Needed an Upgrade. So, I bought a JBL Speaker!

After hours of searching online and looking at product reviews, I decided to go with the JBL Pulse 3. This product met all of my requirements and had a couple of extra cool features. Here's my review. 

4 minute read

It was about time that I upgraded from the cheap Logitech speakers that I had connected to my laptop – to something more up-to-date and high quality. I did some searching online and came across the JBL brand as a consistently affordable yet high quality Bluetooth speaker. Now, I’m not the type of consumer that necessarily base my decisions off of peer reviews as I like to do my own research and then, MAYBE ask around for other consumer experiences. In this case because I had a couple of friends who already owned JBL speakers, I already had a vicarious experience of the brand.

When I was deciding on what speaker to buy, I narrowed down my search to three factors. The first deciding factor for me was “cool”. Something that looked really slick and that could fit into the modern aesthetic of my room. In my mind, I wanted something that looked like one of those vintage speakers from the 50’s and 60’s and that had a wood finish. A Marshals Action II was my first choice in this regard, but it was priced way over what I intended to spend for a Bluetooth speaker. Which brings me to my second determining factor – Price. Not to mention, the Marshals Action II is an eight-pound speaker which means shipping costs would be insane for that weight alone! My final determining factor was something Bluetooth, which is kind of a given considering that almost every single speaker on the market now has Bluetooth capabilities. Notwithstanding that my old Logitech was auxiliary connection, yea! I needed something Bluetooth!

After hours of searching online and looking at product reviews, I decided to go with the JBL Pulse 3. This particular product seemed to meet all of my requirements and had a couple of extra cool features that made me decide to choose this brand. First, unlike the speakers that I really wanted, the JBL has 360 sound. Meaning that you I don’t need to face the speaker in any particular direction for best sound projection. There’s no front or back of the speaker. The second really cool feature of the speaker was the 360 lightshow. A fully customizable lighting sequence that syncs with music to deliver a dramatic and spectacular sound and visual experience. A couple other features of the brand is that it’s waterproof – which is handy I guess, but I don’t intend on putting the speakers in any wet environments. The other feature of the speaker is that it could connect to over 100 other JBL speakers to build sound quality and sync lightshows. I mean, that’s fantastic if you have 100 speakers just laying around doing nothing, right?!

I received my email notification from the courier and went in to collect my package. The shipping cost was reasonable considering the package weighed four pounds. When I got home and started unboxing I was really impressed by the packaging. Talk about high-quality, the speaker came in a study magnetic closure box and the face of the box was a picture of the speaker in a lenticular finish – so it looks  like the speakers were actually on if you swivelled the box. The box came with the speaker, an orange charger and three “manuals” including the one-year warranty. I registered my product to validate the warranty, downloaded the mobile app and began playing some music.

I was pleasantly surprised at how balanced the speaker sounded. Highs and lows are represented well I believe. It played dance, classical, lounge and soca really well. I don’t really venture out into other genres, so I was satisfied by at the sound performance. The lightshow really exceeded my expectations. Talk about vivid! Colours are more saturated than I thought they would be and I only had the brightness adjusted to 50%! Not to mention, every action has a colour action. For instance, on and off light bursts; green charging and well you probably know the colour for Bluetooth discoverability!

I’m sure if you’re an audiophile you can come up with a few technical sound problems with the speaker but for Joe-public and myself, this speaker is impressive for the sound, price and additional features! I definitely still want to get my hands on a Marshals and do a side by side comparison but for the most part I’m going to be keeping my eye on JBL and see what they’re going to come out with next and for the future. My only concern with the speaker is that the wire mesh and top ridges of the speaker might collect dust and be difficult to clean. I guess I can just wash it off with some water to clean it since it’s waterproof right?! (I won’t). Overall, my verdict is if you’re looking for a really cool, quality sound and affordable speaker, the JBL Pulse 3 is the way to go guys!