This is the review comparison between two speakers of the popular and well-known brand i.e. Sonos and JBL,  both are very old brands and people do like both of them. The Sonos Move and JBL Boombox, both speakers have amazing bass and sound. The features of both speakers are different and design-wise also both are totally different. The price of both speakers is almost the same. It is really difficult to decide which one is more good for you. This detailed review will definitely make it easy for you to decide which one is better and worth the price.

Sonos Move	JBL Boombox
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Wireless connection is reliable. The sound is open and loud. Great sound on indoors and outdoors. Great charging base. Effective Auto-true play. Great compatibility of Amazon Alexa ad Google Assistant. Integrates with other Sonos apps. IP56 weatherproof build. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth do have their support. Microphones work well.	The battery life of 24-hours. Solid built speaker. Loud and balanced sound. Splash-proof+Water-resistant. Devices get charged by USB. Booming bass and crisp highs. Bluetooth gives Long-range connectivity. Audio is exceptionally powerful. Portable despite its power.
CONS	CONS
Pricey. aptX Bluetooth support is missing. Too heavy speakers. It cannot be used as rear cinema speakers. The handle is weak, cannot carry the speaker for long distances. Too big to travel with. Battery life is shorter.	Expensive. Audio cables are not included. Buzzing sound at low battery Huge as it weighs 11.5 pounds. Ordinary sound quality at this price. Takes time to get charge. The app lacks EQ. Fancy lights are missing.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Sonos Move

The price of the Sonos Move is 400 bucks. It comes in two different colours you got black and white. Sonos Move is an adorable smart speaker that’s made for indoor and outdoor use. The setup os this speaker is really easy, it takes two minutes using the Sonos app which is available for Android and iOS. This speaker is Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capable, so it also features airplay – and voice control. It gives you 11 hours of battery life, you can charge it up with the included base or USB type-c cable. It’s fully weather-resistant IP56 so, it’s gonna withstand rain, snow, extremely hot, and, extreme cold. 

JBL Boombox

The price of the JBL Boombox is $400. Bass is super predominant on the boom box especially indoors, this has the type of bass that if you go downstairs you will still hear the sub-bass beating and pounding through the walls. At moderate levels of volume,  it gives an amazing bass and audio signature. Every beat is emphasized and specific genres like EDM, pop, and, hip-hop stands out that much more, this speaker gets you in the mood to littering Jim out. Hands down, the boom box is a crazy good experience. If you’re on a boat or at the beach with no outlets, JBL is climbing up to 24 hours of playback time. For those who are new to JBL, all the rugged fabric goes all the way around there are no speakers on the rear. 

DESIGN: 

Sonos Move

Sonos move is ultra-durable and the case is made out of a shock-resistant material and it comes with a carrying handle. The speaker is definitely lightweight, you can easily carry it with one hand. On the top you got your mic button, the status LED, you got playing, pause, volume up and down, little Sonos Branding on the speaker. You also have an LED light embedded into the speaker grille. On the back, you got your power button, your toggle between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and, your join button if you want to sync up multiple speakers. On the bottom, there is little move Branding rub a stopper that’s going to keep it in place. You can charge the speakers in two different ways, for number one you can plug in a USB type-c cable right into the back of the speaker, or number two plug in the base and just drop it right on.

JBL Boombox

The new boombox is reminiscent of the boom boxes back in the day with a sturdy handle on the top. The weight comes in at 11 and 1/2 pounds or five and a quarter kilograms. If you can’t lift up a 10-pound dumbbell and find this heavy man up as the speaker is all about being rugged. From the turbo fabric mesh grille that’s on all the JBL speakers these days to the ipx7 rating, meaning that you can drop this and submerge this into water up to three-point three feet and up to thirty minutes. According to my test after keeping it in water the speaker was still functioning fine. You will be glad to see that the speaker floats now. The passive bass radiators on the side are exposed like all JBL speakers although not recommended to be pressed on, I press them in anyways all the way in and the rubber surround doesn’t tear up or rip, hopefully, they hold up fine over time. The trend of folks carrying the boombox on their shoulders will ever return or not, maybe well who knows but if it had 360-degree audio, that would have been great, that’s what we’re lacking on the boombox. At the very top, there are the buttons on the speaker that are straightforward, very clicky, and, satisfying to press. 

FEATURES:

Sonos Move

In the box you got your usual books giving information about the speaker. It did come in a nice velvet carrying case which you can even keep if you like the feel of velvet. It comes with your charging base and lastly the speaker itself. Sonos move is a portable battery-powered smart speaker with the power of both Google and Alexa digital assistants built-in. The move fits seamlessly into the included charging base and features a handle making it easy to pick up and carry. The move is designed to live on its ring-shaped corded base for easy anytime powered listening, but you can also use it off the base, indoors or out because this Sonos speaker is also waterproof, unlike the others.

The only downside to this speaker is, there’s no auxiliary input. And once you switch to Bluetooth, you’re going to lose your voice control, but when you’re on Wi-Fi you got access to all your voice control and all your music streaming services. But the good thing about this speaker which gets highlights is you can take it outside. You could connect Bluetooth with all the other Sonos speakers, you got to run them on a Wi-Fi network and if you go in front of your house and your Wi-Fi signal is weak you asked out. You can take this speaker to the beach take it anywhere you want.

The Google assistant and Amazon LX are built right into your Sonos move. On Wi-Fi, only you can play music, check the news, set alarms, get your questions answered, and, more completely hands-free. You can choose which assistant to enable on your speaker but you can’t have both. To enable Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa go to the Sonos app and choose settings then services, choose to add a service under voice, choose your helper of choice then follow the prompts which basically involves confirming your device and linking your Google or your Alexa account. If it didn’t work the first time then close both the home app and the Sonos app and start over, then everything will work smoothly.

For the set-up of this speaker, the first thing you need to do is download the Sonos app and complete the update. And then just finish the full setup on Wi-Fi and let me say this if you go to Amazon or read the reviews a lot of people saying that the setup process is long and annoying guess what, they’re telling the truth alright the setup process on this is tough and I don’t know where Sonos came off with the 2-minute setup that’s totally wrong, the setup is gonna take you at least 30 minutes. As per my experience, my Wi-Fi is down and my room is upstairs, so I thought that maybe the signal is weak so let me go downstairs and sit directly near the router, it still took about 45 minutes to do all the updates and all of the setup. So, just be patient don’t rage quit.

JBL Boombox

The biggest and most notable feature is the JBL connect plus feature, if you’re looking to fill up large rooms, fill up conference rooms, birthday parties for that if you’re able to afford two of this speaker you can pair them together and have them play in stereo, with the connect plus feature you can pair over a hundred of these speakers and have them all play in sync if you would like. One big benefit you can mix and match with other connect plus products too. The buttons also have the great feature, on the far right, you have the option to change it to answer phone calls, which works well but will capture all your background noise, unfortunately, option 2 through the JBL app you can change to activate Google assistance or Siri by holding it down. Also, on the front at the very bottom, there are battery level indicator lights and although I think it’s time for JBL to move them up to the top for better visibility, it’s kind of hard to see down there.

Quickly touching base on Bluetooth, JBL utilized Bluetooth 4.2 which is still very good these days considering this is the boombox meant to be used in large open areas attest the blue to the range and was able to achieve 90 linear feet outdoors with my Samsung si+. Rotating to the rear, there’s a water-sealed flap that offers a 3.5-millimetre input for physical connections not one but two charged out ports are there, so you can charge two devices at the same time just like a power bank. To the right is a wall power adapter to leave plugged in for jamming sessions. If you’re on a boat or at the beach with no outlets JBL is climbing up to 24 hours of playback time, with my testing playing at 50% volume to get a middle the road result for you guys I was able to achieve 20 hours in 46 minutes. One thing to point out is after 12 hours of use out of the five white LEDs on the bottom I only had one remaining thinking it was going to die soon but it didn’t, it lasted close to another 9 hours.

There’s an indoor and outdoor mode on the speaker, this mode is completely new here either one offers a different audio profile meant to sound better in the environment that you’re in. And when I did the audio analysis, it does sound amazing and crazy. There are four categories, there’s indoor performance, outdoor performance, and testing these at moderate volume, at last, it’s the high volume they’ll keep that in mind. Starting with how loud these can get, the boombox makes the JBL charge three and extreme sound like small medium-sized speakers respectively. In general, yes this will fill up large open areas and those catering to events, family gatherings at the park, birthday parties for sure on the boats at the beach, this can handle it.

That medium volume indoors though I very much like the audio quality and the boombox accompany the other frequencies, bands, very well. So, overall this speaker is loud it’s in your face it can get the job done for those large events and outdoor areas. That’s where I see the most value. For those who are using this indoors don’t get it wrong it sounds great if you have the money the boom box is outrageous for a Bluetooth speaker but as I stated earlier it might be a bit overkill the boombox indeed had some new features but it wasn’t much to sway decision and the physical front in my opinion for indoor users you’re paying essentially for how loud and how bassy that this thing can get which has some value.

SOUND QUALITY:

Sonos Move

You can set up Google or Amazon Alexa on the Sonos app and speaker. Also, you need to set up all your music streaming services on the Sonos app, if you won’t set up it will not play the music. You can use the Bluetooth for playing regular music, and good thing is that the Bluetooth setup is literally under two minutes, you just need to press a button on the back, it’s gonna put it in Bluetooth pairing mode, go to your phone’s Bluetooth menu and select the Sonos move. I tested out a bunch of different songs from all of my high-quality streaming services and to be honest, the sound quality on this speaker is amazing, it sounds incredible, the setup process is really complicated but once you do the sound quality is truly amazing. You will love it, for a speaker this small to sound this good.

Weatherproofing is new for Sonos with the move. With an IP 56 reading move is said to stand up to humidity, rain, snow, dust, UV rays, and, extreme temperatures. Sonos also says that accidental drops or bumps shouldn’t be a problem the moves components are protected by a hard-wearing a shock-resistant case, according to Sonos. Sonos has made the move very versatile when it comes to charging, the move is designed to go from zero to 50 per cent battery in just one hour and you can enjoy up to ten hours of continuous playtime on a full charge. You can easily recharge move on the included base and you can get extra bases if you want or use a compatible USB c charger these kinds of multiple options are nice to see.

Overall this is a great speaker, it finally brings wireless portability to the Sonos lineup and it means you can place it anywhere and take it with you when you travel. As it’s weatherproof means you can take it for camping and take it in our camper van as well. The sound quality is outstanding and the setup was really easy. I also love that you can get your preferred voice assistant from whichever robot Butler you want.

JBL Boombox

If you are entertaining and pushing vom close to maximum, the bass does somewhat, unfortunately, get distorted, the clarity and depth are somewhat lost for a louder experience, now again that’s indoors. Going outdoors and more so for entertaining having music in the background when you’re standing further away and working on something let’s say in the distance, you don’t notice the issue that much. If anything is outdoors, the bass somewhat goes away despite how bassy it was initially indoors. Either or the still outperformance of practically every speaker I’ve tested, so far in regards to loudness and bass.

One thing about the outdoor performance is, once you tie with a button on the rear and switch it to the outdoor profile I mostly notice the mid-range and higher frequencies becoming slightly more forward and pronounced, it is slight but it does help nonetheless. I went ahead and measured my distance to help you engage what you need for your situation, at 50 per cent vom, the audio was enjoyable up to 50 feet from the speaker, beyond 50 feet it’s still audible, but it’s simply not as loud or as present in your ears. The bump is up to 100% volume and it’s enjoyable up to 140 linear feet which are very impressive.

Jumping into the mid-range frequencies, the vocal performance where most instruments are heard by the human ear in the area of course where if there’s bad audio most people can distinguish it, from my experience the boombox sounded great at moderate voms with clarity and detail vocal performance is pushed forward enough to make them stand out and appreciate it. Again once you start pushing vom up bass does somewhat distort the mid-range a bit, but if you’re intending and using this outdoors standing further away does help, standing further away does give the speaker a chance to disperse its audio. This is common among entertaining and loudspeakers in general. The higher tones from instruments like cymbal crashes, snare drums, some of the fast-paced EDM music does get jumbled and sadly a little raspy at those higher volume levels. Very similar to the mid-range frequencies if you stand further away, it does help but listening to this within say a 10-foot radius or so at loud volumes you’re going to hear the quality dissipate.

WHICH ONE IS WORTH BUYING?

Comparing With the Sonos move max volume versus the JBL boombox to the max volume it’s a no-brainer the JBL boombox too is definitely louder and has more bass. So, if you’re looking for more bang for your buck, go with JBL boombox, but buying a Sonos move is really more classy, you’re not gonna have a JBL boombox – on your desktop or your nice setup, you want something that looks like Move and doesn’t get me wrong sob aside, it’s not that much better either JBL boombox is clearly better but it’s not blowing it out the all. So, the Move is definitely holding its own. So, overall on a scale of 1 to 10, the Sonos move is a major go, I love the sound quality if you already invested in the Sonos ecosystem this is gonna pair with all your other Sonos speakers super easy, once you get everything set up it does work flawlessly.

The price of both speakers is the same i.e. $400. According to my opinion, you should go for Sonos Move but still, it depends on your personal choice. So, choose wisely.

Expert Reviews of Sonos Move:

By theguardian 
The Sonos Move is an excellent, smart, great-sounding speaker that is truly wireless. Packing wifi and Bluetooth, a 10-hour battery, easy charging, a durable case, weather resistance and loud, punchy sound, you could take this portable powerhouse…

By CGM 
With the Move, Sonos has built one of the best portable speaker systems I have ever used, and while it is pricey, it is well worth the cost for anyone that demands quality…

By techgearlab
The Sonos Move maintains the company’s reputation for great sound and seamless multi-speaker management, while adding the portability of battery power and the simplicity of a Bluetooth connection. If you ever wished you could move one of your Sonos…

By TheStraitsTimes
It sounds almost unbelievable that the Sonos Move is the audio firm’s first portable speaker. It is also Sonos’ first Bluetooth speaker, though it still supports Sonos’ Wi-Fi-based system, which lets users group and control multiple speakers at the same…

By techguide
The versatile Sonos Move speaker offers the best of both worlds – an elegant wi-fi speaker that fit seamlessly into the Sonos ecosystem and a powerful companion when you want to take your music with you.Related PostsBose announces new Portable Home…

Expert Reviews of JBL Boombox

By IndianExpress
JBL has been the silent assassin in the India audio space. It has over the years launched many wonderful headphones and speakers, but never really got the attention it deserved. The JBL BoomBox is one such device, that makes all the right noises but is…

By gadgetsnow
JBL Boombox will surely blow the roof because of its clever balance of bass at high volume. It has a good audio clarity and balance between different audio and vocals. The design is not bad but still something that may not be attractive for most people….

By TechRadar
The Boombox is supposed to be a speaker people gather around. It can entertain one, yet is best utilized when serenading many. And when it comes down to dropping over $400 on a speaker like this, it best be done for the right reasons.We can’t recommend…

By MyMac
JBL Boombox is a musical beast. It’s compact in size, but is massive in weight and price. The sound is exceptionally clear, powerful, and intense. Bluetooth wireless audio is robust and accurate, with an enormous line of sight playback range, well over…

By techaeris
The JBL Boombox definitely puts the boom back in boombox with its big sound and easily earns a Top Pick of 2018 Award here at Techaeris. Sure, it’s large — and a bit on the pricey side — but if you’re after loud, bass-booming, all-day and night party…