Kazaam
Well-Known Member
Or maybe it's now my mom's? (It's a Boston Acoustics MC200Air, bytheway.)
I was going to return it. But she liked the idea of having something that maybe sounded similar to a Bose Wave radio. And since I only paid $50.00 I figured why not. Early Christmas present, I guess.
Backstory:
About a week and a half ago I saw this thing at Best Buy. Supposedly originally $199, but marked down "On Sale" to only $49. Nothing on display. Just a box hiding on the bottom shelf, full of dust. Brand new. I was intrigued, but I passed. And then a few days went by and I got bored, so I went back to see if it was still there. I figured that since Amazon and Crutchfield were still selling it at $199 that maybe it would at least be worth giving it a listen.
Anyway... Since I don't have any iOS devices, I have to play music via iTunes on my laptop and stream it to the Boston speaker via Wi-Fi (AirPlay). The sound quality is OK, but not great. (Or maybe it's very good, but not excellent? Depends on your perspective, I guess.) Anyway... There are two 3-1/2" full range drivers, and as such it gets quite loud; but the treble maybe doesn't sound quite as effortless and airy as I'd like. A slight bump to the iTunes EQ helps a little bit, though. And as for the bass frequencies, it's weird. Sometimes it sounds a little exaggerated, like they pumped up the mids to give the impression of bass. (Pretty sure they at least pumped up the upper-bass, maybe not mids?) Other times it sounds like it lacks bass. (Probably on songs that truly have deep deep bass.) And, curiously, with some music it manages to sound just about perfect. Regardless, I'm pretty sure the sound quality isn't a whole lot different from a Bose Wave Radio, which would've cost more than $50 bucks, and I definitely know this Boston speaker sounds much much better than the little Sony boombox my mom currently has.
The frustrating stuff is regarding AirPlay, mostly.
I've used AirPlay for years and, up until about 1 year ago, it streamed flawlessly. Apple Lossless files. Bit accurate. Great quality. Never a dropout. But as my laptop gets older and iTunes keeps getting updated, I've encountered too many dropouts. Sometimes I can play it for hours without nary a hiccup. Other times I might only make it a half hour before getting dropouts. This happens with both my Airport Express as well as with my new Boston Acoustics Airplay Speaker.
What's worse, is that the dropouts seem to be even more frequent with my mom's computer. Which kind of sucks, since she seems quite capable of at least playing iTunes so long as I load her CDs onto it for her. Oh, well... the backup plan I think is to load music files onto her Nook Tablet and just play music via the headphone-style AUX input.
Oh... and one last gripe: The power cable looks like a laptop cable. A big brick. And it's really really long. Not that that is entirely bad depending on where you put it, I guess.
I was going to return it. But she liked the idea of having something that maybe sounded similar to a Bose Wave radio. And since I only paid $50.00 I figured why not. Early Christmas present, I guess.
Backstory:
About a week and a half ago I saw this thing at Best Buy. Supposedly originally $199, but marked down "On Sale" to only $49. Nothing on display. Just a box hiding on the bottom shelf, full of dust. Brand new. I was intrigued, but I passed. And then a few days went by and I got bored, so I went back to see if it was still there. I figured that since Amazon and Crutchfield were still selling it at $199 that maybe it would at least be worth giving it a listen.
Anyway... Since I don't have any iOS devices, I have to play music via iTunes on my laptop and stream it to the Boston speaker via Wi-Fi (AirPlay). The sound quality is OK, but not great. (Or maybe it's very good, but not excellent? Depends on your perspective, I guess.) Anyway... There are two 3-1/2" full range drivers, and as such it gets quite loud; but the treble maybe doesn't sound quite as effortless and airy as I'd like. A slight bump to the iTunes EQ helps a little bit, though. And as for the bass frequencies, it's weird. Sometimes it sounds a little exaggerated, like they pumped up the mids to give the impression of bass. (Pretty sure they at least pumped up the upper-bass, maybe not mids?) Other times it sounds like it lacks bass. (Probably on songs that truly have deep deep bass.) And, curiously, with some music it manages to sound just about perfect. Regardless, I'm pretty sure the sound quality isn't a whole lot different from a Bose Wave Radio, which would've cost more than $50 bucks, and I definitely know this Boston speaker sounds much much better than the little Sony boombox my mom currently has.
The frustrating stuff is regarding AirPlay, mostly.
I've used AirPlay for years and, up until about 1 year ago, it streamed flawlessly. Apple Lossless files. Bit accurate. Great quality. Never a dropout. But as my laptop gets older and iTunes keeps getting updated, I've encountered too many dropouts. Sometimes I can play it for hours without nary a hiccup. Other times I might only make it a half hour before getting dropouts. This happens with both my Airport Express as well as with my new Boston Acoustics Airplay Speaker.
What's worse, is that the dropouts seem to be even more frequent with my mom's computer. Which kind of sucks, since she seems quite capable of at least playing iTunes so long as I load her CDs onto it for her. Oh, well... the backup plan I think is to load music files onto her Nook Tablet and just play music via the headphone-style AUX input.
Oh... and one last gripe: The power cable looks like a laptop cable. A big brick. And it's really really long. Not that that is entirely bad depending on where you put it, I guess.