We’ve digitized our entire music collection. We ripped all but the most eclectic CD’s (I’ll get to the Scott Joplin 5 CD set eventually) a few years back, and since then all of our tunes have been purchased as MP3’s from Amazon. We share them throughout our home network via Windows Media Player, which in turn we can access from our U-Verse boxes anywhere in the house. It’s really pretty nifty, though I hope to soon update the whole system. But that’s a topic for another blog.
I also import my MP3’s to iTunes and sync them to my iPhone so I take almost my entire music library with me everywhere I go. And while I love my Skull Candy headphones, sometimes you need to fill a room with music. Like when you and the love of your life need to perfect a new Samba move. Last summer I bought a cheap Bluetooth speaker bar at Walmart. It does a fantastic job of filling a room with sound, but it has three disadvantages: its shoebox size, its dumbbell weight, and its tether to a power outlet. Not the best tunes generator for the nomadic empty-nest middle-aged couple.
Enter the JBL Micro Wireless Ultra-portable speaker. I was looking for something that would solve those 3 problems, but hopefully without too much sacrifice on the sound quality. The reviews were promising, so I gave it a chance. It wonderfully hits the mark on the first three. It’s about the size of a saucer, but an inch or so thick: easy size to tuck in the corner of a suitcase or backpack. It’s incredibly light, enough to make you wonder if there’s anything but air inside it. And it’s rechargeable via a generic USB cable. It’d get five out of five stars at that point…
But all the convenience does come at a price: the sound quality just isn’t as good as a larger speaker bar. Still, the sound is good–not stellar, just good–and it can fill a small space nicely with good volume and decent bass. Speaking of volume, there’s a dial control on the side, which is sort of nice though slightly annoying since you can also adjust the volume from your source device.
All-in-all, I give it 4 stars out of 5: it’s a great little speaker for the traveler who needs (small) room filling music.
