincing without any stronger distortion, but with some compression although not as extreme as that form the Sony.<br />One problem of the X3 was that the "sound"-button which was supposed to broaden up the stereo image also increased treble and bass quite a lot resulting in an overall unbalanced sound. On the X33 "sound" has no influence on the frequency response. You really get just a broader sound, but no change in overall coloration. I listened a lot to the X33 with sound and without sound, and I think Sony did a really good job. I didn't use it much on the X3 especially because it changed the whole frequency spectrum too much, but on the X33 I really prefer keeping sound on most of the time. "Sound" effect is very similar to what Denon does with the Envaya Mini. Denon applies some algorithm from Maxxaudio. I am not sure what Sony uses, but both algorithms sound very similar with the difference that the Sony manages to open the stereo width even further, depending on the correct distance to the speaker you can get an extremely involving effect with many instruments playing far beyond the speaker borders or even more to the side of your head than to the front. I think that a distance starting from 1m to 2m gives the best effect, beyond that or closer to 1m the effect is not that obvious. But if you are listening from the sweet spot it sounds really impressive and you definitely get a great sense of stereo width. The only side-effects of "sound" are that some mixes can appear with more reverb. This is typical for phase-shifting algorithms and the one used by Sony doesn't seem to be that much different, but it is certainly quite a bit more sophisticated. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony used the same Maxxaudio processing as Denon, but the one from Sony seems to be pushed more and set up with more extreme settings. If you like spatial sound and if you already liked what Denon did with the Envaya Mini, you will also like the X33 because I think it even tops Denon's apporach. While Denon's processing is fixed and cannot be disabled at all, with the X33 you have at least the option to turn if off completely, in case you encounter any unwanted side-effects with particular mixes. I really welcome that Sony managed to implement such a nice processing. I was not too impressed with the former algorithms from both X3 and X5, but the one from the X33 is extremely effective and makes this small speaker sound much larger, you really don't have the impression anymore as if you were listening to a single small box in front of you, but rather 2 separate speakers assumed you are in or close to the sweet spot! Hopefully in future other manufacturers will try similar tricks to avoid that typical mono-sound which is so common with all smaller single cabinet speakers. It needs more than separate 2 drivers as these will not give you any stereo sound by just placing them 5 cm apart, therefore a JBL Charge 2 will still sound mono equally to a UE Boom that despite having both drivers at the opposite sides of its body the result will be a rather dull sound if not exactly one driver is aiming at the listener. Geneva Lab for example applies "embracing sound" technology to create an illusion of a broader sound, RIVA uses their own Trillium technology etc. but most other speaker companies still don't seem to have noticed the benefits of stereo over mono. Come on, we are in 2015, and the first stereo recordings were made 85 years ago. Wireless pairing with another speaker would be quite a simple solution for that problem, but still only few Bluetooth speakers support this.<br /><br />I recorded a live-video including binaural audio where I compared the Sony SRS-X33 to the new JBL Charge 2+. I think that the much better stereo imaging of the Sony is quite noticeable from this video when listened through headphones, on the other hand the JBL has an edge at higher levels and manages to sound more punchy with more bass and better dynamics than the Sony:<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D8_qaktYM6M?rel=0" width="853"></iframe> <br /><br />Next you can see the measurement of the SRS-X33 at all available volume steps. A stronger bass-boost at low levels is pretty obvious as some nice treble extension which reaches considerably higher than that of the Bose Soundlink Mini for example. The bass boost at low levels is to compensate for human loudness contours and it manages to make the X33 sound really mature and full-bodied, but increase volume and you notice that bass is reduced and cannot quite keep up with a deeper hole in the upper bass region that makes the lower bass part a bit isolated. Although the X33 can retain more lower bass at maximum volume than the old X3, this is only possible thanks to some stronger dynamic compression and that makes the sound not natural anymore:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Xhj2xBvTf43vFFOOeblB4Qhu1HY7Kv3bpPYQYmLaTT_1sf9mHUO8atjuK_UDbqjwLIzvtJp1nl7nXs3IhEqLnv2JNBPebgLhmaEH_7TNhoUlew_-tTqFPKHGyZChr9kwIWpbjSaS7eCs/s1600/measurement-all.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Xhj2xBvTf43vFFOOeblB4Qhu1HY7Kv3bpPYQYmLaTT_1sf9mHUO8atjuK_UDbqjwLIzvtJp1nl7nXs3IhEqLnv2JNBPebgLhmaEH_7TNhoUlew_-tTqFPKHGyZChr9kwIWpbjSaS7eCs/s640/measurement-all.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />The next measurement shows both Sony SRS-X33 (blue) and Bose Soundlink Mini II (green) at about 70% of their volume. Thanks to higher volume the Soundlink Mini already dialed back its bass boost and manages to measure pretty flat except for some boost above 2kHz, instead the Sony shows a huge dip at around 150Hz but its better treble extension is visible here as well:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0EJlCQ1G5qEWvS4El6aS50Qv6IzyZBq7FppMUgHm6rGbi4JHW9CLoV3njlXpDJSxajFESGFlFSjXu-zbM3zE6KFTZ69fzZrAEqakeKi10cufgFrQyqDDthAkIChVVhyphenhyphenVgRdqUlnNhQKtO/s1600/measurement-bose.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0EJlCQ1G5qEWvS4El6aS50Qv6IzyZBq7FppMUgHm6rGbi4JHW9CLoV3njlXpDJSxajFESGFlFSjXu-zbM3zE6KFTZ69fzZrAEqakeKi10cufgFrQyqDDthAkIChVVhyphenhyphenVgRdqUlnNhQKtO/s640/measurement-bose.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />Although the JBL Charge 2+ shown in pink in the following measurement has a similarly resonant high Q bass peak as the Sony, the measurement cannot reveal all the differences in sound especially how both speakers treat dynamics, which was more obvious from my video above:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrl2c8biFPtudltak_gdO67QA_kw4gRl-V9Cjs5Rl7yKaq30QSMQJM21UTDok6J-fHxt4VutmePu5MkVF69lzbz2fnd4MOxkTQ86ZgfHjRfZDHuktwJLKmKlICyFXXeOKWsoaKU_n7nsN/s1600/measurement-jbl.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrl2c8biFPtudltak_gdO67QA_kw4gRl-V9Cjs5Rl7yKaq30QSMQJM21UTDok6J-fHxt4VutmePu5MkVF69lzbz2fnd4MOxkTQ86ZgfHjRfZDHuktwJLKmKlICyFXXeOKWsoaKU_n7nsN/s640/measurement-jbl.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Last but not least here the Sony compared to the Denon Envaya Mini (red) which measures really flat, but doesn't have the deeper bass extension of the Sony:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijugzB5ptVNnFWyf8vOFMHxJlEiq2stMy98LKv4BJEvt6pLmGLr60nQoDJbu2PlILAndtHkLW-uW7pEMBEuwh8EaLPl9cdg9EmhpDPkZ1jc9Akcf1eZXPAaQv6AMXSZYemNveNlows3nG6/s1600/measurement-denon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijugzB5ptVNnFWyf8vOFMHxJlEiq2stMy98LKv4BJEvt6pLmGLr60nQoDJbu2PlILAndtHkLW-uW7pEMBEuwh8EaLPl9cdg9EmhpDPkZ1jc9Akcf1eZXPAaQv6AMXSZYemNveNlows3nG6/s640/measurement-denon.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />My feelings about the Sony SRS-X33 are quite mixed. The biggest letdown is the uncontrolled sound at higher levels with lots of unacceptable distortion and extreme dynamic compression yet unheard to such a strong degree of any other speaker. If you intend to use the speaker just for background listening, the X33 might be a pretty good solution though as for this purpose it sounds pretty mature and clear without any unnatural colorations. Add "sound" and you really get the impression of having a small stereo setup in front of you, just beware of turning volume above half, as you will be disappointed then. Especially modern heavy mixes make the X33 struggle quite a lot. Instead of real drum-attacks you will rather hear some undefined scrap. If you add to the fact that the X33 will just reach 1:30 hours at maximum volume, it is pretty clear that this is not a speaker for high volume listening. I like the minimalistic design and the looks of the X33 and although it might be one of the best low-levels performers right now, there are much better solutions available that are usable in a more universal manner. Although the JBL Charge 2 will not sound as convincing at low levels and won't provide such a nice broad stereo image as the Sony, the JBL performs much better at all levels above and will still play for more than 6 hours at maximum volume without reducing loudness or appling other tricks.<br />The X33 improves on some aspects of the X3, but worsens on some others. I would really just recommend it as a speaker for low volume background listening, if you intend to use it outdoors where you need higher levels to begin with, the X33 will be a disappointment, not mentioning that it is neither rugged nor water proof in any way like so many current speakers. But I could imagine the Sony SRS-X33 in an office with low ambient noise, where louder music is not possible. Thanks to its impressive stereo enhancing algorithm, it could easily substitute a pair of larger PC-speakers, although the sweet spot for the best stereo effect seems to start beyond 1m while it collapses again at closer distances. Check it out if you are not into loud music, but rather need something to fall asleep with...<br /><br /><b>+ great simple design</b><br /><b>+ smaller than the X3</b><b> </b><br /><b>+ mature and full-bodied sound at low levels</b><br /><b>+ bass not overpowering, treble not too sharp</b><b> </b><br /><b>+ incredibly broad stereo width with "sound" enabled</b><br /><b>+ less intermodulation distortion than the X3</b><br /><b>+ charging through MicroUSB</b><br /><b>+ mirrored volume control on iOS devices </b><br /><b><br /></b><b>- strong obvious distortion with bass heavy tracks already at half volume</b><br /><b>- extreme dynamic compression at high levels already starting at half volume</b><br /><b>- missing any real punch or dynamics at levels above half</b><br /><b>- battery life disappointing at higher levels</b><br /><b>- instead of AptX LDAC, only available on some few Sony devices</b><br /><b>- no multipoint pairing</b><br /><b>- not rugged nor water resistant in any way</b></p>

  When I reviewed the "Bose Soundlink Mini-killer" Sony SRS-X3 nearly one year ago, I was quite taken with it because it was the ...

Best portable Bluetooth speakers (Oluv's personal favorites 2014)

<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUDydWP1_DGtJOhRU9J2yQ72vHt2NZTVY-FaoWpEYsXqfkN84GLTsfG5HxEftzI0Q9UMVCIcNhVgqcc3tDP8Jzmip7QFhZSza0SblYb_h6j2IBo9I27dYyxiNZH9ToZXSX8mAkeMDNkQT/s1600/all.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvUDydWP1_DGtJOhRU9J2yQ72vHt2NZTVY-FaoWpEYsXqfkN84GLTsfG5HxEftzI0Q9UMVCIcNhVgqcc3tDP8Jzmip7QFhZSza0SblYb_h6j2IBo9I27dYyxiNZH9ToZXSX8mAkeMDNkQT/s1600/all.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />With this list I want to show you my personal favorite portable speakers that I use on a regular basis including some explanation why I have chosen them over some others and when I use this instead of that. It's been quite a long time I wanted to prepare a kind of best-of list of all portable speakers I know or that I have heard. But after having heard so many, I thought that a real best-of is simply not doable as each speaker has its own strengths or weaknesses. After all those years it seemed I would still not be able to find a single speaker which would satisfy all my needs not until I have heard the new <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/12/review-denon-envaya-mini.html">Denon Envaya Mini</a>, which mixed up my whole perspective and made my whole list until now pretty useless. The Denon Envaya Mini finally persuaded me to sell all other speakers I currently own, including <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/09/review-jbl-charge-2-failed-new-benchmark.html">JBL Charge 2</a>, <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/08/fugoo-bluetooth-speaker-first.html">Fugoo</a>, <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/07/review-sony-srs-x3-bose-soundlink-mini.html">Sony SRS-X3</a> etc. Therefore I would like to present *drum roll* the Denon Envaya Mini as my current favorite portable speaker.<br /><br /><a name="more"></a>As it had already taken me some time to prepare this whole list, I will nevertheless add all the other speakers below, although I probably wouldn't consider them at all anymore. Please let me clarify that my main goal is high audio quality. Most will have probably noticed that I have a weekness for a full-bodied sound. There must be at least some base for the music with enough bass to make it sound satisfying, otherwise I cannot enjoy music and prefer not to listen at all. I don't care about speakers that can play screamingly loud but fail completely at lower levels, or speakers with tons of nice features that only sound like my old clock radio. <br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><u><b>Denon Envaya Mini </b></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRWAXz-sQ-RQFUM9_bFB3zKml2MkeZZ7aHDZ6nZibK_w13ThZA7vfg5PjXQUQb-9OlGqIEAbPeiByAAH6YyuLYE4ylItY57zUfqEHZkrijpYMkPss2TbHW9O9MdVQosyyyP8z0w8u5dCb/s1600/denon-envaya-mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRWAXz-sQ-RQFUM9_bFB3zKml2MkeZZ7aHDZ6nZibK_w13ThZA7vfg5PjXQUQb-9OlGqIEAbPeiByAAH6YyuLYE4ylItY57zUfqEHZkrijpYMkPss2TbHW9O9MdVQosyyyP8z0w8u5dCb/s1600/denon-envaya-mini.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Buy it from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SFZ4EWC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00SFZ4EWC&linkCode=as2&tag=oluvsgadgets-20&linkId=CFYDE7W7J7FAKJNY">amazon.com</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NBXJ9NW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00NBXJ9NW&linkCode=as2&tag=oluvsgadgets-21&linkId=JGWZNAJDL5OFG3HG">amazon.co.uk</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00NBXJ9NW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1638&creative=6742&creativeASIN=B00NBXJ9NW&linkCode=as2&tag=oluv-21&linkId=SOY2BX3R45BYYGK5">amazon.de</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://ir-de.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=oluv-21&l=as2&o=3&a=B00NBXJ9NW" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" width="1" /><br />I doubt there is any better sounding speaker available that small right now, therefore the Denon Envaya Mini gets my first vote to become the overall "winner". It is extremely portable, splash water resistant and has a professionally close to hifi tuned sound. It is not the loudest speaker nor the one with the biggest bass, but it sounds as close to flat as possible at that size with full bass response down to 80hz which appears even deeper thanks to some psychoacoustic algorithms. There is some stereo separation and the Envaya Mini sounds perfect at low and at highest levels with hardly any distortion or dynamics compression at all. It should satisfy 70% of most needs, just if you need higher loudness, you will probably wish for something more powerful, this is where my Infinity One jumps in, which you can find next in this list below. <br />Another alternative to the Envaya Mini would be the the <b>JBL Charge 2</b>. Until I heard the Denon, JBL Charge 2 might have been close to a "near-perfect" portable speaker, but unfortunately JBL managed to screw it up making it unsable at low levels and unlistenable with many tracks because they cause noticeable distortion, otherwise the JBL Charge 2 would probably be the best sounding speaker in its class that I would recommend over all the others more or less on par or above the Denon. I feel still so sorry about all the issues it suffers from, and that JBL doesn't really care to offer any fix. It seems they just recently started to sell a new batch of devices, which don't suffer from any distortion, although they still seem to have some issues at lower levels. Apart from that I also hate the status tones the JBL Charge 2 will play if you turn it on, or when it will connect to a device. The tones are so annoying that you cannot even turn it on in a silent enviroment. The JBL Charge 2 is not usable at low levels, it will sound just poor with bass sounding strange and with additional artefacts noticeable during the first 4-5 volume steps. I usually welcome a mirrored volume control between speaker and device, but in case of the JBL Charge 2 the volume steps are very rough and the speaker becomes too loud too quickly. The JBL Charge 2 has pretty non directional treble response. It still sounds quite good from above or from the side unlike most other similar speakers. I also like the fact that the JBL Charge 2 will retain more bass and sound more dynamic than most other competing models. Even at maximum volume you will be able to hear every drum-kick attack, while the Bose Soundlink Mini or the Sony SRS-X3 will compress them away. Sometimes I would prefer it even louder, especially outdoors, that's why I finally settled for an Infinity One described below. <br />Other speakers in this smaller class worth having a deeper look: I really liked the <b>Fugoo</b> a lot as an all around speaker but also for use at home from room to room etc. It might not be a very loud speaker and bass could take some stronger punch, but it is small enough to be carried around and thanks to its "jackets" is rugged to be just tossed inside some bag or stuffed inside a jacket pocket without any additional protection or pouch needed. Unfortunately none of the jackets does have any clip-on option without the additional mount-pack. It would have been great if Fugoo had included some simple lug in any of the jackets, so that the speaker could be quickly clipped on somewhere. The Fugoo is also one of the few speakers that really withstands a complete submerge under water, it is not just splash resistant like many others, but entirely waterproof.<br />Bluetooth connectivity is great and the Fugoo connects automatically to any found device unlike most other speakers, which seem to be still waiting for the latest one. <br />I also like the fact that the Fugoo remains nearly silent during operation if all voice prompts are disabled. Overall the sound of the Fugoo is quite full-bodied, it is not overly bloated but pleasant to listen to, with a similar bass-amount to many larger speakers like Soundblaster Roar etc, although the sound starts falling apart a little bit above half volume which is not very loud and does not come close to the sound of the Denon Envaya Mini, which is much more serious, and much louder at the same time. If the Fugoo was slightly louder overall with slightly more bass, it would be definitely on my top list if I had to pick just one single speaker, but now the Denon Envaya Mini took this honour and the Fugoo has to go. Another strong contender loved by ones, hated by others is the <b>Bose Soundlink Mini</b>which has no problems like the JBL Charge 2, but I found the sound to be too muffled and too directional and sometimes too boomy. The <b>Sony SRS-X3</b> might be another worthy alternative and I think it sounds best for low volume listening, especially because you can fine-tune the final bass amount with the input-volume of your streaming device, a welcome side effect of the dynamic sound-processing, which becomes confused with lower input levels and dials bass back, because the speaker output needs to be raised. The X3 has some problems at higher volume levels though and battery life is not as stable, especially when cranked. Unfortunately both Sony and Bose play some kind of annoying tones if they are either turned on/off or if they establish a Bluetooth connection. Another alternative might be the <b>Bose Soundlink Colour</b>. The sound is not as mature or not as refined as of all the others, but it is nevertheless a pretty solid speaker with a nicely tuned sound for all volume levels. It will sound good at low and at high levels, without any side-effects or artefacts. Treble is less directional than that from the Soundlink Mini and the Soundlink Colour will not sound that boomy in most cases although mid-bass has quite an obvious boost with some stronger resonance, which can start sounding annyoing with some particular tracks. Also Bluetooth connectivity is one of the best I had experienced so far with automatic reconnection to 2 previous devices after power on, just don't expect any stereo sound as the Soundlink Colour is rather a stereo speaker with mono sound. <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><b>Infinity One</b></u></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u><b></b></u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2wzXWW4ldbLDipKpHmQ_jD20nXHnWYV7gIQO3eW-z1kZOWG07IK_oNzoy7CgLQLPC4ewJ5kRI4OM4QoKYNCCHq1EO6nSZyoA7QilAZ6_F-Drq_sHto415q4ZFO8eKezFuDhexVzE7p7a/s1600/infinity-one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ2wzXWW4ldbLDipKpHmQ_jD20nXHnWYV7gIQO3eW-z1kZOWG07IK_oNzoy7CgLQLPC4ewJ5kRI4OM4QoKYNCCHq1EO6nSZyoA7QilAZ6_F-Drq_sHto415q4ZFO8eKezFuDhexVzE7p7a/s1600/infinity-one.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Still only available from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LOL7HDC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00LOL7HDC&linkCode=as2&tag=oluvsgadgets-20&linkId=ITAEPPSEXO4IMGCQ">amazon.com</a>, funnily the Infinity One does not sound really that much better than the Denon Envaya Mini, the Infinity One's sound is just more powerful, which is not surprising given the size being 3 times as large. the Infinity One is basically a blown up JBL Charge 2. The sound is similar between both, with the Infinity One just sounding more blown up. The Infinity One is a bit too large and heavy to be carried around whole the time. But if you know that you will need a portable speaker which manages to deliver enough power at higher levels too, the Infinity One might be the best choice. When the Denon Envaya Mini is already at its top volume, resulting in some heavy bass-loss, although perfectly usable without any distortion, the Infinity One will still have enough headroom, although the Infinity One will suffer from some intermodulation distortion at these higher settings, but the Infinity One will be able to keep much more bass at comparable loudness settings and maximum volume should still be loud enough for any smaller outdoor event. The stronger intermodulation distortion at high levels is the biggest letdown of the Infinity One, it sounds more enforced than the Soundlink III and many bass-heavy tracks may start sounding really harsh because of this, while others might still sound perfect, Infinity should have added some simple tweeters to the front drivers, as the back drivers sound pretty clear as they are fitered for higher frequencies, where intermodlation becomes most obvious. Similar to the JBL Charge 2 the Infinity One will also manage to retain the dynamics of kickdrum attacks, unlike the Soundlink III, which will rather iron out any stronger punches. For house-music I would prefer the Infinity One over the Soundlink III, which might be better for Jazz and acoustic stuff due to less intermodulation distortion problems.<br />Unfortunately the Infinity One has the same loud status tones and the same mirrored volume control with even rougher steps than the JBL Charge. In case of an iOS device the volume control is not fine enough to really allow any sensitive adjustment. Thank godness the Infinity One does not suffer from any of the processing artefacts which plague the JBL Charge 2. I think that the Infinity One delivers the best performance of all speakers I have tested in this larger speaker-class aroung 1kg, including Bose Soundlink III, Beats Pill XL, TDK A34, Loewe Speaker2go and even the B&O Beoplay A2, which has its own qualities and problems, thus as total package I just regard the Infinity One as the best option right now.<br />A big problem for all non U.S citicens might be that the Infinity One is only offered in the U.S so you will have to import it on your own if you live outside, which is what I finally did. But for casual listening at home I prefer the Denon most of the time, even though it has slightly less bass, it sounds more natural with more stereo separation and is much easier to carry around.<br />Other possible alternatives: <b>Bose Soundlink III </b>sounds quite similar to the Infinity One, but has a more directional and more "edgy" sound while the Infinity One sounds rounder and more open. The Infinity One also has the option to be charged through USB in case of need and it can charge external devices too. Overall I prefer the Infinity One over the Bose Soundlink III, although the Bose has the better tuning for low levels with a more profound sound and obvious intermodulation distortion should be less of an issue. Other alternatives might be the <b>TDK A33 </b>which is pretty cheap now or the newer<b> A34</b> as both<b> </b>are pretty balanced sounding speakers unfortunately with a pretty bad battery and a questionable charging logic. I never manged to make the A33 play for longer than 6 hours even at lower levels, the A34 seems to suffer from the same problem. The <b>Soundblaster Roar</b> is very similar to the TDK A33 in sound but has tons of additional features which you might need or not need. It doesn't play as loud as the TDK, but overall it is the better speaker I think. It doesn't sound as full bodied as the Infinity One or the JBL Charge 2, but the sound is still quite nice, although it won't knock your socks off.<br />You might also like the <b>Denon Envaya</b> which sounds quite similar to the Bose Soundlink III although not quite as loud but also cheaper. The <b>B&O Beoplay A2</b> would have been my personal favorite if battery life was more predictable and the sound more constant on higher levels. I really like the design and sound tuning is simply impressive, but I couldn't live with the added distortion on many tracks especially at the given price being one of the most expensive speakers shown here. I would also like to add the <b>Beats Pill XL</b>, which is not a very good sounding speaker per se, but a very powerful one with great features, wireless stereo pairing etc. It is still one of the loudest I have heard at this size and manages to sound pretty controlled when the others are already struggling or reaching their limits with the Pill XL still being much louder than all of them.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><b>Bose Soundlink Wireless Music System </b></u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Xq3CPKlQvsU2HVgSoCIS4KIluYWU1TsVGuTOL5_HGn7xqrYFuPaQhIVcMvqT0DiHgKnlpfRpz6u7DzwicSrdNYAWM7mG0o5bc_Bv9CD_oqQNSmgZyjw0IVFh30LAeuSOVttktXeWAaLI/s1600/bose-soundlink-wireless-music-system.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Xq3CPKlQvsU2HVgSoCIS4KIluYWU1TsVGuTOL5_HGn7xqrYFuPaQhIVcMvqT0DiHgKnlpfRpz6u7DzwicSrdNYAWM7mG0o5bc_Bv9CD_oqQNSmgZyjw0IVFh30LAeuSOVttktXeWAaLI/s1600/bose-soundlink-wireless-music-system.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Although I currently don't use it that much, I still think that this old and discontinued Bose system is a spectacular and underrated portable Bluetooth speaker. It is based on the Bose Sounddock portable which was also discontinued in the meantime but with Bluetooth instead of the Apple-dock.<br />Thanks to its flat design it is still pretty portable despite being larger than the Infinity One and with just 2kg including the swappable battery it should find its place inside any even smaller rucksack. The Bose Soundlink Wireless Music System is one of the most powerful systems at this size. The amplifier delivers 40Watts (unlike the 25W of the Infinity One), and thanks to Bose's DSP processing they manage to push the loudness level quite above the limits of what the 2 fullrange drivers are able to handle by applying some stronger dynamics compression and dialing bass back. Although there is some stronger distortion at maximum volume the Soundlink Wireless Music System nevertheless manages to fill a large outdoor area with sound if you don't want to carry any larger boombox with you. It sounds very full bodied with the deepest reaching bass although it has a tendency to sound a bit muffled, especially at lower levels and off-axis.<br />A possible alternative might be the <b>IK Multimedia iLoud</b>, which is able to reach a similar loudness, but not without distortion either. Unfortunately the iLoud won't sound that full-bodied at lower levels and the built in battery seems to have some issues not being able to hold a charge after some time of usage according to my friend who had used his quite often.<br />Another interesting speaker might be the <b>Harman Kardon Onyx</b> or the much cheaper <b>Onyx Studio</b> which omits auxiliary input, Airplay and DLNA compared to the expensive version. They sound slightly better and are more powerful than the Bose, but are a bit lacking at lower volumes. They are also larger and not that easily portable with the battery life hardly exceeding 4-5 hours at high volumes. <br /><br />If you need still more power and more loudness, you must have a look at all the larger systems like the <b>Klipsch KMC-3</b> or some <b>Pioneer Steez</b> units or the<b> JVC Kaboom</b> series etc. But nearly all of them need extra batteries for portable use and will quickly exceed several kilos of weight. Maybe the new <b>Teufel Boomster</b> could do the trick as it has a built in battery which can be even extended by some additional AA-cells. So far I didn't feel the need for such a unit, it is just overkill for home use, I previously had the Altec Lansing IMT800, but didn't use it much because of the size and the hassle with batteries. But my friend loves his KMC-3 and uses it regularly for outdoor parties with friends.<br /><br />What is still completely missing though are speakers that can be easily put inside a pocket, or attached somewhere thanks to a dedicated clip or carabiner without adding any bulk or becoming tedious. Most of these I have tried so far sound rather tinny, not really comparable to those above, although I am sure with some clever DSP processing and really high-quality drivers even smaller speakers than the Denon Envaya Mini could be brought to respectable output. Here are my best findings for this class:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><b>TDK A12</b></u></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u><b></b></u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkyeIbHlZQ9lPKGLLtPKSAbBgxbIoGs-vHG3kpz58PPSUsrbisnpvJWsdgaa2vkz6REDvCWHFgFh5rCXBMAkRPaQc-Y0DbsWHpkWWal7TbqRUMdeR_O9HmZ0tSpoOU6eet_IonkN4LHl_t/s1600/tdk-a12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkyeIbHlZQ9lPKGLLtPKSAbBgxbIoGs-vHG3kpz58PPSUsrbisnpvJWsdgaa2vkz6REDvCWHFgFh5rCXBMAkRPaQc-Y0DbsWHpkWWal7TbqRUMdeR_O9HmZ0tSpoOU6eet_IonkN4LHl_t/s1600/tdk-a12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I think the TDK A12 (micro Trek) produces quite a balanced sound for being that small. It is not the loudest speaker at this size, but it just sounds "right". There is some upper bass which makes it sound appealing, but the TDK is not able to produce any deeper bass, thus it is not really full-bodied and quite a bit too thin for my own taste, but still better than not having a speaker at all. If you put it flat on some resonating surface, you can boost basst slightly, but the passive radiator doesn't really play anything below 100Hz, so don't expect any miracles like with many other vibrating speakers or like with the FoxL Dash 7 that are tuned much lower, but won't produce any hearable bass until they suddenly sound much more mature depending on the surface they are placed on, as shown in my <a href="http://youtu.be/etk4Xu_NGck" target="_blank">example video for the FoxL Dash 7</a>. Unfortunately most of the time there are no suitable surfaces around outdoors for enhancing the sound.<br />Therefore the TDK seems to apply some "virtual bass" algorithm. It sounds a bit as if the lower frequencies not reproducable with the tiny driver were subtly added transposed one octave higher (similar to what MaxxBass is doing). The A12 manges to give an even more full-bodied impression than the similar JBL Clip, although bass reaches considerably lower on the JBL Clip, when looking solely at the frequency response measurements. There is also some bass compression going on, maybe a side-effect of the virtual bass algorithm, but when directly compared it is quite noticeable that the TDK does some processing, which is not a bad thing, as any unwanted artefacts are still kept to the minimum.<br />The TDK A12 has no distortion even at maximum volume, but there seems to be some sample variation as I have tested several different units and on many of them the passive radiators started to rattle heavily at higher volume levels with bass heavy tracks, the resonance-frequency seems to be around 125Hz where rattling is strongest. Because of the single passive radiator at the back side the TDK A12 also has a tendency to vibrate or even creep around when put on certain surfaces. If you attach the included carabiner, this may rattle against the body at higher loudness-levels, that's the drawback of single passive radiator designs.<br />Battery life is somewhat short, especially at high volume. A nice feature is that you can pair 2 of them for true wireless stereo, in fact I have 2 of them and both cost me less than 60�. Strangely stereo pairing doesn't work that well sometimes. I am not sure if this is the speaker's fault, or if the Bluetooth connection of the iPhone is too blame here, but sometimes when in wireless stereo mode the audio quality is reduced considerably resulting in a sound which resembles that of a lower bitrate mp3-file. Sometimes only one will play, although both confirmed the connection. I have not found any regularity, but in case they behave unexpectedly, I have to go through the entire pairing process again to get rid of it.<br />Other similar speakers to consider: <b>JBL Clip</b> produces a similar overall sound but can play quite a bit louder. The JBL Clip can be daisy chained with another one with its built-in wire and it has speaker phone included. Due to its rounded design it is easier to put inside a pocket and the carabiner is already built in unlike with the TDK A12, which has the carabiner separate. The battery life of the JBL Clip seems to be even shorter than that of the TDK A12 though, but due to the included bassreflex port instead of the passive radiator the JBL Clip won't vibrate even at highest loudness levels.<br />I would regard the <b>Mini Jambox</b> as another alternative, although nothing special it is still able to deliver quite a solid sound and will also sound rounder and more full-bodied than both the TDK and JBL, although the maximum possible volume is quite limited. I have yet to find any better sounding speaker that small. Most of them might be louder for sure, but they just don't sound good at normal listening levels. Of course I welcome any other tips!<br /><br />3 years ago it was still unheard of a beverage can-sized speaker that it would be able to produce any bass down to 60Hz. After the Soundlink Mini which was pretty unique at the time of its release there are meanwhile some other alternatives available. The portable speaker market is evolving pretty quickly. So please just take this personal list as some temporary snapshot which may suddenly turn around with any new speaker released, just like it did, when I heard the Devnon Envaya Mini.<br /><br />There are some interesting speakers on the horizon like the electrostatic BenQ treVolo (formerly known as eVolo) or the Massfidelity Core, there is also some rumor about an upcoming larger and more powerful speaker from Fugoo, but I am not sure if I will be able to receive any of those units for a review. As soon as I can get my hands onto something interesting I will let you know. </p>

With this list I want to show you my personal favorite portable speakers that I use on a regular basis including some explanation why I ha...

Review: Sony SRS-X3 - The Bose Soundlink Mini killer?

<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNanq3wFm3vAYH5l-16nxbYRyU2rg6REcvar5-qpVdXCQXPMRscq9ln0toaSb1YEh3hgVM3ZEGSEltu1LX3cIkCEq4uWs91phyheo-FXk0rsLkXhG9zx96UdT3aNELV8oD4cjPCnF74q3i/s1600/title.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNanq3wFm3vAYH5l-16nxbYRyU2rg6REcvar5-qpVdXCQXPMRscq9ln0toaSb1YEh3hgVM3ZEGSEltu1LX3cIkCEq4uWs91phyheo-FXk0rsLkXhG9zx96UdT3aNELV8oD4cjPCnF74q3i/s1600/title.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Happy Birthday to my Soundlink Mini, as it will be exactly one year ago to the day that it made me 200 bucks poorer, when I carried it out from the Bose store. As much as I had used it over the time and thought it would be my last portable speaker bringing my search for the perfect portable speaker finally to an end, instead everything seems to have started again from the beginning.<br /><br /><a name="more"></a>Although I still really like the Soundlink Mini even after one year, I was never completely satisfied with it. I liked the deep and pronounced bass of it, but I hated the restrained treble response, which unnecessarily was also very directional at the same time making the Soundlink Mini sound boomy and muffled when not positioned well all the time.<br />For a portable speaker this is quite a limitation because you cannot put it just beside you on the ground, when outside with friends sitting on the lawn somewhere, as it will sound boomy and dull at the same time. Put it on some elvated position and aim it directly towards you, and it should be fine though, but dare moving around...<br /><br />During this year I porbably tested more different speakers, than I did before owning the Soundlink Mini. So far nothing really came close in overall performance. Some other speakers might have been even louder like the UE Boom, but the overall sound quality rather resembled that of a kitchen radio, not a fully grown up speaker. I am sure if Bose didn't come up with the Soundlink Mini, all portable speakers would still sound like clock-radios or Jamboxes and companies would still be asking premium prices for their toy-speakers, like Beats is still trying to rip-off customers with their small Pill.<br /><br />The Klipsch GiG that I <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/06/review-klipsch-gig-first-real-bose.html" target="">reviewed</a> recently, seemed to be one of the few real alternatives to the Soundlink Mini, but it was still far from impressive. Now Sony had announced the SRS-X3 just when I was testing the larger SRS-X5 reviewed <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/07/review-sony-srs-x5-vs-denon-envaya.html">here</a>. As the X3 was claimed to keep its full 20 Watts of power from battery as well, my hope was, that it might come close to the X5 performance wise despite missing the extra woofer of the SRS-X5 and being nearly half as small. It took some time to compare the SRS-X3 extensively to the Soundlink Mini and the larger SRS-X5, so here we go: <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpph-uXAWFwwRXdDhSGFw4XLkWEaFLhkQD52o69ZVDb6sUsId34UmkTEucwoT1YrEVOsSnQKSCfLVtyHaxcU89LiyUFr9O-xzZ_xdbZQzciQuzgFePLPqUa2hoxZRLmksfH_aAaRHjsLM1/s1600/x3x5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpph-uXAWFwwRXdDhSGFw4XLkWEaFLhkQD52o69ZVDb6sUsId34UmkTEucwoT1YrEVOsSnQKSCfLVtyHaxcU89LiyUFr9O-xzZ_xdbZQzciQuzgFePLPqUa2hoxZRLmksfH_aAaRHjsLM1/s1600/x3x5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />It seems that Sony finally managed to beat Bose in some aspects, but Bose still seems to have the edge when some other details are considered. If you are in the market for a compact portable speaker which doesn't fall short of delivering a full-range sound despite the small size, I want to show you why and when you should choose the Sony SRS-X3 over the Bose Soundlink Mini and vice versa.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2civtRftbCkNje4D1nOeLfqnBfCNNAQ9DOyoqjIWn0rVGVYE5m0d2VmETkIxwRmR-lG4tfGJW8MwhF8iqq1zZQpJNxrUBJ9BBoglxsdjDCVCzZOqzbbJA8oVqIeYy27pbnCZ4l5ucbYd/s1600/x3-mini2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4Vh9sjsbJNTYW5T90HR7ipEw50dZLzXAr-SCSTIgGGUhRaceF0YgMnF0N4GKU1v8hFO7uHJJDUxgqkWu62oBOPRxynT2UUBOfF608Gp0C3jOtDqOTnuuw-BxECYRzNhr5A5Z5D2qN5b5/s1600/x3-mini1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4Vh9sjsbJNTYW5T90HR7ipEw50dZLzXAr-SCSTIgGGUhRaceF0YgMnF0N4GKU1v8hFO7uHJJDUxgqkWu62oBOPRxynT2UUBOfF608Gp0C3jOtDqOTnuuw-BxECYRzNhr5A5Z5D2qN5b5/s1600/x3-mini1.jpg" width="400" /></a><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2civtRftbCkNje4D1nOeLfqnBfCNNAQ9DOyoqjIWn0rVGVYE5m0d2VmETkIxwRmR-lG4tfGJW8MwhF8iqq1zZQpJNxrUBJ9BBoglxsdjDCVCzZOqzbbJA8oVqIeYy27pbnCZ4l5ucbYd/s1600/x3-mini2.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br />The Sony SRS-X3 is slightly bigger overall than the Soundlink Mini. It has nearly the same length and about the same thickness, but it is slightly higher. The differences are not huge, but you might notice it when trying to put it inside your trousers-pocket, while I managed easily with the Soundlink Mini, it probably won't be possible with the Sony because of its thickness. Nevertheless it seems as if Sony was trying to match the X3 as close to the Soundlink Mini as possible, the Soundlink Mini being the one which has to be beaten.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqpM4it7jo_Nkfy5frkgujSugf725SZLMiAvuALpu6Oe1fbZ11BNRQkVMQkyHmoMGPBpPSmiJq6oAYM0D39aKcDBUXq0MqlEh4U8O_ipFirqB0-UzvMaUtVRhTWeEsMu5hy4HhtrnvL3K/s1600/outdoor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqpM4it7jo_Nkfy5frkgujSugf725SZLMiAvuALpu6Oe1fbZ11BNRQkVMQkyHmoMGPBpPSmiJq6oAYM0D39aKcDBUXq0MqlEh4U8O_ipFirqB0-UzvMaUtVRhTWeEsMu5hy4HhtrnvL3K/s1600/outdoor.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Sony design is minimalistic and elegant at the same time. The speaker will look equally good outdoors, when put on a lawn, and it should also look good in your living room on a shelf. What it misses though is the premium feel you get from the Soundlink Mini. The Sony just feels like a portable speaker, while with the Bose you have the impression of holding something expensive in your hand.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKlytT-z7e4Um4BnUa9vc3lmICI2Vl0kK-1yMSfl_-xVSRsAwPYaot1cZSm4MfdKwhm2hjh5rIR3DV4nsdcqvetibCkKZkx3O3lAZiyPyqgEwyTlEeoE_41kqFxUTM4u8EfYKr-p2_8Cr/s1600/sonos-sony.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKlytT-z7e4Um4BnUa9vc3lmICI2Vl0kK-1yMSfl_-xVSRsAwPYaot1cZSm4MfdKwhm2hjh5rIR3DV4nsdcqvetibCkKZkx3O3lAZiyPyqgEwyTlEeoE_41kqFxUTM4u8EfYKr-p2_8Cr/s1600/sonos-sony.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br />Especially the bottom thin plastic base of the Sony leaves a very cheap impression, it feels pretty hollow when knocking against it. Also squeezing the body slightly with your hands, might result in some crackling as it yields slightly under pressure. I also noticed some slight resonance with the enclosure on the Sony when playing deep bass notes which went away after squeezing the speaker a bit. It was nothing serious, but I never experienced that with the Bose as it has a massive aluminium body. Only the grille is quite sensitive on the Bose and scratches pretty easily. Not sure how resistant the Sony is in this regard.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu4uHk9oq-iwbG1BzNucA6MYbul8JGR80-T8auWSV8-zGicz1A1UR7m8e6E42NMaOSGqMvvXthBQHx1ZE3hiYNQpek5mpV0_O689DDKoObUA-53FscrZOoMEaOkA5bdIhWEiDwTTRXxBhf/s1600/x3-top.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu4uHk9oq-iwbG1BzNucA6MYbul8JGR80-T8auWSV8-zGicz1A1UR7m8e6E42NMaOSGqMvvXthBQHx1ZE3hiYNQpek5mpV0_O689DDKoObUA-53FscrZOoMEaOkA5bdIhWEiDwTTRXxBhf/s1600/x3-top.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Apart from the plastic base and the metal grille the rest of the body is covered by some rubber-coating, including all the buttons at the top, which is a good thing, because it seems as if the Sony could also be operated with wet hands, without being afraid of moisture entering some slit.<br />I am only a bit concerned about the rubber coating, because so far I had made rather bad experiences with such kind of coatings. The Tivoli PAL which was also rubber covered nearly lost all of it at the edges, the same was the case with my Panasonic G1 camera where the rubber-skin started to peel off on many spots pretty soon.<br /><br />The edges on the Sony are rounded, which not only makes the design of the speaker more appealing but according to Sony this should also avoid any diffraction of sound.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VykqQqCredsWUEeLUv7IMW4h6QdF4B5xxueSnbZMCVxwdP_LCE5T5-AySlB-IFAR9jRlISY_Bh51baNiCeJ0XMkNiJ7Lk3dNlAgR_oKY8wfFTTeFttxTCKGcPWYZ618lMPg3PHYeSCmt/s1600/sony-edges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VykqQqCredsWUEeLUv7IMW4h6QdF4B5xxueSnbZMCVxwdP_LCE5T5-AySlB-IFAR9jRlISY_Bh51baNiCeJ0XMkNiJ7Lk3dNlAgR_oKY8wfFTTeFttxTCKGcPWYZ618lMPg3PHYeSCmt/s1600/sony-edges.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Sony SRS-X3 comes only with an own USB-Charger and a micro USB cable, no other accesories are included. Yes, it can be charged directly from USB, something many were complaining about with the Bose, which needs its proprietary 12V charger. But the Bose has its charging cradle, which I personally find very useful, as I just have to put it into the cradle without any hassle with wires and trying to fit them into the small port.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKp0x15rJU14cfL6WP44aIGKgGNPC3hICjb8DxJDBETz0pqLUPCZ_YNIJmh8xvcT5u1Agml5EiZQvUPI1ntBHCu85pN99GVPod5MX7O2nxiJsrCrAZBsBZdiofODwGqOKihj2hxybkl8Ly/s1600/x3-back.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKp0x15rJU14cfL6WP44aIGKgGNPC3hICjb8DxJDBETz0pqLUPCZ_YNIJmh8xvcT5u1Agml5EiZQvUPI1ntBHCu85pN99GVPod5MX7O2nxiJsrCrAZBsBZdiofODwGqOKihj2hxybkl8Ly/s1600/x3-back.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu4uHk9oq-iwbG1BzNucA6MYbul8JGR80-T8auWSV8-zGicz1A1UR7m8e6E42NMaOSGqMvvXthBQHx1ZE3hiYNQpek5mpV0_O689DDKoObUA-53FscrZOoMEaOkA5bdIhWEiDwTTRXxBhf/s1600/x3-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />Charging takes about 3-4 hours, although it says 5 hours in the manual. Unfortunately you cannot listen to music during charging, as the speaker is only charged when off. This is probably because of the low 5V USB-voltage which won't be able to power both the speaker and charge the battery at the same time. I am not sure how much I can trust the charging-electronics, but the Soundlink Mini for example won't charge if it is already charged, while when the SRS-X3 finishes charging and you attach it afterwards, it will again start charging for about 5 mintues. You can try this several times one after the other, and I wonder if the battery will be charged to 150% then? <strike>I also doubt the battery can be exchanged as I haven't found any screws, maybe they are underneath the rubber-feet wich are permanently glued to the base. I really hope the battery is of high quality, as the Sony might otherwise become an overpriced paperweight soon.</strike>  See update below, with a photo of the battery!<strike><br /></strike><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNqaedVql9T8hmtM9Z9Bq6W5jz3-tH6xNBQ0zLhyphenhyphenkwfD3M57AmTFI30XyoDeSgNagNbWLqEh7MHx0LbttE0swanILHJhM-iqm1UV2cuaCcBPN-P3lum5YDtaOQIW4CCda_Na0kKcH_BHu/s1600/sony-bottom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNqaedVql9T8hmtM9Z9Bq6W5jz3-tH6xNBQ0zLhyphenhyphenkwfD3M57AmTFI30XyoDeSgNagNbWLqEh7MHx0LbttE0swanILHJhM-iqm1UV2cuaCcBPN-P3lum5YDtaOQIW4CCda_Na0kKcH_BHu/s1600/sony-bottom.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Update: Thanks to Joachim from a German Hifi-Forum who took the risk to remove the glued rubber-feet, there are indeed screws below, if the bottom-plate is removed the battery becomes exposed and looks like this. Each cell is 67mm long with 18mm diameter, which would hint on 2 18650 cells soldered together. If someone knows how to easily replace the battery with a stronger model, please let us know:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuA3mGkgZ_QfFsSSsc4rDqlWGyy-FBB8gZ4dZ0RePyJURmYDz964Yey6XKT1H_0sGmxdN0LWKt3uqnUrwohTCST9K0ksOMyIJoFjlv5QLc1-l8YHKEXLw2NFYamiXpF5GA0eB0LOIsZmTr/s1600/srs-x3-battery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuA3mGkgZ_QfFsSSsc4rDqlWGyy-FBB8gZ4dZ0RePyJURmYDz964Yey6XKT1H_0sGmxdN0LWKt3uqnUrwohTCST9K0ksOMyIJoFjlv5QLc1-l8YHKEXLw2NFYamiXpF5GA0eB0LOIsZmTr/s1600/srs-x3-battery.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Battery life for the SRS-X3 is claimed to be 7 hours. At lower listening levels you should easily be able to reach or even excel this. I only found that when listening at high levels (close to maximum) the battery drain is much faster. At high levels I hardly got longer playing times than 2 hours, but the biggest issue is that the Sony SRS-X3 automatically lowers the maximum volume to about half when battery is starting to get weak. This can become quite annoying, as I was using the speaker for some hours at lower levels and then wanted to crank it for some particular tracks to the max, but after some minutes the speaker automatically lowered the volume on its own, the "charge" light started to flash and I was not able to increase the volume anymore. I think that the battery inside the Sony is rather weak compared to the one Bose uses. I am able to use the Soundlink Mini for more than 4 hours at the highest level. If you need high levels over a longer period, the Sony might be the wrong choice. You could try using an external power-pack, although it won't charge the speaker as long as it is turned on, at least you can continue using it. I have an older power-pack from Anker and it works flawlessly with the Sony. I haven't tried yet, how long the Sony would play when powered merely by the external battery. At least this might be a compromise for some. It is harder to find a suitable power-pack for the Soundlink Mini, providing the necessary 12V.<br /><br />For transport there is an extra case available. It costs about 20� or $ and is considerably cheaper than that from Bose for the Soundlink Mini. But unlike the Bose case the Sony case doesn't seem to have any additional space for the charger or the charging cable. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIijT2FsMzVBv6vPW9ejB1GcNEa0P9_AMo0B1X9VFlNIm_umxBgYbhNe4gU9HifNtYezYqiYfh9YbvNyTGXd6ZjBv_dKTpHCyvJNeHrwYtXaGEpVWicBJtaULKnFth2Zw-cqatR09a_88h/s1600/x3-x5-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIijT2FsMzVBv6vPW9ejB1GcNEa0P9_AMo0B1X9VFlNIm_umxBgYbhNe4gU9HifNtYezYqiYfh9YbvNyTGXd6ZjBv_dKTpHCyvJNeHrwYtXaGEpVWicBJtaULKnFth2Zw-cqatR09a_88h/s1600/x3-x5-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzm2uJJny4yMud5ZKOrmZpMx-4VO9qt8ZpKMQXF4xSR5PnF4L6IyVXzEC3mBdqXSirS3MCd-qidI1GYmqsGMdBHNtGSKZlyWbKhW8Gtqs1JXzbdSBzJG4KdI93pOEvARoph7yquECitqO/s1600/x3-x5-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzm2uJJny4yMud5ZKOrmZpMx-4VO9qt8ZpKMQXF4xSR5PnF4L6IyVXzEC3mBdqXSirS3MCd-qidI1GYmqsGMdBHNtGSKZlyWbKhW8Gtqs1JXzbdSBzJG4KdI93pOEvARoph7yquECitqO/s1600/x3-x5-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />When turning the speaker on, it will play some sound, not unpleasant but pretty loud. The larger X5 remained silent, I have no clue why Sony decided that it needs a sound this time. A similar counterpart sound is played when the speaker is turned off. You force Bluetooth pairing with a long press of the Bluetooth button, this will produce a loud beep, then the speaker can be paired with any Bluetooth device. Although many Bluetooth speakers do meanwhile accept multiple connections, the Sony doesn't. You can just be paired with one device at the same time. The Sony is also missing AptX for better streaming quality, or the feature of being able to pair 2 speakers for wireless stereo, but it has NFC and built in hands-free, both of which are missing on the Bose.<br />It seems the Bluetooth reach of the Sony SRS-X3 is particularly stable. I am not sure if the reach is really that much longer than on the Soundlink Mini, but I had the chance to compare the Sony to the JBL Flip from a friend and the Sony had easily twice the reach without even producing a single drop-out, with the JBL stuttering and interrupting just half way.<br />The only thing that the Sony won't do is to automatically pair with previously paired devices. Which means that if the last paired device is absent or off, but one of the previously paired devices is present, the Sony won't pair with them on its own. The Bose does usually does this, and it works pretty well. If it cannot find the last paired device it will search for the next to last paired one and then automatically connect on its own. On the Sony you have to force pairing from your streaming device instead each time you want to change the streaming devices.<br /><br />While the Bose has some kind of power saving mode and will turn off on its own after 15 minutes or so, if there is no music playing and even when attached to mains as well, the Sony will stay powered on as long as a Bluetooth device connected regardless if there is something playing or not. Many always complained about the power saving mode of the Bose because they intended to use it as an alarm, but didn't manage to keep it powered on. This should indeed work with the Sony, regardless if the speaker is running from battery or plugged in.<br />So feature wise the Sony beats the Bose and is furthermore cheaper. The Bose can only score on material quality and looks.<br />But now lets take a look (or better listen) at the sound of the Sony SRS-X3. Which one sounds better, which is louder etc.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03RjaPLHYlcCWVeLYcaPAimDMdNdP-TB9NH9XGmLzEOVl7p2dAm7BLxSlqjRcgd4dh9xSI40L-NMhOOmNRnEnkXH_2TDb39rnPINQaMz8tr1nxMQZxvfV-yqSMqfMwDpNtLdHu_4hHNgw/s1600/sony-open.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03RjaPLHYlcCWVeLYcaPAimDMdNdP-TB9NH9XGmLzEOVl7p2dAm7BLxSlqjRcgd4dh9xSI40L-NMhOOmNRnEnkXH_2TDb39rnPINQaMz8tr1nxMQZxvfV-yqSMqfMwDpNtLdHu_4hHNgw/s1600/sony-open.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The first thing you notice when you hear the Sony for the first time is a really serious full-range sound with extremly clear treble and deep bass, that isn't boomy by any means. The Sony doesn't sound like a tin-can speaker as so many similar speakers do, but rather like a fully grown up system, of course only as long as you keep the volume under control. When I played both X3 and X5 side by side, I was surprised to hear the X3 being able to produce a similar amount of bass while sounding much clearer than the bigger model. Directly compared with the Soundlink Mini the latter will sound pretty muffled and boomy at the same time. The bass on the Sony is louder at 60Hz than the Bose and reaches even slightly below that, but it isn't as boosted above 100Hz as on the Bose. The upper bass boost on the Bose can make the bass buzz and drone if you listen to it in small rooms or place it near a corner or near a wall. You can equally push bass on the Sony a little more when putting it near a wall. Both Soundlink Mini and SRS-X3 seem to have exactly the same driver configuration consisting of 2 full-range drivers and 2 opposing passive radiators, one at the front and one at the back, the opposing radiators avoid any stronger vibration or rattling, which you get from many other speakers, that have the passive radiator on one side only. By placing the speaker back near a wall, you will boost the bass that normally would be emitted to the back and might get otherwise lost to some degree. On the Sony this works indeed pretty well, as you make the bass stronger and louder, but not boomier, unlike with the Bose Soundlink Mini which rather profits form a completely free positioning for not to sound too heavy on bass especially in conjunction with the recessed treble, which will give the impression of being boomier than it actually is.<br />Biggest problem of the Bose is, that treble dispersion is very focused. When you aim the speaker directly at you, it sounds pretty balanced, but turn it away slightly or tilt it up or down and you will lose all the treble. Although the Sony also sounds best when directly aimed at the listener, treble still remains acceptable if you turn the speaker away. It even sounds clearer than the Bose if you turn it around backwards.<br />The treble of the Sony sounds a bit thin though, it can become even slightly harsh with some recordings. A hi-hat on the Bose has still some presence in the lower frequencies, while it is only fizzling in the upper frequencies on the Sony. While I thought the X5 to sound better with "sound" mode enabled, because it boosted treble at the same time and made the sound clearer. This sound-mode is completely overdone on the X3 as it boosts the already boosted treble even more. I even tried to wrap the X3 in some kind of "sock" to tame the treble a little bit as it is fundamentally too sharp and resonant for my taste, which probably is also the reason why it still sounds acceptable from behind, while on the Bose you won't hear any high frequencies when turned backwards.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpZScEr2qEVRfo-_NuMo0FW2iQmZEcL6euPiUii59_FbrypD5zeNrnZYvCossQCNi0oyXDFRbHmGK7ddN8PsljSlv-MBiXebBCAoeKOscEOM-wW_CrlkWRak84VnXUvIkGn3pIxK4mh1_/s1600/sock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPpZScEr2qEVRfo-_NuMo0FW2iQmZEcL6euPiUii59_FbrypD5zeNrnZYvCossQCNi0oyXDFRbHmGK7ddN8PsljSlv-MBiXebBCAoeKOscEOM-wW_CrlkWRak84VnXUvIkGn3pIxK4mh1_/s1600/sock.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Mids seem to have more presence on the Bose. On the Sony vocals are sometimes less clear and instruments like piano or guitar can sound a bit thin, probably because it is missing the basshump above 100Hz. This was not that obvious on the larger X5, which had a more rounded mids-reproduction.<br /><br />It is hard to definitively decide which one is better, because both have their strenghts and sound is also a matter of personal taste. The Soundlink Mini obviously shines with bright recordings that are a bit light on bass, while the X3 sounds pretty convincing on older more muffled recordings.<br />While the Sony sounds better indoors most of the time, because you can just put it on some shelf, walk around and still get an acceptable sound, the Bose will sound veiled pretty quickly when you move too far to the side. Both have enough bass power to really create a convincing foundation for the music not to sound lifeless or anemic, but both are tuned differently, in such a way that the Bose might sound slightly more powerful overall at the expense of a duller treble response.<br /><br />It is different outdoors. The deeper bass of the Sony can get lost more quickly than the Bose. Also the treble continues to sound thin and sizzling on the Sony, while it comes better through on the Bose. I compared both thoroughly outdoors on our patio and most of the time I preferred the rendition the Soundlink Mini gave me. The boomier bass was indeed an advantage outdoors with a noisy enviroment, while the Sony just sounded thinner because the deeper bass couldn't be heard that much outside. The Sony profits quite a bit of a wall or even putting it on the ground will considerably enhance bass outdoors. As treble dispersion is not such a big problem on the Sony, you could even just put it on the ground and listen to it while standing above. The Bose would just sound dull and bassheavy like this. So for a picnic, where you sit around together on the ground with the speaker somewhere placed beside or in the center, the Sony should be the better choice, as it would be able to produce a powerful  bass because of standing on the ground and enough treble, because of its superior clarity.<br /><br />Volumewise both reach more or less the same loudness, but both do not sound too convincing at their top level anymore. Bass is reduced on both of them, but while Bose tries to keep the frequency spectrum intact with just lowering the bass amplitute, the sound seems to shift on the Sony, making the bass thinner and pushing treble even more. Both are not really perfect for high volumes, they sound best up to medium level or slightly above. From 3/4 upwards the low frequency balance starts to dissolve together with some dynamic compression that kicks in, and everything starts sounding forced. If really high volume is your priority, I think that the Soundlink Mini still sounds more convincing as it sounds fuller up to highest level, while the bass on the Sony becomes too thin from a certain point. Some of its lower bass remains, but the amplitute is reduced that much, that it won't sound full-bodied anymore. The difference between medium volume and high volume is too radical in case of the SRS-X3, while I would still see it acceptable with the Soundlink Mini.<br />Both speakers can distort at top volume, but while the Bose has problems with keeping its bass-level clean enough thus would start farting, it is rather the mid-tones that can make the Sony start crackling at high levels. I tested both with some pretty heavy mixes from pianoplayer and Smoothjazz artist <a href="http://www.brianculbertson.com/" target="_blank">Brian Culbertson</a>, and while the Bose started to buzz with deeper bass notes but apart from that was still very clean even at top volume, the Sony on the other side kept bass rather distortionfree but also with lower amplitute, instead it had problems with loud piano-notes which started to crack sometimes.<br />With very bassheavy recordings both can struggle a bit even at medium volume. At levels between 50-60 Bose tries to keep bass as strong as possible which might result in an already dirty reproduction. You will mostly hear it on kick-drums, on deep bassnotes like that from a Hammond Organ etc. At comparable levels the Sony seems to have bass better under control, but you can hear how the bass-notes bleed into the treble. It is mostly noticable with ride or crash cymbals, triangle etc. They start to flutter when there is some lower bass played simultaneously. The Bose does the same, but it is not that obvious because it sounds overall more muffled, as the Sony sounds so clear this effect is quite noticeable. You should also hear it in my videos during some parts.<br /><br />Both speakers are rather meant for low and medium volumes. The Sony has 30 volume-steps, while the Bose has 100. When the Bose is set to 50, it would play with similar loudness as the Sony when this is set to 10. The volume curve seems to be non linear for both, because they meet loudnesswise again at their top setting. I would say that the Sony sounds quite good up to step 15, the sound starts to deteriorate from there pretty quickly. The Bose sounds good up to 60 and still acceptable at 75, then it starts getting worse very fast too. The only problem with the Bose is the bass distortion that it might show on very heavy mixes within the already mentioned range between 50-60%. This distortion goes away if you turn it either lower or louder, it really seems to be just this range, where bass is boosted slightly too much for the small drivers to handle it.<br />At lower levels I prefer the Sony. It sounds clearer and bass is still present but not owerpowering. It sounds even good at the very first volume-step, which is impressive. Not sure if anyone would ever listen to music that low, but Sony really seems to have tuned the loudness-curve pretty well including boost of treble at lowest levels as well, which is just the way the human ear reacts to low and high frequencies at lower levels. Bose only seems to boost bass at lower volumes to compensate for the loundess-loss, but it doesn't do enough for treble, at least this is the impression I have, because the sound becomes more and more muffled the lower you turn volume.<br />Unfortuantely both speakers have their own volume control independent of the volume control from the streaming device. This might lead to strange artefacts, especially regarding loudness-compensation if you start messing around with both settings. If you set the speaker's volume to the maximum, while lower the volume on your player, both Sony and Bose will sound considerably different, than if you have the player set to maximum, and the speaker decreased to a lower value. This is a problem that most speaker seem to struggle with, especially when they apply loudness-compensation depending on the volume level. But the compensation seems not to be dependent on the final output-loudness only, but rather on both the input-level and the level the speaker ist set to. The Sony fights with this problem quite heavily, as the sound changes drastically depending on how both separate volume-controls are set.<br /><br />Moreover I noticed some strange dynamic compression which I already heard from the larger SRS-X5 as well but didn't pay much attention to it back then. Especially when directly compared to the Denon Envaya or Soundlink Mini on the X5 drums didn't sound that punchy and snares were less snappy compared to the others. I had the impression as if Sony was trying to compress the dynamics on their speakers similar to most radio stations which do the same in order to increase the signal to noise ratio before transmission. This compressed dynamics is even more obvious with the X3. I played around with various volume levels and finally found that the compression mostly occurs if you set the volume on your streaming device to the maximum, which I normally always did until now. But doing so with both Sony speakers you will end up not only with a more compressed sound, but also a different sound overall including sharper treble and more recessed mids. During fooling around and listening closely at various volume settings, I finally discovered that decreasing the volume 4 notches on the iPhone and increasing it 2 notches on the speaker to achieve the same loudness as before would result in a more natural sound with less compression as well as better mids and slightly less resonant treble. You can try finding your own best setting by increasing volume on your player until you notice that the overall volume won't change much anymore during the last notches. Choose that one step below, where a change in volume is starting to become more obvious.<br />During my measurements of the SRS-X3 I also wanted to see how this input-level reduction would show up in the graph. I measured the speaker with a calibrated MiniDSP UMIK-1 microphone from a 50cm distance in my usual recording room, where I also do all audio recordings now. There is definitely some room-influence that I cannot avoid, but the measurements should be correct relatively to each other. You can see clearly from the blue curve that treble and bass is boosted in relation to the mids, this is what you get when the player is turned up to the maximum. When turning the player down to 75% and raising the volume on the speaker instead to normalize the output to the same level as before, you will get the red curve with a smoother response overall. I also included "sound" as additional factor which is shown in cyan for the maximum volume measurement and orange for the measurement with reduced input-volume to 75%:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj25W2XBtmF65eZbtCiEqIp6GTQ0Jp_pexBw_EWYdsZkvNHQbb-U4bOfgD6SU4_Q54S4PDHKa1goewG6ShpGM7WRlNUP-5pX3_0Iz1TwVlrKpqbPgdlzogs_4ycdyZNm6zxraoNIJlrtJBH/s1600/sony-x3-sound-settings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj25W2XBtmF65eZbtCiEqIp6GTQ0Jp_pexBw_EWYdsZkvNHQbb-U4bOfgD6SU4_Q54S4PDHKa1goewG6ShpGM7WRlNUP-5pX3_0Iz1TwVlrKpqbPgdlzogs_4ycdyZNm6zxraoNIJlrtJBH/s1600/sony-x3-sound-settings.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>  </div>I am not sure what Sony tried to achieve with this. Apart from the strange frequency shift which I cannot explain, maybe they were afraid of a too high input-level and decided to add some dynamic compression to avoid any distortion and be on the save side, who knows. But I was already about to nearly dismiss the SRS-X3 for these compression and sound-issues until I discovered that lowering the input volume would prevent most problems. But then this dynamic compression might even help at really low volumes to make music sound more constant, as it avoids strong peak-changes, therefore it is not too bad to have an indirect option of either accepting it or avoiding it.<br /><br />Moreover I wanted to show a direct frequency response comparison at medium level between the Soundlink Mini and the SRS-X3, with the more balanced sound-setting at 75% input-volume as demonstrated above being used for the Sony:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuWhRmcSclDlhwl8Xq-n7cPtKvSCRLN2up1S_l7G1fmVjZehANu_iolUUe8kIM_mMhGrZ6XdSm58pE2K2Hk1jRmL_D66im_T67RYwCSCbXVrgzKuPJ9HdepcnItUAYWzi55HXApn97jpmo/s1600/slmini-sonyx3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuWhRmcSclDlhwl8Xq-n7cPtKvSCRLN2up1S_l7G1fmVjZehANu_iolUUe8kIM_mMhGrZ6XdSm58pE2K2Hk1jRmL_D66im_T67RYwCSCbXVrgzKuPJ9HdepcnItUAYWzi55HXApn97jpmo/s1600/slmini-sonyx3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />In the following off-axis measurement recorded from 37� above with the same distance of 50cm the Sony measures even more balanced (cyan curve) as opposed to the direct frontal on-axis measurement (black curve), while the Soundlink Mini (see measurement below) suffers considerably when listened like this, losing all its treble above 7.5kHz already. This is one of the worst results I have measured from any speaker so far and nearly unacceptable making the Soundlink Mini sound extremly muffled and boomy, when not positioned exactly at ear-height. The Sony sounds indeed better if not aimed directly at the listener which is quite unique but not a bad thing for a portable speaker which you place just somewhere and walk around. Maybe I should have also performed a measurment with the Sony turned backwards? I guess it would still show better treble extension than the Soundlink Mini positioned optimally.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh54M3p13shWiMEf0berHZQrtZgJengNyqOZG5mlKDBKJQWJMjt0g5onuKR4TT5_UoTbpCVx-G7JP-Lm7KbmsyAhW1ZtZg-XC_PruPmYMud0ExRA0NcxMXVY3ed282U7oRZvHOobxLZT_eQ/s1600/sony-x3-off-axis-measurement.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh54M3p13shWiMEf0berHZQrtZgJengNyqOZG5mlKDBKJQWJMjt0g5onuKR4TT5_UoTbpCVx-G7JP-Lm7KbmsyAhW1ZtZg-XC_PruPmYMud0ExRA0NcxMXVY3ed282U7oRZvHOobxLZT_eQ/s1600/sony-x3-off-axis-measurement.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXVemaGXbDk_JWa0zDJeNCmsGb-Tm2ztbtmSj7oumoa61x2gqKYUBBO09r5Sp9dey2zHZKOIdNVsAhhXKiR75IQqqIiuwvlKDx5SLhxPToIe5vgRQKFBh3h1n48p5rWDBNexsH0wX9KA6/s1600/soundlink-mini-off-axis-measurment.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXVemaGXbDk_JWa0zDJeNCmsGb-Tm2ztbtmSj7oumoa61x2gqKYUBBO09r5Sp9dey2zHZKOIdNVsAhhXKiR75IQqqIiuwvlKDx5SLhxPToIe5vgRQKFBh3h1n48p5rWDBNexsH0wX9KA6/s1600/soundlink-mini-off-axis-measurment.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />I also prepared two different videos comparing the SRS-X3 with the Soundlink Mini. The first video tries to demonstrate the difference in sound, when both speakers are heard off-axis. While the Sony will still sound acceptable to some degree, the Bose is hardly audible anymore.<br />In the second video I tried to demonstrate how the sound changes, if you set the player to the maximum instead of lowering it slightly and how both speakers would sound at different loudness levels.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/O0TNs8aUaz0" width="853"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4EA3VyXot98" width="853"></iframe></div><br />In the third video you will finally see a comparison between the SRS-X3 and the bigger SRS-X5. You decide which one sounds better.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cNnbmJ3hqLQ" width="853"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />So which one to get? Soundlink Mini or SRS-X3? To tell the truth there is no clear winner as both have their own benefits, therefore I tried to compile a list which shows where each speaker has an advantage over the other, now you must decide which features have the biggest importance for yourself.<br /><br /><b><u>Sony SRS-X3:</u></b><br /><br /><b>+ cheaper</b><br /><b>+ clearer and less directional treble</b><br /><b>+ less boomy bass</b><br /><b>+ less critical with placing</b> <br /><b>+ more balanced and open sound indoors  </b><br /><b>+ better sound at very low levels </b><br /><b>+ additional sound mode with enhanced stereo effect </b><br /><b>+ built in hands-free </b><br /><b>+ charging through micro-USB</b><br /><b>+ NFC</b><br /><br /><br /><b><u>Bose Soundlink Mini:</u></b><br /><b><br /></b><b>+ smaller and slightly lighter</b><br /><b>+ more distinct sound outdoors</b><br /><b>+ sound more solid at high levels </b><br /><b>+ clearer and fuller sounding mids </b><br /><b>+ more precious look and materials</b><br /><b>+ probably higher resale value </b><br /><b>+ included charging cradle</b><br /><b>+ stronger battery </b><br /><b>+ battery replaceable</b><br /><br />What about me? I was already seriously thinking about selling my Soundlink Mini, as I repeatedly found myself grabbing the Sony more often than the Bose, when I wanted to quickly listen to some music around the house or garden. But meanwhile I think that I will probably keep both and check if there will be something new coming from Bose soon...<br />I also really hope that the SRS-X3 will become as popular as the Soundlink Mini, because Sony might indeed have the potential to improve things even further. Who knows how good the successor model would sound? I would wish some advanced features like wireless stereo pairing of 2 speakers, or multipoint Bluetooth connections, as this would enable the speaker for serious listening, while many other speakers do offer all those features, they all just sound like beer-cans.<br />On the other side Bose seems to be sleeping a little bit with only negligible updates, as you could see from the evolution of the Soundlink 1 to the Soundlink 3 which took more than 3 years. In the end the Soundlink 3 doesn't offer any new features or sound that much different and despite some slight improvements is still quite a bit shy of treble. I really have the impression as if Bose as a whole was trebleshy somehow!</p>

Happy Birthday to my Soundlink Mini, as it will be exactly one year ago to the day that it made me 200 bucks poorer, when I carried it out f...

Review: Sony SRS-X5 vs. Denon Envaya - priced small like a Soundlink Mini, sound big like a Soundlink III?

<p>Lately I concentrated rather on more portable speakers, with the hope of maybe finding some better alternative to the Soundlink Mini. Apart from the Pill XL that I have already reviewed <a href="http://oluvsgadgets.blogspot.co.at/2014/07/review-beats-pill-xl-ultimate-portable.html">here</a>, I haven't tried any larger speakers, because for my own personal purposes they would be just too large to be carried around all the time. The Soundlink Mini is able to produce enough loudness for my needs, and the sound from the Soundlink Mini is full and bassheavy enough to make listening to music really enjoying, thus I didn't feel the need to try out something larger and heavier.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEv6yiIKF58Enol08ylq92wpcmHRIc3msW81iviMAZn5IoeHwr3eXyoO0EasEkr9_ZmU9-r-yUaabuJmSeLwFq9jqbsbNFwjbyioWjtRAVV0oKdImWfLBk_d8WpZM6QF3olO8ubvsybX10/s1600/sony-denon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEv6yiIKF58Enol08ylq92wpcmHRIc3msW81iviMAZn5IoeHwr3eXyoO0EasEkr9_ZmU9-r-yUaabuJmSeLwFq9jqbsbNFwjbyioWjtRAVV0oKdImWfLBk_d8WpZM6QF3olO8ubvsybX10/s1600/sony-denon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><a name="more"></a><br />When I heard the Sony SRS-X5 in a store, priced lower than the Soundlink Mini, but sounding considerably more balanced and equally full-bodied, I became curious to hear it once in a more controlled enviroment. Meanwhile Denon had announced their new <a href="http://usa.denon.com/us/product/pages/productdetail.aspx?catalog=denonna_us&pcatid=cocoonipoddocks%28denonna%29&catid=bluetooth%28denonna%29&pid=dsb200bk%28denonna%29" target="_blank">"Envaya" portable speaker</a>, priced nearly equally. Statements like <i>"enhanced DSP processing from MaxxAudio to deliver lower lows and higher highs, than any other speaker this size"</i> made me even more curious and because the <a href="http://www.areadvd.de/tests/test-denon-bluetooth-lautsprecher-envaya-moderner-chic-und-typische-klangstaerke-fuer-199-eur/" target="_blank">first reviews</a> of the Denon Envaya were all positive, I finally decided to try both side by side. I emailed Denon and asked them to send me a review sample, but they didn't even answer! <br />So I bought it when it finally became available and included the Sony SRS-X5 as well, to have some direct comparison, for not to use my Soundlink Mini all the time as only reference, because many already rant me a Bose fanboy etc.<br /><br />Both Sony SRS-X5 and Denon Envaya are comparable in size and weight, resembling a bit the Soundlink II, TDK A33 etc. thus both are quite a bit larger than the Soundlink Mini. At the same time both are priced below 199$ or 199�, the Sony being even a bit cheaper at least in Europe where you can get it for 179$, while the Bose Soundlink Mini can be currently had for <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Bose-SoundLink-Bluetooth-Speaker-silber/dp/B00D42A8J4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404825777&sr=8-1&keywords=bose+soundlink+mini" target="_blank">175� at amazon.de</a> instead of the original 199�. If not for size, all 3 speakers would at least be comparable for value costing nearly the same.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHppcUneC62udDucErUH8JaFRY0-Kk8tAEaGJS4MJQO_twccUEukWJDXG1cz3a8LHUQTIeJW__DZiB-5y4QT1CR17BQES1n8yyWlVWSY7WjBTay1cCOSQLVWSPcpkgFcRucrnd2iV7FlYR/s1600/denon-cover1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHppcUneC62udDucErUH8JaFRY0-Kk8tAEaGJS4MJQO_twccUEukWJDXG1cz3a8LHUQTIeJW__DZiB-5y4QT1CR17BQES1n8yyWlVWSY7WjBTay1cCOSQLVWSPcpkgFcRucrnd2iV7FlYR/s1600/denon-cover1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Denon Envaya has a more organic rounded look. The Sony looks simple and edgy like a boring brick. I like both designs to tell the truth and I went with the white color for both, because it should be more forgiving outdoors with some sun shining. The Sony is also available in red and black, while the Denon comes in either white or black, but they also include some colored inlays that you can exchange for your liking. Not sure how often one would like to change the color of the speaker, I would have preferred a cover or bag for transport, as both speakers have some picky surfaces, which might scratch easily during transport. Sony offers at least an additional transport cover for the X5, while I have not found anything suitable for the Envaya yet.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz0Eq4LsGKM7VWwiK7svqRAVTQyDhVesRCGQmypKBn5912KB4q5WQWzlFg6D28jZ4PjzopJyomHzYgs9eQTEKArKvVowXTFhLIjLAUNU_FODQKx6VrhZpHeh2U1z4ZnASsoHxsHmHqB0Nq/s1600/denon-stand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz0Eq4LsGKM7VWwiK7svqRAVTQyDhVesRCGQmypKBn5912KB4q5WQWzlFg6D28jZ4PjzopJyomHzYgs9eQTEKArKvVowXTFhLIjLAUNU_FODQKx6VrhZpHeh2U1z4ZnASsoHxsHmHqB0Nq/s1600/denon-stand.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br />Because of the rounded edges the Denon Envaya should also be easily to pack away for transport. The Sony is not really bigger, but because of the design it just looks as if it would take away more space. The Denon has some fold-out stand, without whose help it won't stand at all. You press an area at the top of the back-side and it flips out pretty easily. Standing like that the Envaya is tilted slightly upwards, while the Sony will stand vertically without the need of any additional stand. Both should stay like that quite stable, but could fall over when on the move (if you intend to use them in a car or something).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0CTQ0eAF8_8ZDzp5MhXu3CvuC0gFkKqQ37nVq7u_msO8NwgIThCN3e1EvlPZ5T9QHGiM_AhpKXv6n5rptAIeDNRJVq_PoNkrlqp6310VLE8A3FK5OH6fx8sXj1PkK2ZK4THKSDiVbri2/s1600/denon-bose-mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0CTQ0eAF8_8ZDzp5MhXu3CvuC0gFkKqQ37nVq7u_msO8NwgIThCN3e1EvlPZ5T9QHGiM_AhpKXv6n5rptAIeDNRJVq_PoNkrlqp6310VLE8A3FK5OH6fx8sXj1PkK2ZK4THKSDiVbri2/s1600/denon-bose-mini.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Sony has hands-free built in, which is missing on the Denon. Both need their proprietary chargers, and both have an USB-port for charging other devices. The Denon is rated for 10 hours playback, while the Sony should play for 7 hours. Of course playback time will vary depending on the volume level and if other devices are charged at the same time. I haven't tested the Sony that accurately, but I have used the Denon quite often at higher levels and noticed that near top volume the battery would hardly last 2.5 hours, which is pretty poor if you ask me. I repeated my test twice, and fully charged the Denon Envaya, but when playing at high volume both times the power LED started blinking after 2 hours and the speaker turned off automatically shortly after.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFsl3ip7KKEWUwSHSMq6pyV6tayMtUNdAqh661Ss-k6lp8V-FhcFpFFwQFTzsdK4jFmMExOrzkNvzlCgLf3YLALhoZv3STpx8uLB6CCjNZTvP7m4OUpzS3eExplqcB0MFAKbyQqN-Q-fTc/s1600/sony-bose-mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFsl3ip7KKEWUwSHSMq6pyV6tayMtUNdAqh661Ss-k6lp8V-FhcFpFFwQFTzsdK4jFmMExOrzkNvzlCgLf3YLALhoZv3STpx8uLB6CCjNZTvP7m4OUpzS3eExplqcB0MFAKbyQqN-Q-fTc/s1600/sony-bose-mini.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Both speakers are equipped with NFC, but only the Denon supports the advanced AptX codec for better Bluetooth quality. The Denon Envaya also accepts multipoint Bluetooth, which means you can stay connected from 3 streaming devices simultanously, without having to break the connection of the previous device, if you want to stream from another. As soon as you have paired all three devices with the Envaya, the next time you turn on the speaker you will be able to connect from all 3 again simultanously, although the speaker will automatically connect to only one of them. The other connections must be forced from your streaming device every time again.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUzdstAN-Yx1xa0Mr8EsvwZAEAhUDOfjC7wWPZgIfRiO74Cp2tN5qALpjXsre8m1cz3CEeh8jCEmsn5AtdvCIFmr66bF6vqZrQaXPjWiKl9rKHBrUoBJRfTcccb_bBDTLfbkgkJbBWKNIn/s1600/denon-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUzdstAN-Yx1xa0Mr8EsvwZAEAhUDOfjC7wWPZgIfRiO74Cp2tN5qALpjXsre8m1cz3CEeh8jCEmsn5AtdvCIFmr66bF6vqZrQaXPjWiKl9rKHBrUoBJRfTcccb_bBDTLfbkgkJbBWKNIn/s1600/denon-top.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />On the Sony only the power button and the call-button are physical buttons, all other buttons are just touch-sensitive areas. They are not lit either and with the black glossy surface in dark surroundings it is hardly distinguishable where to touch to change volume, you have to illuminate the speaker first not to touch a wrong area, but maybe with some time and usage you can learn where to touch.<br />The Denon has dedicated buttons for all functions and at least the volume buttons are differently curved, so that you can actually feel which one to press for either increasing or decreasing volume.<br />While the Denon plays some chordal every time you turn it on or off, the Sony stays completely silent. It only beeps when you force Bluetooth pairing mode.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ktmmSQBGbdWK41HrxdrnBq3_7V2Lc-B6NJqc7itEcuUBbc3FbjVmRz72SYRS7RejX4AtOC0eDPCcfw78llX-AAVOP3HFQGgZwFgT-JoktBwAvgMLMmPv4mbhplVk8aK3L6gRKMrwB5U9/s1600/denon-drivers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0ktmmSQBGbdWK41HrxdrnBq3_7V2Lc-B6NJqc7itEcuUBbc3FbjVmRz72SYRS7RejX4AtOC0eDPCcfw78llX-AAVOP3HFQGgZwFgT-JoktBwAvgMLMmPv4mbhplVk8aK3L6gRKMrwB5U9/s1600/denon-drivers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Denon uses 2 large full-range drivers, the Sony has 2 smaller drivers and an additional woofer and both speakers are equipped with an additional passive radiator for bass enhancement, the Sony even two of them at the back. On both speakers they are mounted only to one side, which might result in some unwanted vibration due to some imbalance. Usually passive radiators have more mass compared to the main drivers, which is needed for proper tuning. If a driver moves you won't have as much vibration as if a passive radiator moves. Therefore opposing passive radiators are better to avoid any unwanted vibration.<br />I noticed with both speakers, that they might slip around at higher levels and stronger bass-notes. The Sony has soft rubber feet, which even seem a bit sticky. Despite vibrating heavily on higher levels, it usually won't rattle against the base, only if you have the power-cord attached, the cord might cause some rattling, which would sound like distortion. Also the Denon vibrates and standing on a table it might make nearby objects rattle too. Just be sure to place both speakers on a hard surface with no objects nearby touching them.<br /><br />So how do they sound?<br />First you notice that both are capable of a nicely defined full-range sound with quite a deep bass even at lower levels unlike many similar models like the Loewe speaker2go or the TDK A33 etc, which tend to sound rather thin until they don't reach a particular loudness.<br />My first impression was, that the Sony sounded smoother than the Denon, the bass was deeper, but at the same time less boomy and treble was clearer. Overall the Sony was just more natural sounding and more pleasant to listen to. The Sony also has some "sound"-mode which seems to act like a stereo-enhancer, or pseudo-surround, as I would call it. It probably works with some typical phase-shifting and it sounds quite nice, without destroying the sound completely due to processing artefacts. The sound becomes broader and more open, because at the same time treble is raised quite a bit, which makes the Sony clearer. Bass seems to be left without any processing, it is just the stereo-enhancing effect and some treble boost.<br />When switching over to the Denon I found it to sound quite dull and rather directional, especially after having listened to the Sony with "sound" enabled. The bass was there, but it had this kind of Bose type of bass, which is quite a bit bloated, and without the corresponding treble definition the whole speaker sounds muffled. To double check I took my Soundlink Mini and started comparing it with the Denon Envaya and to my surprise I liked the sound of the Bose more. It sounded clearer, the mids where much more distinct, on the Denon I had rather the impression as if the singer had its hand in front. Also piano attacks were easily discernible on the Bose, while they were rather muted on the Denon. Overall bass amount was quite similar on both, but the Denon sounded more bloated to me, I had the impression as if the Soundlink Mini had better bass quality, despite being much smaller in size. The treble seemed to be slightly clearer and smoother on the Denon reaching higher, but it was equally directional as on the Bose. As soon as you moved to the side and left the sweet-spot the Denon started to sound dull and boomy. I did not find any sound attribute on the Denon which would make me like it more than the Soundlink Mini. The only advantage the Denon clearly had over the Soundlink Mini (and over the Sony SRS-X5 as well) was an overall higher loudness, without obvious dynamic compression or bass reduction. It still sounded very dynamic with hardly any bass loss even at its top level. The Denon Envaya might be not the loudest speaker in its category, from memory I am sure the Soundlink III is louder overall, but it does so due to applying lots of dynamic processing and bass reduction to achieve this higher level. The Denon still sounds very natural at its top level. There is some distortion on higher levels with the Denon. Heavy bass notes start to fart a little bit, which seems to come from the passive radiator.<br />The Sony SRS-X5 on the other hand does hardly distort, but at the same time it is not even able to reach the loudness of the Soundlink Mini when playing from battery let alone the loudness of the Denon Envaya. At low levels the Sony sounds rounded and nice, but raise the volume a bit too much and the sound starts falling apart. Bass is reduced nearly completely with only some hum remaining, and lots of dynamic compression is applied which even results in some volume fluctuation and a pumping sound. When connected to AC-power the loundess is higher, but still with the same bass-less sound and lots of compression. Even from AC-power the Sony was not able to reach the loudness of the Denon but at the same time the Sony sounded much less dynamic and tinny. <br />According to the specs the Sony should play with 20 Watts when running from AC-power and 8 Watts only when playing from battery, which would explain the loss of power at high levels and defeats a bit the purpose of a portable speaker if it is limited as much when used from battery.<br /><br />If I had to choose between both, I would probably choose the Denon, if I wouldn't already own the Soundlink Mini. Funnily I still liked the Soundlink Mini more, as it was much smaller but in the end didn't really sound worse than the Denon, only falling short of not being able to reach the same high volume. The Denon was able to keep the sound level over its entire volume-range with only some slight distortion on bass heavy tracks, but it sounded good at low and at high levels. The Sony sounded best of all at low levels, but was nearly unusable at slightly raised volume. It would be acceptable maybe, if it managed to keep the same sound level when playing from battery as it does when attached to mains. I liked the Sony much more for casual listening at home, it was less directional, with a smoother sound and the additional "sound" mode could enhance the experience even more, depending on the kind of music, but every time I tried to increase volume too much, it ended in a rather frustrating outcome.<br /><br />I prepared a comparison video where I tried to put the Sony and Denon directly against each other:<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lGmoWiHrdyc" width="853"></iframe> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I also did two further videos where I separately compared the Sony and the Denon to the Soundlink Mini. So have a listen which you like most overall and if the higher volume of the Denon is really that grave!<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QNudmQLU9qQ" width="853"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YiyAtYyot_Q" width="853"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /></p>

Lately I concentrated rather on more portable speakers, with the hope of maybe finding some better alternative to the Soundlink Mini. Apart ...