“The Phoenix” Wireless Bluetooth Speaker by Beacon Audio [Gear Review]

With mobile electronics on the rise and phones doubling as music players, the demand for portable speakers has become quite large and the playing field has also become quite crowded. There now exist tons of speaker options designed for getting the most out of your various MP3 payers.

As far as sound quality goes, I think The Phoenix Wireless Bluetooth Speaker is quite spectacular; it has killer frequency response and did not break up when I subjected it to punishing levels of heavy metal music. That in and of itself is pretty awesome, because many others could not handle the ordeal!

The Bluetooth option is another very big plus. I was able to pair the speaker with my smartphone very easily and now anytime I want to hear music, no matter where I am in my house, I can connect and listen. One of the more important features, at least as far as I am concerned, is the power option and battery life. The Phoenix charges via USB (cable provided) and lasts for a healthy 8 hours; something that I really dig. Batteries are quite expensive and probably would not last half as long.

The compact speaker is sleek and colorful and well thought out, with a pair of speakers pointed in opposite directions giving the listener a true stereo experience. The controls for this unit are a different matter though. To turn the unit off you must depress the on/off switch for an extended period of time and for somebody like me, with very little patience, this was annoying. The volume control and skip feature share one button and they are differentiated by the amount of time you depress it. Again, this to me was really annoying and I found myself turning up the volume when I was trying to skip ahead or vice versa. Eventually I got smart and set the volume on the speaker in a fixed spot and controlled the audio functions from my player and from there everything ran smoothly.

This speaker sounds fantastic and is better than most every other speaker I have heard in this category. If you can work around the keys awkward functionality like I have, than this is definitely a speaker you are going to want to invest in. At just $99 I think it’s well worth the cost.