Denon Envaya Mini nur heute um 69€ auf amazon.de

 

Heute gibt es den Denon Envaya Mini in schwarz und weiss im deutschen Amazon store um 69€ im Angebot. Schnell zuschlagen, da dieses Angebot nur heute (16.12.2015) gilt.

Der Denon Envaya Mini zählt in seiner Klasse meiner Meinung nach klanglich immer noch zur Spitze, auch wenn sich mittlerweile einige interessante Alternativen in diesem Preisbereich tummeln: Klipsch GiGAnker A3143 Premium Stereo Bluetooth 4.0 SpeakerAudio Dynamix Atom V3 

Ja selbst gegen den heiss erwarteten RIVA S schlägt sich der Denon wacker bei weniger als 1/3 des Preises: 

Fugoo XL - donation campaign and giveaway raffle

With every new video that I post I am asked why I don't review the Fugoo XL and compare it to the JBL Xtreme. The answer is simple: because I couldn't get a unit yet.
I have been in contact with Fugoo for some time now back when the small Fugoo was released in Europe last year. I also asked about the Fugoo XL immediately when it was announced the first time and was originally promised to receive a unit as soon as they became available. Unfortunately now when they have been finally out in the U.S. for nearly one month, I didn't get any answer about a possible unit anymore. I might have the chance to grab one when it becomes available in Europe which is supposed to be at the end of November, but this may be a bit late for many who are interested and still not sure which speaker will suite them more: Fugoo XL or JBL Xtreme!

As I want to stay as unbiased as possible for my reviews and not count on charities from companies who in return expect positive reviews for their free review samples, I would prefer to buy the speaker on my own. Unfortunately currently I cannot afford buying the Fugoo XL as it is available only in the U.S so far. It would cost me around 480€ including shipping costs, taxes and customs fees to get it to Europe. I already ordered the new and just announced Libratone Zipp Mini some days ago, which seems pretty interesting as well, therefore I cannot buy another speaker right now.
That's why I decided to start a kind of donation campaign for a review unit of the new Fugoo XL speaker.

My idea would be to ask for donations to cover the ordering costs of the Fugoo XL in order to be able to prepare an extensive review, make some comparison videos and add it to the audio-database. When everything is done at the end of my review I would of course give the speaker away and raffle it among all those who donated for it. My goal would be to achieve 500$ which would hopefully cover the shipping to Europe with some rest amount so that I can hopefully ship the speaker worldwide to the "winner" who will be chosen at random with some kind of lottery.

Why 500$?

some rough calculation:
300$ - Fugoo XL
~30$ - express shipping to an U.S. address of a friend or myus.com service
~80$ - shipping to Europe
+ 22% taxes and customs fees
_____________________
~500$

I would like to collect 500$ until the end of October 2015. As soon as 500$ are reached, I will order the Fugoo XL "Style" immediately from Bestbuy or Amazon depending on availability, also because it is the cheapest model while "Sport" doesn't seem to be in stock yet. Then I will hopefully still have enough time for shipping it to Europe and doing my videos including a review etc. If everything works out, my plan would be to have the first videos up in mid November.
If 500 people donate 1$ each, the goal would be achieved quickly. I will stop the donation if the amount exceeds 550$, but I need some safety buffer depending on where I will have to ship the speaker afterwards. I have no idea how much shipping might cost to Australia for example!

If I don't manage to achieve 500$ until 1st November I will of course return all payments to the original donators, so there would be no risk for you that I keep the money unjustifiably. If you like the idea and would like to contribute but also to get the chance of winning the Fugoo XL afterwards, please donate through the button below.

(Update: I changed the payment method to paypal.me now, as the with the usual donation procedure paypal charged around 14% fees from the donated amount. This way I will have quite a loss in case I have to refund all donations if the final goal isn't reached. On paypal.me just leave the box at the bottom unchecked, as you don't pay for any goods).

Update 2: donations are closed now, the donation goal was reached, more updates coming soon!

Of course I will prepare Vlogs of any step and goal achieved and post them on Youtube, so that you stay up to date. And at the end there will also be a video of the final tombola, where the official winner of the Fugoo XL will be drawn. Maybe I can even broadcast it "live" through Youtube.

I hope it's obvious that I have no financial interest or profit from this campaign and simply want to contribute my part for anyone interested in the Fugoo XL.

I hope you like this idea and beg for some support.

Thanks a lot, your O!

Review: Audio Pro Addon T3 - smaller and better than the Marshall Kilburn?

Prior to the IFA I didn't know much about the Swedish speaker company "Audio Pro". I have seen their Addon T10 speaker quite often when browsing through amazon, but it didn't catch that much of my attention until I discovered their latest announcement of the portable Addon T3 Bluetooth speaker.
Someone on Youtube claimed that the T3 sounded so much better so than he had to return his JBL Xtreme, while Whafhifi even awarded the T3 the first place in their Bluetooth speaker group test among other devices like JBL Xtreme, Onkyo X6 etc. And although Whathifi often awards highest ratings to rather mediocre speakers like the B&W T7 or the Cambridge Audio Go V2, I got nevertheless curious about the Addon T3 and thanks to the Austrian distributor Novisgroup I was able to receive a review sample from them, so that I could finally convince myself if this speaker really sounds that great. Jump in to find out more.

Review: Canton Musicbox XS - Bose clone "made in Germany"

Some time ago the original Jambox became a kind of template for many copycats which started bringing out speakers looking pretty much the same. In the meantime the Bose Soundlink Mini seems to have taken over this role as many companies are simply trying to copy the design and the sound of Bose with mostly just so-so results. Even Bose didn't change much for its Soundlink Mini II, they still pretty much look and sound the same with the same flaws and the same uncontrolled and distorted sound. And although the Soundlink Mini is far from really good sounding many companies still seem to take this as a kind of reference for their own speaker designs with the Canton Musicbox XS being probably the most extreme example I have tried so far. I highly regard Canton as a well established German speaker manufacturer delivering high-quality prodcuts and when I heard about their first Bluetooth speaker that was presented at the IFA I became really curious to hear it in person because it seemed pretty promising. Jump in to find out if the Musicbox XS is just another of these rip-offs or if Canton managed to deliver some really unique product.

News: IFA - best portable speakers

I could not attend the IFA and I think all the hullabaloo wouldn't be the right place for me. But I read lots of announcements during my holidays and needed some time to sort everything before finally posting some summary. So here you have some late news about the IFA including some afterparty latecomers.

Review: JBL Flip 3 - the UE Boom killer

According to JBL the Flip together with the Flip 2 are their most popular portable speakers. To tell the truth, neither of them really managed to impress me. They were rather tinny sounding, the first version had also quite harsh treble response with some honky upper bass boost, although the second version was smoothened out a bit, it still sounded far from impressive and the battery life was pretty underwhelming as well. Now JBL came up with a completely new design more similar to the new JBL Xtreme or JBL Charge 2. Let's have a look if the JBL Flip 3 (buy from amazon) is really an improvement over the predecessors.

Review: JBL Xtreme - how much bass can you handle?

The JBL Xtreme (buy from amazon) (not to confuse with the older and meanwhile discontinued JBL OnBeat Xtreme) suddenly appeared in an inconspicuous way without any preceding official announcement. There was just a leak on Youtube and some weeks later it was already available on the european JBL site for pre-order, which I did immediately as I had this particular feeling that JBL might really have an interesting product here. So far it doesn't seem to be available in the US yet, and to tell the truth I have no idea when it is going to be released there and why it hasn't been already released. Update: JBL Xtreme was released in the US on September 1st as well.
Looking back in the history it took JBL a long way to finally come up with some impressive portable speakers after a period with rather underwhelming devices. Although JBL always had great sounding speakers, their portable speakers were rather lacking, including all the old onTour models, the JBL Flip series, JBL Charge, to finally redefining their standard with the JBL Charge 2. The JBL Charge 2 despite having some initial issues is a pretty good sounding portable speaker in some ways even better than all competing models. The cylindric design with 2 opposing passive radiators at the sides was afterwards used for another Harman speaker: the Infinity One. The Infinity One was something like a blown up JBL Charge 2, bigger, with bigger sound and a more premium finish. Now the JBL Xtreme seems to continue with this obviously successful design and looks like a blown up Infinity One, again larger, heavier and more "extreme". Jump in to find out if the Xtreme can really take it to the extreme?

News: JBL Charge 2 firmwareupdate 1.4.1 - do it yourself

Thanks to this great community here, some anonymous contributor has published a way how to update the JBL Charge 2 on your own. The necessary firmware file was already posted by someone else some time ago, but so far there was no way how to perform the update without the right software. As many still seem to fight with JBL-support who is taking their customers for fools  claiming that there is no firmware update available for the JBL Charge 2 I think we have to thank our unknown hero for posting this. He provided an archive including the 1.4.1 firmware-file, an installation manual and the CSR BlueSuiteNow.
Of course I cannot provide any warranty that you will not brick your device, but acoording to many owners they were able to successfully update his Charge 2 from 1.3.8 to 1.4.1:

Here are some alternate download-links:
http://putit.ru/download/MjMxNjU3OTYyMTUzOA==
http://my-files.ru/d58uuf.JBL_CHARGE_2.7z
http://rghost.net/89c8X5SPh

Please let us know if your update was successful!

WARNING: Some already managed to brick their speakers, so apply on your own risk!

Review: Braven BRV-PRO

Braven BRV-PRO Review:

:by Kyle Weldon (July 1, 2015)

Braven’s latest rugged outdoor entry into the portable bluetooth speaker scene is an overall solid speaker.  The design follows it’s little brother, the BRV-1, in many respects and for those familiar with the BRV-1, you know it’s a decent portable rugged speaker design.  Braven’s approach on the audio spectrum is for these devices to be used in an outdoor environment.  I will break down the various aspects of the speaker below, but overall the sound signature is set for outdoor listening, with an emphasis on the midrange and treble section of the audio output.  But, the PRO does carry a good solid low end as well, once you hit certain volume levels.  Let’s get into the particulars on the speaker:

First Impressions: Marshall Kilburn & JBL Xtreme... and the winner is?

It was a stressful evening. I got the Marshall Kilburn from my friend and wanted to concentrate on this next, prepare some preview video or even a full review. But arriving at home the JBL Xtreme was standing in front of my door.
I already had a short listen to the Kilburn together with my friend where we did some switching between the RIVA Turbo X and the Kilburn, and although quite a bit fuller sounding than the RIVA, the Kilburn didn't really manage to knock my socks off, but when I turned on the JBL I immediately knew this is going to be more fun. Suddenly the Kilburn started sounding a bit honky and tinny. Both are not neutral speakers like the RIVA for example, but the JBL is simply tuned for more fun. It is a bass-monster, very powerful, louder than the Kilburn, louder than the RIVA Turbo X and probably as loud as the Beats Pill XL (RIP), but with the difference, that the JBL still sounds punchy and powerful with lots of bass at maximum volume and the bass sounds like bass, not as if someone was knocking on wood. I couldn't notice any stronger distortion at maximum volume, and although there was some slight dynamic processing, it was not as extreme as on the JBL Charge 2 or on the Infinity One. The JBL Xtreme is a real party machine. Take it to the beach and crank it to the maximum, it will still sound impressive. They claim 40W but from AC-power, I tested if it became any softer from battery and although there is a slight difference in loudness when run from AC-power, I had to check several times to really hear the difference, it is by far not as pronounced as on the Harman Kardon Onyx for example. The JBL Xtreme gets just slightly louder maybe 1-2dB when plugged in, but it doesn't reduce bass or deteriorate sound by any means.
Everyone who is already in panic looking for some substitute for his Pill XL, because he sent it to Apple already, don't look any further. Even if you are still undecided if you are really going to send it in, just take the 300$ from apple and order the JBL Xtreme immediately!
Now the Megaboom really became an expensive toy.

Meanwhile I managed to prepare a short introduction of the Kilburn and soundcheck between Kilburn and the Xtreme, as well as a full review for the Xtreme here.

Please have a listen and let me know what you think:


And the winner is? I think I must have a bit more listen to the Kilburn...

Review: JBL Charge 2+ where's the plus?

It's time for an update of the JBL Charge 2. After Bose added "II" to their new Soundlink Mini, Sony made an X33 out of the old X3, now JBL added a "+" to the new JBL Charge 2 which in contrast to the other two seems to be the better portable speaker for the upcoming summer especially because of its claimed water resistance. I thought I will do a detailed review of the Charge 2+ but after trying it out, I would say that it is the same speaker as it was before without the "+". Not much has changed or improved at all, therefore if you are really interested in all the details about the JBL Charge 2+ you can also read my original review of the JBL Charge 2, just simply ignore all my ranting about any distortion or DSP issues of the first version, as the JBL Charge 2+ has none of those problems. But when buying a Charge 2 you can always check if the latest firmware is installed. The latest firmware (1.4.1) finally fixed all problems for the Charge 2 as well and made both sound and perform virtually identical. If you have a JBL Charge 2 with the latest firmware, in reality you have a JBL Charge 2+ just without the alleged water resistance. The JBL Charge 2 can be meanwhile found for much less (Deutsche Telekom started offering it for 88€ recently), therefore I would rather go for the old unit, as I don't really believe any of the JBL Charge 2+ water resistance claims. If you are still interested jump in to read what has changed or what hasn't changed at all between the two.

News: Class A speakers - Braven BRV-PRO, UE Roll...

It is quite rare that iLounge gives an "A"-mark for a speaker, which according to them would mean "highly recommended". Now 2 recent releases got an A with the Braven BRV-PRO which got a straight flat A, the highest mark for any portable speaker (only some few other portable speakers received an A from them so far, like the JBL Flip, the G-Project G-Boom, Soundfreaq Sound Kick, id America TouchTone and the Soundfreaq Pocket Kick (you can find my own review of the Pocket Kick here btw). The other one being the UE Roll, which although just an A- is still highly recommended and impressive.

Of course I would like to test both speakers and give you some real unbiased opinion on them, but the Braven BRV-PRO costs 178€ here in Europe, when I could get two JBL Charge 2 for the same price with the recent offer from Deutsche Telekom. The UE Roll costs even 129€ in Europe and given that this is a European product, I find it questionable that it should only cost 99$ in the US. In this case I would definitely rather choose another Denon Envaya Mini instead.

Therefore folks, probably no review from me on these highly recommended speakers as I am not going to spend 300€ for these toys, but will rather invest the money in something more serious like the new JBL Xtreme, which in fact is already on order... This one will probably get a "C" on iLounge btw, just like the JBL Charge 2 which only got a "B+" from them. But I want to hear real music, not play lasso with my speaker or fetch it with my dog!

Of course any first hands-on experience on these is highly appreciated, feel free to comment if you already heard them and find them really that great!

News: JBL Xtreme available for preorder for 299€

The JBL Xtreme is already listed for preorder on the European JBL Site and should be available from 25.6.
There are new details regarding power and battery, and this Xtreme thing will have a 10.000mAh battery built in, which is obviously necessary to power the 40Watts amp.
The battery indicator is similar to the one on the Infinity One, but it was moved to the front now (clever!) As visible from the other product images the JBL Xtreme has an own kind of zipper to protect the ports. They finally seem to take water protection more serious with the Xtreme than with the Charge 2+, which has the ports completely unprotected.

Could be a real beast of a speaker, making the UE Megaboom sound funny...

Review: Bose Soundlink Mini II - lots of improvements and still on top?

The original Bose Soundlink Mini was released nearly 2 years ago and managed to change the current portable Bluetooth speaker market completely. While most compact portable speakers prior to the Soundlink Mini pretended to sound good with phony claims like "the JAMBOX delivers shimmering highs and thumping lows that you can literally feel - the richest sound all in the palm of your hand" 
or even more exorbitant the Beats Pill which cost exactly the same: "the Beats Pill produces powerful sound [...] enjoy soaring highs and deep, booming bass" it was finally Bose to show what kind of "thumping lows" was really possible to squeeze out of enclosures that small. The Soundlink Mini was not perfect though and many complained about the "thick" sound and still seemed to like their Jamboxes more. Others complained about the lack of handsfree or USB-charging. But the huge success and what probably became the most popular portable speaker on the market, the Soundlink Mini managed to sell more than 10 million units according to some sources. Recently the Soundlink Mini II hit the market and it seems as if Bose didn't try to revolutionize this model but rather improve on numerous aspects in detail.
Let's see if they managed and if the Soundlink Mini II is really worth an upgrade.

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

 
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 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.
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.
Shortly after the SRS-X3 the JBL Charge 2 was announced and the JBL managed to top the Sony by nearly all aspects. Unfortunately the JBL suffered from some initial DSP-processing issues, which finally were fixed with the latest firmware 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.
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.

News: JBL Xtreme coming soon - blown up JBL Charge 2?

Mediamarkt Netherlands posted another interesting video showing a supposedly new speaker similar to the JBL Charge 2 or rather Infinity One: the JBL "Xtreme". Similar to the JBL Flip 3 the JBL Xtreme will be water proof and have the ability to connect with multiple speakers wirelessly thanks to JBL connect, but what makes it extreme, is either the extreme sound quality as claimed in the video, or the fact that it can charge 2 devices at once!

It looks a bit as if this model was indeed based on the Infinity One with quite a similar form-factor and the same carrying lugs at the top. Instead of the useless rear drivers from the Infinity One JBL/Harman seem to have included tweeters this time as the blueprint rendering below would suggest. Maybe they finally noticed the overly strong intermodulation distortion of the Infinity One as well? This is what you get when little fullrange drivers are pushed too hard to deliver both high and low-end at the same time!

With all those new releases this is going to become a pretty interesting summer if all these videos are not fake but really showing leaked upcoming JBL products. No price nor availabilty yet, but the JBL Xtreme could be a new benchmark even outperforming the Infinity One among most other contenders in its class.

News: Bose Soundlink Mini II released

Not quite surprising 2 years after the announcement of the original Soundlink Mini, Bose just revealed the new Bose Soundlink Mini II, sucessor of the maybe most popular portable speaker worldwide that I reviewed here (although in German). According to some rumors the Soundlink Mini managed to sell about 10 million times, quite impressive for a little battery driven speaker.
Interestingly it seems as the Soundlink Mini II just appeared in some European Bose-stores so far and can be ordered from there immediately, but it is not listed in the US-store yet and they don't seem to know even any release-date. In the meantime it has appeared on the US-site for preorder as well.

The new model looks just like the old one, but it is available in black or white now. It gained some new features like speakerphone that was missing on the original model, voice prompts (probably the same as on the Soundlink Colour), it can finally be charged through MicroUSB and battery life seems to have been slightly improved, but no other obvious changes so far. I am not sure if the new one will really sound much different, there is not a single word about changes in sound etc.

To tell the truth I was expecting something completely new, more rugged maybe, water proof or whatever, but it seems as if Bose just tries to sell the same speaker again only with some new added features that were simply lacking from the original.
As soon as I can get my hands on a unit, I will check out if the sonic qualities have indeed improved over the old Soundlink Mini, if not the Soundlink Mini II will have to fight against some strong competition with the JBL Charge 2+, Denon Envaya Mini or the upcoming RIVA S.

News: Finally! JBL Charge 2 - 1.4.1 firmwarefix

Finally with the latest firmware the JBL Charge 2 manages to be what it should have been from the very beginning back in September, when it still suffered from teething troubles.
Until now I couldn't fully recommend the JBL Charge 2 without reservations, as the issues were too disturbing and it remained rather a "also-ran" speaker among all the others.
In the meantime there was lots of discussion on Youtube regarding all those problems with many users complaining about their units still to distort, while others claimed to have no problems at all. There were theories established about serial-numbers which would indicate when the unit was manufactured and when it would be without issues. I was enjoying all this similar to reading a crime thriller.
Then finally someone from Japan came up with an undocumented trick to check the currently installed firmware on his JBL Charge 2. He finally claimed that only the latest firmware "1.4.1" would fix all problems, while all firmwares below suffered from this or that DSP-issue.

News: JBL Flip 3 coming soon - shrinked JBL Charge 2?

It seems Dutch Mediamarkt leaked a video of the upcoming JBL Flip 3, as there has been no official announcement yet.
In contrast to the farting bassreflex port of the previous versions that were not able to produce any bass worth mentioning, the Flip 3 uses the same dual passive radiator design of the Charge 2 and rather looks like a shrinked version of it, but the Flip 3 is claimed to be waterproof with support for wireless pairing of several speakers (maybe up to 3 as the video suggests). I am not quite sure if stereo pairing with 2 speakers is also possible, but this would be great. If the JBL Flip 3 manages to sound as serious as the JBL Charge 2 which is to be assumed as the acoustic design looks very familiar, then the JBL Flip 3 might become a very serious portable speaker and a much better alternative to all this UE junk out there.

It will be available in 8 colors and comes with a handy wrist strap. Of course no information about availability nor price yet, but I guess it will be announced soon and come to the stores this summer.

First impressions: RIVA (Turbo) S - sneak peek and interview with chief engineer Donald North

I got a visit of RIVA's and ADX' chief engineer Donald North and we had lots of talk about RIVA's current and upcoming products as well as portable speakers in general. I have prepared a short interview with Donald where he talks about the challange of speaker design and finally shows off their upcoming smaller speaker: RIVA S