This is the review comparison between Sonos Move and JBL Xtreme 2, which are speakers of well-known and popular brands i.e. Sonos and JBL. People are liking both the brand’s speaker. The features of Sonos Move and JBL Xtreme 2 are totally different. The bass and sound of both speakers are amazing. Design-wise also both have different designs. There is a minor difference in the price of both speakers. To make it easy to decide which one best for you, do go through this detailed review comparison.

Sonos Move	JBL Xtreme 2
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.	Clean, clear sound. Balanced bass. Solid design.
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.	Big. No wi-fi or multi-room. Presentation too grown-up for some.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Sonos Move

Like the previous Sonos speakers the box comes in white, with the visuals of the colour that you choose, but Lunar white is more in demand. Although it is called white, looking at it in real life comparing it next to the Sonos One, the Move looked a bit more light grey, so keep that in mind. The speaker is also an IP56 rating, which stands up to humidity, rain, snow. Then there is also a WIFI and Bluetooth switch button, also the very first for Sonos products. Then, there is the similar pairing and joining button, which is available for all of the other Sonos products, as they have been implementing that in their other speakers to ensure a swift pairing. 

JBL Xtreme 2

The original Xtreme was first released back in September of 2015 and it currently retails for $200. The new JBL Xtreme 2 was released in May of 2018 and currently retails for $300. They come with 3 colours options, you can choose from black, blue, and, green. The JBL Xtreme 2 is perhaps JBL’s most popular speaker and it’s line up and it’s with good reason. It sounds good, it’s durable, and, it’s versatile. It’s basically a refined JBL extreme. JBL Xtreme 2  weights 2393g. It has JBL connect+ Bluetooth 4.2. It is a waterproof speaker, so spilling water or anything won’t make any change in it and listening to music in water will be easy. 

DESIGN: 

Sonos Move

The Sonos Move’s dimensions are 9.44 inches high, 6.29 inches wide, and 4.96 inches in depth. So it’s not too small, neither did I find it to be too big. In terms of its weight, it weighs exactly 3 kg, and you will love the implementation of putting a handle at the back, so you easily grab it and go instead of carrying a Bluetooth speaker by the sides. So, yes good job Sonos. Now, it has a cylinder shape with metal grills around the speaker, then at the bottom, there is the rubberised material on the speaker’s base. Making it studier, if you place it on a table and make it hard to accidentally knock the speaker down and also make the speaker drop-proof, incase you guys drop the speaker. Also, it will still work the same if you by mistake spill the wine, spill the ketchup on the speaker.

When you will look at ports and the buttons. On the top firstly you will notice the tiny little holes, which are the microphone arrays for the voice assistant as like the other latest Sonos products you can configure that, and you can turn off the microphone if you guys want to as well. Then also on top, you’ll find 3 buttons over there, which is the play and pause button, and the volume buttons on the sides. Like the Sonos One or even the Sonos ARC, these speakers buttons are capacitive touch controls where there are no physical buttons to keep the speaker to look very minimal indeed.

At the back, there’s also another three more buttons, where on top there is the power button, which is the very first speaker from Sonos to even have a power button. Down below, there is a USB-C port and the charging connection for you to easily dock your Sonos Move into the charging dock which is my preferred way to charge the speaker as opposed to using USB C, but it’s nice that Sonos has included this option.

JBL Xtreme 2

Design-wise, the Xtreme and Xtreme 2 are very similar to one another. They both have the same basic shape. The Xtreme 2 has the control buttons up on the top. It has a fabric mesh outer shell covered body and it come included with carrying straps, for when you take either of these speakers on the go with you.  So, the design is so similar to Xtreme but, the Xtreme 2 is slightly all-around bigger and heavier than the original Xtreme. Xtreme 2 is also slightly more stylized than the Xtreme, especially regarding the feet and softer rubber end caps. One of the first things to dislike about the new design under Xtreme 2 was, just how hard it was to actually clip on the carrying strap compared to the original Xtreme. Under Xtreme, it’s fairly easy to clip on and clip off the carrying strap causes the hook has a good amount of room to move around but in the Xtreme 2, since the arches are so low profile you do have to clip on the strap in a certain manner, I just wish these arches had a little more clearance for better usability, this might be a non-issue for some people but the

Xtreme 2 has a few of the quirks that just make you think JBL should have thought things through better. Since we’re on the topic with the carrying strap, the carrying strap itself has also gotten a few changes to make it look a little more premium. Most notably there’s a built-in bottle opener on the carrying strap which is definitely only supposed to be used for soft drinks. My only gripe with the new strap is that, it is a little more narrow it does move around a lot more. I would like to see a little rubber on the bottom for a better grip.

On the back of the Xtreme 2 there’s a rubber grommet that houses your audio jack for Wired listening, a mic USB port for service, a USB out for charging your own device, and, an AC port for charging. And the new power brick that comes included is slightly smaller than the power brick that comes included with both the original Xtreme and JBL boombox. The JBL decided to get rid of one of the USB outs so you can only charge one device at a time whereas the original Xtreme lets you charge up to two devices at a time.

FEATURES:

Sonos Move

Looking inside the box, first, there is the Welcome Guide. Next, there is a smaller brown box, in there you will find the charging dock which is connected to the power cable. Then finally you will find the Sonos Move with a nice little drawstring bag that had a cloth-like material to protect the speaker. Since it is a portable speaker, Sonos claim it can give you up to 10 hours of battery life at medium volume and based on my test, I got a total of 9 and a half hours at almost volume at maximum both on Bluetooth and wifi connection. So, the battery life is great on the Sonos to Move overall when you will use it in both situations. And when it comes to charging you will get from 0 to 36% in 25 mins of charge which was also a huge plus.

Looking at the Sonos Move’s connectivity, for those of you who have been complaining about the lack of Bluetooth connectivity you can calm down now because other than Apple AirPlay 2 and WIFI connection, which I still prefer, the Sonos Move also comes with Bluetooth where if the speaker is out of your WIFI’s range, it will be able to connect just like a Bluetooth speaker, where you will need to press the Bluetooth or Wifi switcher at the back to change it to the Bluetooth mode where the indicator on top will be in blue. But please keep in mind the Sonos S2 App will not work if it’s not connected to Wifi which, to be honest, I did not find very useful to use anyway after it has been paired.

What makes this speaker stand out is its main key features. So, other than all the added connectivity features and the IP weather-resistant rating, this speaker has a built-in Trueplay tuning, wherein case you guys didn’t know, that is Sonos’s technology for tuning your speakers according to your surroundings to get the best audio quality. Previously the Trueplay tuning can only be done and tuned with iOS devices and now, only for the Sonos Move, it will tune the sound automatically accordingly to where the speaker has been placed. So for example, if the speaker is placed in an area where something is blocking in front of the speaker, it will take the speaker about 15 seconds to recalibrate and of course, to give you a better sound projection from the sides since something is blocking right in front And that my friends, is a whole new level of a better speaker technology when it comes to the sound tuning on the Sonos Move. So, bravo Sonos! And I hope this will be implemented in the other upcoming devices as well. So yes, you don’t need to borrow an iOS device from anyone. The other cool and key feature is the fact that you can extend the speaker to be a stereo pair and also connect it with other Sonos systems, except for the Sonos Sub.

As for the setup, it has a similar experience with the other Sonos speaker system where as soon as you download and open the Sonos S2 app, you will see the pop up that the Move has been found, next connect it to your wifi. After that, press the pairing button when the app prompts you to and you will get the Sonos Move added to the app. If it requires an update, just follow the instructions accordingly and sign in to your account, and you are done. After it has been added and updated, you can go through the app for additional features like checking out the current music being played, the EQ adjustments, toggle the Auto Truplay turning on or off, Volume limit and the toggle for status light and touch controls. So, that’s the setup and the app walkthrough.

JBL Xtreme 2

The new highly anticipated sequel the JBL Xtreme 2 – it’s also a good speaker, but personally, I did expect a little more. The good thing about the new Xtreme 2 is that the Xtreme 2 has JBL connect plus, so you can pair it up to newer JBL speakers and get them playing in sync and if you have another extreme 2 then they’ll play in stereo mode. JBL connect plus is the best and easiest way to pair multiple speakers together you literally press one button on each speaker and the speakers will figure out the rest by themselves, you don’t have to mess around with any Bluetooth settings and you don’t have to mess around with any extra apps. Ther is a firmware update for the charge 3 so it can get upgraded to JBL connect plus.

Again this is one of those things I feel JBL should have thought through since they are trying to market this speaker as this great companion for when you’re outdoors hanging with your buddies. But if you really want to get a little more volume out of the extreme 2 you can also just use your while it’s plugged in and it immediately gets louder. And even when the speaker is plugged in and playing a max volume the speaker still sounds good, there’s barely any Distortion. While the extreme 2 is plugged in it’s rated as a 40-watt speaker but unfortunately I don’t know what it’s rated at when it’s used with just its battery power, I’m guessing maybe 30 watts but that’s just a guess.

When it comes to battery life unfortunately things haven’t changed. This speaker comes included with a 10,000 milliamp-hour battery just like Xtreme and since the Xtreme two is slightly bigger and heavier than the outgoing Xtreme I just don’t get how none of it went towards improving the battery life. Don’t take it in a negative way both of these speakers have good battery lives but I would have liked to seen JBL increase the battery life on the Xtreme 2 from the original Xtreme. JBL advertises a battery life of 15 hours on this speaker. And in my testing with the volume set at 50%, the Xtreme 2 actually managed to average 16 and a half hours of playback time. And with the volume set at 80%, Xtreme 2 averaged 10 hours of playback time. Even though these are all pretty good battery lives, I would have liked it if JBL upgraded to a 12 or 15 thousand milliamp-hour battery.

When it comes to Bluetooth connectivity the JBL extreme 2 has a stable wireless connection and it has no problem going through multiple walls. But one thing you will notice, there is a little latency when watching youtube videos. It’s not awful but, it is noticeable. While doing the microphone test, to be honest, it’s a lot better than I expected. 

SOUND QUALITY:

Sonos Move

The sound quality of this speaker is very good and amazing. I’ve tested various music genre, and there wasn’t a single time that I felt that the speaker is lacking. It had great loudness with no distortion even at its highest volume, it had amazing bass without sounding too muddy, as it projected clearly when I was listening to EDM or even Metal Genre. And if you are in the mood for something slow and soothing, listening to some jazz and acoustic guitar music also sounded very crisp and clear as well. So having tested other Sonos speakers, the best way to describe this speaker is the fact that the sound quality is placed in between the Sonos One and the Sonos Five as it surely surpasses the Sonos 3, as I found that this speaker was not only great to fill up the whole studio room but also really loud when placed in the bathroom, like really loud.

In the speaker first, there is a single downward-firing tweeter for a nice high-frequency range of sound and because it is facing downwards, it also means that it will disperse the sound evenly as opposed to a singular direction. And there is also a single mid-woofer that gives you a really good balance of mids and quite a powerfully deep and extremely rich bass and all of the speakers are powered with two class D digital amplifiers built-in to give you the best output sound without having any distortion even at its maximum volume.

Sonos move does have some drawback comparing to the second generation. Firstly, it would be a bonus to have an AUX port to have a wired connection with your smartphone. Of course, until all the smartphones in the world have no headphone jack at least. And it would be great to have a USB port at the back or even a Micro SD card slot, just for the sake of having other external music playback options. And also an improved IP rating to have the speaker to be fully submergible in water would be great for the people who would want to listen to music underwater. Well other than that, there are no other drawbacks, wherein my humble opinion it’s not.

JBL Xtreme 2

Xtreme 2 has 70-millimetre diameter woofers, 20-millimetre diameter tweeters, and, dual passive radiators on each side as well. One thing to note is this speaker does benefit from a break-in period. when I first got the extreme two there was a little distortion going on when the base really got going but after the break-in period the base and the Xtreme two has smoothened out. The JBL Xtreme 2 sounds more balanced and clearer than the outgoing JBL Xtreme. Personally, I prefer how the Xtreme 2 sounds over the Xtreme.

When it comes to Max volume the Xtreme 2 is loud but not as loud as the original extreme because the original has such a big emphasis on the treble you might perceive it as being louder and as such the sound will also travel a little farther outdoors. Whereas since the extreme 2 doesn’t have as much emphasis on the treble it might not sound as loud but it does sound overall better at max volume than the extreme because you’re actually getting a good amount of bass and mids instead of just blaring treble that sounds way too bright. Well, personally I would have liked if JBL also included an outdoors mode button on the Xtreme 2 like on the boombox for when I’m using the extreme 2 at home or for when I’m using it outdoors with friends.

One noticeable upgrade the Xtreme 2 has over the Xtreme is durability. The extreme 2 now carries an IPx7 certification. So, it’s waterproof to a certain extent whereas the original Xtreme is only water-resistant a splash of water isn’t a problem but the extreme 2 can be submerged in water without any issues and also found that it floats.

WHICH TO BUY?

So in conclusion, if you guys are looking for a really good speaker which comes with a really premium built, an excellent sound, that has high-quality music streaming both on Wifi and Bluetooth and of course to add this into your existing Sonos speaker system, then yes, this speaker should be for you as it is a highly recommended speaker by me which can be used no matter if you are an Android or an Apple user. The JBL Xtreme 2 is a good speaker but I would have liked to have seen battery life improvements, and indoor and outdoor mode button like on the JBL boombox and maybe even quick charging. If you already have other JBL connect plus enabled speakers, or if you plan on buying more JBL speakers in the future then I would consider upgrading to the Xtreme 2. The JBL Xtreme 2 is a good speaker and I like it but, I did expect a little more.

The price gap between both the speakers are not much, there’s a minor gap in it. Sonos Move comes in $399, while JBL Xtreme comes in $349. So, as in my opinion, Sonos Move is better than JBL Xtreme 2.

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 Xtreme 2:

By What Hi-Fi?
One of the best portable speakers around, the Xtreme 2 offers sonic subtlety you wouldn’t expect from first impressions

By Sound Guys
The JBL Xtreme 2 is for a specific kind of person and if you got to this point in the review then chances are that person is you. If you want a speaker that gets loud, sounds good, and will last you a full day of listening to music then the Xtreme 2 is hard to beat. Its tough IPX7 build means you don’t have to worry about it getting destroyed at the beach or the park…

By PCMag
The portable JBL Xtreme 2 speaker can be submerged in water and still pump out loud tunes with intense bass depth, making it ideal for outdoor use

By TechHive
The JBL Xtreme 2 is an excellent portable Bluetooth speaker. Setup is a snap, and it sounds surprisingly good for such a small speaker, though the bass can be quite boomy. I wish the JBL Connect app included EQ (even if only simple treble and bass controls), which would help overcome that problem. The Xtreme 2 exhibits virtually no stereo separation by itself, but you can use two of them as a stereo pair. You can also wirelessly…

By cnet
The JBL Xtreme 2 is a jumbo-sized Bluetooth speaker that trades light and easy portability for much fuller sound, both indoors and outdoors.