Before I got the Veho 360 Bluetooth Speaker my only experience of Bluetooth speakers was when a prankster at the office hooked hid it one in the atrium and played fart noises to startled geeks, accountants, and, telesales jockeys. Hilarious!
I should mention that I also had some Bluetooth headphones that I paid an extraordinary amount of money to be disappointed by. I would hook them up to my O2 Atom and b the coolest kid on the tram. Look mum on cord. I was so cool. Then one day I was walking to meet my wife after work and having trouble with the sound on the headphones. Nick Cave was too low. I persisted as I walked through the casino shopping centre only slightly oblivious to the odd looks I was getting from the sharply dressed shoppers and gambling addicts. It was only when I exited the casino that I realised Red Right Hand was blaring from my pocket not the speakers.
Bluetooth has not been kind to me.
So it was some anxiety that I unwrapped the speakers and pushed the button in the middle of the speaker. A blue light glowed reassuringly. Nice. Pairing the device was also very easy with both the iPhone, iPad and laptop. I guessed the password and soon the
The range reported is 10 metres, but in my testing I couldn’t get more than 7 metres before the connection started to break up. Conveniently, the Veho 360 has a port for a 16 GB micoSD card which can play mp3 and WAV files and also connects via USB and a standard line in. Battery time is up to 5 hours with a line in, and 2 hours for Bluetooth.
The sound quality was good, particularly when compared with the quality of the normal Apple speakers. My wife commented that she thought I was a little tinny, but when I turned the volume down a little it seemed fine to me. I’m sure hifi tragics would disagree, but this device is for a quick and dirty solution to sound from a mobile device and not intended to replace a valve amp device with fancy speakers. I played some Miles Davis, Chemical Brothers and Brahms and was happy with the sound quality. The bass is good.
Where I found the blue tooth speaker most handy was for Skype conferences in the office. My laptop speakers are dismal and the speaker made for a nice and quick solution for impromptu sessions at my desk.
I’m sure it would also work amazingly well for fart and Darth Vadar pranks but I haven’t tried that yet. There’s still time.