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Good speaker with a lot of good features.
I’ve owned several Doss speakers now and I always seem to come to the same conclusion…they sound good, but not great. However…they are quite a bit cheaper than the competition so you’re getting more value for your money with a Doss.As for this specific speaker, there are some things that I like about it. It has a genuine Left and Right channel (verified via left/right test file) and so it is a legit stereo speaker. It has a 3.5mm aux-in so that you can hook other devices to it (CD player, turntable with preamp, FM radio, etc). I love the built-in handle, rubber feet and also the fact that it comes with a strap so you can carry on your shoulder or hang from something. It’s stable when sitting on the ground unlike other “rounder” bluetooth speakers that can roll if not perfectly level and/or touched.The build quality is very decent and should survive being tossed about in the trunk or your pool bag. It is a bit lighter than I thought it would be though which makes me wonder what the actual difference is between this and a JBL of the same size as the JBL is significantly heavier.Things I’m “meh” on:The “Bass” button is nice, but honestly that’s what the default sound signature should have been. Without it engaged, it sounds a bit thin. I’d have liked to see the Bass button act as a pseudo loudness button where it increases bass at lower volumes. It also has LED lights with three settings 1) slowly cycle through a rainbow of colors, 2) randomly try to keep up with the beat while cycling rainbow colors and 3) off. No choices for a fixed color, so I ran the LED lights off. One thing I really dislike is random LED lights for the sake of LED lights, but at least here you can turn them off.It played a 50Hz test-tone with decent authority (which is really good for a speaker of this size), but when playing a song with a 50Hz kick drum or something the bass/drum faded more to the back and seemed to get lost in the song.The sound overall is good. It’s stereo but doesn’t have any kind of DSP working to give you a more stereophonic image (from what I can tell). The bass is ok but at lower volumes it may be a bit thin (not everyone wants to listen at party levels). The speaker overall sounds nice, but there’s just something missing from it that more expensive speakers have. I think it’s a fullness and “power” to the sound that many not quite be there that’s in other brands that are more expensive.Overall though, for about $100 (or sometimes less) this speaker is a solid choice. While it is not a Sony or JBL, it also does not carry that type of price tag. If I’m putting it around water or sand or using it for construction work entertainment I’m buying a speaker like this as I wouldn’t feel nearly as bad about getting it wet, dirty or paint all over it. And the sturdy handle makes it really easy to tote around.

I love this boombox, it reminds me of the set up from the 90’s, comes with a shoulder strap. But is nice and modern with it’s Bluetooth technology and flashing lights on the side.Great to have around the pool as it is splash proof.Rechargeable via USB-c and very very loud for those parties you have outdoors.

I love this speaker, firstly the materials and the build quality rival some of the comparative well known brands but at a much cheaper price, although this is a hard plastic is feels like a well made product, I guess if I was being picky then I would have liked to have seem some soft plastic or rubberised protection which would have from knocks and bumps when travelling around.The sound quality is excellent, I have a Marshall portable speaker which is much smaller and probably has more depth of sound, but this is excellent, and when the bass button activated the sound is rich and deep, I would say that this is not as deep as a well known branded speaker of similar size however.The lights on the side are a nice feature, great in an evening outside with friends, we used this last night outside with a BBQ and what I did like is that speaker acts as a power bank to keep my phone charged which I thought was a nice bonus.If you don’t want to pair with a bluetooth device there is a MicroSD card slot on the back, pressing the ‘M’ button will switch between inputs and will play MP3 and WMA files directly.It is quite light weight but also includes a shoulder strap for ease of carrying, this is now my new go for for being out in the garage and pottering around in the garden, lets just hope the neighbours appreciate it as well!

The first thing that struck me when unpacking this was the weight, I’ve seen & handled so many Bluetooth speakers over the years that turned out to be cheap poor quality boxes of air finally getting hold of one with a reassuring bit of “heft” to it surprised me a little.I learned quite early in life that lightweight sound equipment, especially speakers, generally means third rate sound, the internal vibrations along with a variety of other factors just don’t work well for cheap lightweight speakers. Give me a nice heavy speaker that isn’t going to shake itself to bits when you crank the volume up every time.It was showing up as about half charged when it arrived so the first thing I did was put it on charge, it took about 90 minutes to fully charge, that’s not really a proper indicator of capacity but if it was 50% charged it’s not a terrible rate.I connected it to my tablet via Bluetooth and played a few tracks, I’m pleased to say that although the speaker is squarely marketed at lovers of lots of bass it was in fact only slightly bassy with a lean toward a decent mid range sound overall, obviously the sound that comes out is greatly effected by what goes in so I tried a few different pre-sets on my phones equaliser and and it responded very well to them.Even with a quite heavy bass EQ setting and the “Extra Bass” setting on the speaker activated it didn’t drift into the all to familiar territory of bass so strong it destroys the music altogether.It arrived on just the right day. There was a function on in the garden of my building and I’d been asked to provide some background sound so before I hauled my small P/A speaker down I thought I’d give this a chance.I set it up quite high up on a railing on some steps going down to the garden about midway along its length so it was about six feet above head height and tried it out while some of the tables etc were being set up, even at around 70% volume the sound carried very well the length of the garden about seventy feet (21m) in each direction and using a spare phone so I wouldn’t get any calls while it was playing music I ran a playlist I’d prepared for the day so there was music old and new for about six hours.I kept the phone with me so I could adjust for any tracks that were particularly loud or soft and even though I moved around the garden quite a lot all afternoon and on one occasion went back to my flat forgetting I had it on me the speaker played flawlessly all afternoon.I’ve used it quite a lot today playing radio and streamed music from my Echo Dot and my TV. For a while I had it connected via the AUX port to my HiFi just to see who it sounded and I found a micro SD card with a few tracks on it to try playing from that too and as expected there were no problems with either, a truly hassle free Bluetooth speaker, who would have thought such a thing existed?It was only when I decided to write this up that I thought to check the charge so connected to my laptop I looked the speaker up and it now shows 47% charge, I’d estimate it has been playing for about 16 hours since I charged it so I’m quite happy with the performance of the battery.With good quality music files it plays beautifully and the sound is outstanding for such a small speaker.I was really pleased my worst fears of it being nothing but another of those devices designed to do nothing but drive deep bass to the detriment of the sound and the efforts of the musicians providing it, I was unfortunate enough to test some headphones like that recently and it would have been a shame for such a well made solid speaker to be wasted like that.The construction quality is excellent, the black matt satin finish is impeccable, the silicon buttons are slightly raised and marked with in clear and crisp white symbol, the handle is comfortable to hold and the balance front to back is perfect. I even quite liked the shoulder strap which has nice solid gunmetal coloured clips that secure to the rings carefully recessed into the ends of the handle.The overall design is stylish without being flashy or pretentious, the only nod toward “showing off a bit” are the LED lights that subtly illuminate the end speakers, gently fading in & out through a spectrum of colours and hues.I had planned to use it in the workshop/garage my son & I share, spending it days playing rock music old & new while witnessing our efforts to create and revive various machines but I don’t think I can bring myself to part with it just yet, the ten year old speaker we’ve change the battery in twice may just have to last another summer while I enjoy this one at home for a while.With no hesitation whatsoever this gets a full five stars, if I could I’d award it double that, the best Bluetooth speaker I’ve used for quite a few years.