OT: Portable speaker for music

[kgreene10]

I feel a little sheepish posting an OT, but I've come to appreciate the thoughtful consumerism of this crowd. I also know there are a lot of audiophiles around here.

We need a portable speaker to play music through our iphones or an ipod touch (inactive iphone). It may become our main audio for the next year as we move abroad and then travel some. We are accustomed to very high quality speakers at home (Dynaudio). The portable speaker doesn't need to work on batteries. We can either stream from the iphones (but would want to be able to use them while also streaming music) or we can dock or otherwise connect the inactive iphone 3gs. The smaller the better but at some point, it's not worth it because the quality gets too low.

The little Bose bluetooth speaker sounded pretty good in Best Buy, but it was basically impossible to tell with all the surrounding noise. I haven't done much research, but it stands to reason that once you send the already compromised iphone signal over the air, it will become pretty degraded.

So, what would you guys suggest?

[joosttx]

BO Beloit 12 is pretty awesome. We have one it's portable, AirTunes compatible and the sound quality is very good. But it's way expensive.

[93legendti]

http://www.amazon.com/iHome-iHM60GY-Portable-Speaker-Translucent/dp/B004OA733E/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1396146053&sr=1-1&keywords=ihome+speaker


This works nicely playing iTunes in our car while traveling in Israel...

[avalonracing]

A photographer friend of mine who is constantly traveling but wants music on location swears by the Bose and he has tried a half dozen different models.

[pjm]

Pricey, but I've heard lots of good things about this one....
http://store.soundmatters.com/foxl-intro.html

[jghall]

Portable like going to the beach portable, or as in being your system from house to house? For the latter, I thought both the Marshall and Beats sounded better than the Soundlink. A step even higher would be Audioengine or the Zepplin. And for serious dough Samsung has sweet little player than is based on a tube so you'll can also get that pretty little glow.

[EA120711]

Have a Bose sound link mini . Sounds great and no problems so far . Have had it for about 4 months now with no complaints !

[kgreene10]

Portable like going to the beach portable, or as in being your system from house to house? For the latter, I thought both the Marshall and Beats sounded better than the Soundlink. A step even higher would be Audioengine or the Zepplin. And for serious dough Samsung has sweet little player than is based on a tube so you'll can also get that pretty little glow.

For the house while living abroad and for the hotel room while traveling (though that will be relatively rare), so mostly for the house.

[Saint Vitus]

I only listen to the music within my neural processing lump.

Is this for a variety of environments? Or just in a car or ? Because at some point any degradation of fidelity will be masked by the surrounding ambient noise. My fondest musical memories are driving across the country in a Ford station wagon listening to 8 tracks...

[Ozz]

I picked a UE Boom a few months ago. A friend of mine had one and I thought was cool and sounded nice. I liked that the sound comes out 360 degrees. Another friend has a Jambox that he really likes. The Bluetooth synching is pretty easy.

[indyrider]

I researched this in depth last summer and ended up with the Jawbone Big Jambox, which coupled with my equalizer app, sounds amazing...Its fairly expensive but well worth the $$$

[malcolm]

I'm generally not a bose fan, but the portable speaker works very well. We had one several generations back and traveled with it and it held up well and sounded good. We just retired it a year ago and got a new version from Costco. It sounds as good as any I've heard connects easily to idevices and I think mutes automatically when calls come in.

[HugoBear]

I'm generally not a bose fan, but the portable speaker works very well. We had one several generations back and traveled with it and it held up well and sounded good. We just retired it a year ago and got a new version from Costco. It sounds as good as any I've heard connects easily to idevices and I think mutes automatically when calls come in.

I feel the exact same.

[johnny_flapjack]

JBL Micro Wireless. About the size of a hockey puck, bluetooth or direct plug, usb charge, and sounds much better than you would expect for $50.

[nelsonk]

I too have the Bose Soundlink. Couldn't be happier. Would a Sonos system work for you. Started with two Play 3's. Considering adding on a Play 1 next.

[BurritoGuru]

I have the UE Boom. Connects via bluetooth through an app on a smartphone.
Long battery life. I think 8 hours. Also has a ring to connect to if you want to hang it up. They have picture somewhere of a bicyclist riding a bike with the UE Boom connected to a bag. I prefer the UE Boom over the jambox because it sounded a bit more warm and less tinny. Also smaller footprint.

[gomango]

I bought the Sony TX500.

Portability and great sound are the reasons I bought it and it never disappoints.

I bring it up to the cabin for the summer and run it off my iPad or iPhone.

Friends are constantly amazed by the sound.

It also doubles as a decent sound bar for Friday night movies for the boys when I don't feel like driving them back into town for the theater.