Portable Bluetooth speakers have displaced full-size hi-fi as the default music-listening experience and although they cost just as much - or more, in some cases - they offer cordless freedom and the ability to have your tunes travel with you to wherever the party is jumping
BUYING GUIDE
SOUND QUALITY
The obvious trade-offs are speaker size and portability against sound power and audio quality. The nature of electroacoustics is that it's very difficult to make music sound truly great with small speakers. In general, we advise always choosing sound quality over volume. Clear music always sounds louder anyway. And bad quality is only amplified as you turn the volume up.
WEIGHT
Most Bluetooth speakers are designed for portability, but anything over 1 kg is harder to handle with one hand, and difficult to lug around for extended periods. Look for a good carry handle on bigger speakers.
CONTROLS
Well-placed control buttons with decent tactile feedback are surprisingly hard to find, in part because proper buttons are easily broken or damaged if you are moving your speaker around. In addition, such buttons also affects the waterproofing.
As a result, most speaker buttons are a pain to use, but you should check their positioning, at least.
INPUTS
All Bluetooth speakers also allow you to connect using an aux cable with a 3.5-mm headphone jack at both ends. This will normally result in a volume boost and save a lot of battery power.
SMART FUNCTIONS
This story is from the June 2023 edition of Tech Magazine ZA.
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This story is from the June 2023 edition of Tech Magazine ZA.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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