Most powerful ~300 dollars portable speakers?, Anything better than Bose SoundLink or Jawbone BIG JAMBOX? Options

[kwanbis]

I'm looking for the most powerful portable speakers for around 300. So far, I have seen the Bose SoundLink and the Jawbone BIG JAMBOX.

Obviously they have to sound fine at maximum power.

Now, I usually can find better products for Bose's money, but apparently not this time.

Any ideas, comments or recommendations?

[Apesbrain]

I don't know if it fits your needs but I've been looking at this thing primarily because I want to take it out in my backyard in the early morning hours and wake up my neighbors. I'm pretty sure it would do the job.

[mixminus1]

@OP: What size of room/space are you looking to fill with sound?

In a living room or small backyard, that 22-watt Ion thing might work - in a school gymnasium, not so much.

[kwanbis]

That looks really nice. But I'm looking for something much more portable. Something you can have on a backpack.

For example, to take it to the beach, to a camping, etc.

But I would get that probably to wake up my neighbors.

This post has been edited by kwanbis: Aug 28 2012, 01:39

[andy o]

I have the little Jambox, just bought it. All the hype around it I've found it's mostly BS, it still sounds like a little speaker, and it doesn't really "fill a room" like almost all the reviews say. At least one review after mentioning this of the Little, said of the Big Jambox, "it will fill a house". I don't buy that for a second. I can't even get Little to fill my car with clean sound.

That said, I like the design a lot, and I paid about half price, cause I bought it in "mint" condition off ebay. There are a couple of cool things about it too. It's upgradeable via the internet, it has a mic for BT hands-free calls, and I've found the "live audio" processing recently added via an update a pretty nice tweak, although it lowers the volume to the point where it's only useful in a quiet room, right in front of you, which is the only way the effect would work anyway. These are also pluses for the Big Jambox, only with more power and presumably much better range, although for the size, they could have added a couple of tweeters.

The construction is very sturdy, which I can't say for most of the stuff I've seen from Bose. Don't know if I would pay retail price for it though. I certainly would not pay $200 for Little.

This post has been edited by andy o: Aug 30 2012, 09:22

[Arnold B. Kruege...]

That looks really nice. But I'm looking for something much more portable. Something you can have on a backpack.

For example, to take it to the beach, to a camping, etc.

But I would get that probably to wake up my neighbors.

I would probably look at powered speakers that run off of 12 volts, and carry a stout lithium ion battery to power them. Many of the alternatives would be easy to backpack.

I don't know what you consider to be appropriate in terms of size, weight or SQ; what your duty cycle would be, but this approach provides you with a ton of options.

For example this battery weighs about a pound and puts out 15 amp-hours of 12 volts:

12 volt 15 Amp-hour battery, 500 grams and $80

I've used smaller versions of batteries like this to extend the useful operational times for cell phones, pad computers, and portable music players. This is a working approach!

Depending on how loud you turn them up, the battery above could keep some nice computer speakers going for a while.

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Good question. I can think of many places to have a party where there is no electricity and a generator is too much trouble.

$300 dollars is a tough budget if you include adapters/batteries and stuff.

This is the best I could come up with so far.

Data Sheet

12" Driver deffo comes in under $300. 15" is a bit more. They claim 100W.

I hope someone else can beat it....

This post has been edited by RonaldDumsfeld: Aug 31 2012, 02:32

[kwanbis]

Well, while originally not my target, I'm liking this

http://www.amazon.com/PylePro-PCMX265B-Bat..._pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/IPA16-ROCKER-Portabl..._pr_product_top

The problem with the rocker, is the 90 days warranty. WTF? you are so little confident about your product?

And this two seem to be the best, but apparently no battery.

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-EUROLIVE-B...oductPromotions

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-EUROLIVE-B..._pr_product_top

If battery was not an issue, I think the 208B would be the best choice. But since it kinda is, I think the Rocker is. What do you think?

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Just by chance I happened across a group of street performers using mobile equipment today.

So I had a look at what gear they were using. It was the QTX QRnnPA systems mentioned in post #7 above.

They had one of the 12" models and another 15". Two elec guitars, 3 microphones and a rythmn track.

Sounded loud and pretty decent to me. Deffo running on batteries. I checked.

15" is pretty big, you wouldn't want to carry it far. It does have wheels and a handle but the 12" version was easily manable.

[JJZolx]

Why not just a suitably sized (whatever you're willing to carry in a pack) boombox with AUX input?

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-S715i-Recha...e/dp/B003VANOI6