New "cheap" Bose Bluetooth speaker - a mere $299

[BoredSysAdmin]

I hope everyone is "excited" as I am
http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/15/bose-soundlink-mobile-portable-bluetooth-speaker-announced-pictures-hands-on-preview/

I put pre-order for 10 !

 

[Arcane19]

Simply because it is Bose I would not buy it. However, that is blatantly biased so...

 

[Bassbinotoko]

Ew. But appropriate. Bluetooth audio is inherently lossy: it just doesn't have the bandwidth to transmit even CD quality audio. Fine for voice communications, but not for a speaker that costs more than my first truck.

Presumably something better is in the pipeline for good wireless audio (maybe from Analog Devices or TI?), and hopefully the hardware and licenses will be cheap enough for wide adoption.

 

[jonnythan]

Ew. But appropriate. Bluetooth audio is inherently lossy: it just doesn't have the bandwidth to transmit even CD quality audio.

That may have been true for Bluetooth 1.0, but 2.0 has been around for at least a couple of years and has over double the bandwidth of CD.

I remember the Bose Sounddock sounding rather good - quite a bit better than equivalent iPod docks from any other manufacturer. This probably sounds great as well, for what it is - but it's about $100 too expensive.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That may have been true for Bluetooth 1.0, but 2.0 has been around for at least a couple of years and has over double the bandwidth of CD.

I remember the Bose Sounddock sounding rather mediocre , quite a as bad as equivalent iPod docks from any other manufacturer. This probably sounds ok at best, for what it is - but it's about $200 too expensive.

Fixed for ya

 

[jonnythan]

Fixed for ya

Pretty lame, really.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Pretty lame, really.

Sorry, I was just trying to joke instead of calling your original comment misinformed and biased

 

[jonnythan]

If I'm misinformed, correct the misinformation. Everything I said in that post is true. Saying I'm biased for Bose is one of the biggest laughs I've ever seen on this site.

 

[Bassbinotoko]

That may have been true for Bluetooth 1.0, but 2.0 has been around for at least a couple of years and has over double the bandwidth of CD.

That's good. But, is there support for transmitting audio without lossy compression? All I see various proposals for "better" lossy codecs.

"Kleer" technology claims to be lossless, although it appears to be locked to 16/44. I'd prefer something that passes through a range of bitrates and streams (including DD/DTS). Like, say, wireless HDMI.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That may have been true for Bluetooth 1.0, but 2.0 has been around for at least a couple of years and has over double the bandwidth of CD.

I remember the Bose Sounddock sounding rather good - quite a bit better than equivalent iPod docks from any other manufacturer. This probably sounds great as well, for what it is - but it's about $100 too expensive.

A)
BT 2.0 Max Xfer is 3 Mbit/s, but practical speed is 2.1 Mbit/s

Audio CD as defined by Red book is 150KBis = aka 1.2 Mbit/s - so no, BT 2.0 doesn't offer over double the bandwidth.

B) BT lossless compressed is not part BT 2.0 so all audio xfer are compressed and as I heard it myself the end result is not that great - far cry from even 128Kbs Mp3 file.

C) I heard Bose Sounddock and next to B&W Zeppelin it sounded like total crud

 

[Boombotix]

Thing seems pretty heavy

My buddy grabbed one of these and my first thought was that for a "portable speaker" this thing was kind of a brick.

Would probably go for much smaller portable speakers if I'm really on the road.