Ultimate Ears BOOM 2 Portable Waterproof & Shockproof Bluetooth Speaker - Panther (Limited Edition)

I was very hesitant to purchase a bluetooth speaker that was $100.00 on sale. I saw these at a big box store on black friday for a good price. I bought 2, one for both of my daughters. After they opened their gifts and started playing music over these, I was done for. I loved the quality of music emanating from them. So I kept my eye on amazon to see if they went on sale, and they did. I snagged one up.There is a reason, these appear at the top of many "best bluetooth speaker" lists. They do it all very well. Do they have booming base? No, but it has enough. Does it have far reaching highs? No, but i cant tell anyways. What this speaker does is everything you need a bluetooth speaker to do and it does it very well. The sound is phenomenal, at least for me. I play everything from smooth jazz(elevator music) to heavy metal. It plays them all wonderfully. This speak can get loud too. I have not even tried taking it to the top. I don't have too, it satisfies any volume requirement I have at lower volumes.The build is also very good. When you pick this up, you will notice its got some heft to it. In addition to the heft, it just feels solid. The material that wraps it holds up amazingly well. The rubber top, bottom and side piece have yet to really show any wear. I haul this to work everyday since i purchased it so thats impressive.This has a standard 3.5 phono plug for those of you till living in the wired era. It sports micro usb for charging. It has a d-ring ata the bottom which is screwed on into a standard tripod mount. Yes, you can tripod mount this speaker! The d-ring is super solid. I have no worries about it coming out.The front of the speaker is graced with a huge "+" and "-". That's the volume. It also houses the NFC chip. That was a surprise to me. I didnt know this had it until I laid my phone against it and it started pairing and unpairing. Bonus!The top is the power button and the bluetooth button. Holding the bluetooth button will open it up to pairing. It will show up as "UE BOOM 2".Now some things that make this speaker special. What makes it special is that UE has an app for it. A simple and functional app. This app allows you to turn the speaker on and off, adjust the volume, has a equalizer, will allow you to pair 2 UE Boom 2's for stereo sound, or link 150+ of them together in party mode. Yes, I said 150+. The software also keeps the speaker updated with new firmware when needed. The last one added Alexa functionality. Nice.This speaker is also waterproof and shock proof. I have not tested either of those yet. I don't plan on it either.In case you didnt know, UE's parent company is Logitech so you are not getting some small company with little experience. They have been making speakers and software for decades.There are little too no negatives about this speaker. As one reviewer pointed out the equalizer does not boost a frequency range as much as it cuts the other frequencies. That's true. But it doesn't bother me in the slightest.I love this speaker. I do plan on ordering another one soon so I can pair for stereo sound. If you want a good all around bluetooth speaker, this is your stop.For those of you wondering about the color, I did buy the one pictured here, but i traded with with my oldest daughter for her blue one. She didnt care for the blue color. I love it.

I have had a number of cheap BT speakers to save money. Which all turned out to be a waste of money as they weren't as loud as this speaker, as long lasting as this speaker and didn't sound as good as this speaker. So on my journey to buy this $85 speaker I love listening to, I spent $15, $35 and $40 on lesser ones. Ultimately it cost me $175 to get this $85 speaker if you put it into that perspective. If you are on the fence, just pull the trigger. Don't waste your money on a crappy cheap speaker to save money as you will most likely not be as happy. The battery life on this is way better than on my restoration hardware speaker (volume/sound too), which I didn't know would be such a big deal to me until I couldn't do 2 hour projects without hearing beep beep telling me my battery was dying.That said, I'm just stating that I love this speaker. I'm not a plant advertising that you NEED to buy this speaker. I'm saying you will be very happy with it if you do buy it if you are wanting excellent, full sound with some volume coming from a small package. I have not compared this to other quality speakers which I'm sure are also excellent. The reason I went with the UE Boom 2 was because I read a good comparison with the BJL Flip something (probably another excellent speaker) and I went with this one because it was smaller and I knew it would fit in a golf cart cup holder. The sound did not let me down and the battery has held a charge excellently.

This product has earned all stars granted by customers or professional reviewers.Of its many strengths I am b l o w n away with its ability to pair with other boom speakers.No matter how much capacity or fidelity a "single" speaker has, nothing compares to having two or more speakers working in unison, especially in stereo. It is a very pleasant listening experience.Wether android or iphone, download the UE boom application, you dont need it to make the speakers pair with each other but do to make the speakers work in stereo. If you want to use two speakers in stereo mode from your windows computer, (make your tv shows or movies more vibrant) there is no windows ue boom application, but you can pair them in stereo with your phone, and then connect them to your computer.Other brands may be able to do that, but then the other advantages of this engineering wonder assert themselves. Place them anywhere you want, vertically on the coffee table, horizontally besides you on the couch, bed, backpack, in your tent, beach, anywhere in the outdoors. Doesn't matter how you place them sound is emitted all around its cylindrical shape. You don't have to worry about accidentally sitting on it or rolling over it and pressing an unwanted button, its minimal buttons are enclosed under its tough water and dust proof plastic skin, and that also means that you don't have to worry about liquids or dirt. No worries in any condition with this hi fi equipment, just enjoyment in any environment.Battery life is good. If not in use the speaker(s) will shut off automatically.Thanks UE engineers and designers.