The Bose SoundLink Mini II is showing its age with its average battery life and lack of features like NFC and waterproofing. The Bose SoundLink Mini II is showing its age with its average battery life and lack of features like NFC and waterproofing.
While the lack of features may turn off some buyers, it would be a mistake to write off the SoundLink Mini II entirely because it remains one of the best sounding wireless speakers on the market. On the left side of the speaker you’ll find the microUSB charging port and a 3.5mm headphone jack for using legacy devices. Although light on features, the Bose SoundLink MIni II remains one of the best-sounding wireless speakers we’ve ever heard. While most compact wireless speakers struggle to output bass, the SoundLink Mini II has it in spades while still maintaining a lovely balanced sound. The similarly sized Razer Leviathan Mini sounded wooden compared to the Bose and failed to retrieve as many micro details. We’re also impressed by the speaker’s ability to retrieve details like a musician’s breath and the clinking of glasses from the audience in live jazz tracks.
This diminutive speaker punches way above what its size would suggest, producing deep bass, sparkling highs and a lush midrange.
If you want more features and are willing to trade off some sound quality, the water resistant Bose SoundLink Color II is a great choice.
Wij stellen technologie op de proef
Cookies kunnen daarnaast worden gebruikt om op Tweakers advertenties te tonen die aansluiten bij je interesses. Ook kunnen derden je internetgedrag volgen, zoals bijvoorbeeld het geval is bij embedded video’s van YouTube. Tot slot kunnen cookies worden gebruikt om op sites van derden relevante advertenties te tonen.
Bose SoundLink Mini II review
Our review product is a smart two-tone grey – though we think the black alternative is equally slick and covers are available if you fancy something more jazzy. External features are kept to a minimum; there are the usual buttons for power, pairing (you can link two devices at a time and switch between them) and volume.
There’s also an almost incognito pair of jacks on the side for USB charging (ten hours maximum claimed life) and auxiliary input. Both nylon-string acoustic guitar and vocal are exceedingly rich, offering the warmth of a winter’s night by an open fire.
What the SoundLink Mini II does well – adding greater stability and richness to the mid and treble frequencies in acoustic tracks – is immediately undermined by the fact it loses all that as soon as you add a bass guitar or similar. If not, we’d suggest you compromise on price, size or frequency range, but not overall sonic capability and take a look at the Bose’s closest rivals, such as the Ausio Pro Adddon T3 or the JBL Xtreme.
Bose SoundLink Mini 2 Review
De speaker schakelt zichzelf automatisch uit wanneer je geen audio afspeelt. In deze Bose SoundLink Mini 2 review leest u alles over de bouwkwaliteit, geluidskwaliteit, kenmerken, specificaties, voor-en nadelen en nog veel meer. Hiernaast bieden wij zoals u gewend bent de scherpste prijzen via onze externe partners. De speaker schakelt zichzelf automatisch uit wanneer je geen audio afspeelt.
Wij gebruiken betrouwbare externe partijen zoals Bol.com, Coolblue en Mediamarkt. De uitstekende prestaties van de Bose SoundLink Mini 2 zijn het produceren van een hogere stabiliteit en rijkdom in het midden en hoge tonen.
Er zijn ook verborgen aansluitingen aan de zijkant voor opladen via USB en extra invoer. De Bose SoundLink Mini 2 zorgt niet alleen voor meer volume, maar ook voor een vollere bas dan je zou verwachten van een speaker van dit formaat. Lees meer over onze conclusies in het volgende deel van de Bose SoundLink Mini 2 review. Klik hier als u meer wilt lezen over de 7 beste bose speakers van 2020.
Wij gebruiken betrouwbare externe partijen zoals Bol.com, Coolblue en Mediamarkt.
Bose SoundLink Mini 2 review: A sound all-rounder now a tad cheaper
UPDATE: Since our original review, which was based on the £150 price tag, the Bose SoundLink Mini 2 can now be found for £130 – making it a more tempting offer for those who love a good-looking, powerful sounding Bluetooth speaker. That’s no bad thing, though, as the first SoundLink Mini had superb build quality, which returns here, and was a brilliant premium Bluetooth speaker.
That holds true for its successor, too, as its aluminium finish remains as sleek and robust as ever, and provides a fine set-piece to add to your living room. I wouldn’t recommend taking it outside, though, as it’s not ruggedised in any way whatsoever, so you’re likely to end up scratching the outer casing if you show a lack of care.
An improvement over the original SoundLink Mini is that the DC jack has been swapped out for a more ubiquitous micro USB connection. Battery life has improved over the original and is rated at around 10 hours of medium volume listening, which felt about right. Inside the SoundLink Mini 2 is a two speaker array with a passive bass radiator to flesh out the low range. This is due in part to some digital signal processing that helps to bring out much of the detail and increase the perceived separation between the different sound frequencies.
It meant the SoundLink Mini 2 sounded universally excellent with the test tracks I threw its way.
Bose SoundLink Mini II Review
And if you haven’t heard one of these small size, big output speakers before, you’ll most certainly be impressed by how good the Bose SoundLink Mini II sounds. Cheaper rivals are available, but if you’re after powerful bass in a tiny box then the Bose SoundLink Mini II is worth its £169 asking price.
It’s a lightly curved brick of aluminium, small enough to grasp easily in one hand, but it’s too long and deep to fit in a pocket.
A slightly robotic-sounding woman reads out the battery level when the Bose SoundLink Mini II is turned on, alongside the names of connected devices.
Like most wireless speakers, the Bose SoundLink Mini II has a 3.5mm jack input on the side that lets you plug in anything that doesn’t have Bluetooth. The Bose SoundLink Mini II still doesn’t support aptX – the higher-quality codec than the Bluetooth standard SBC.
The SoundLink Mini II delivers a smooth and well-textured tone, with decent mid-range presence that isn’t only about pounding out bassy beats. There are plenty of competitors in this size and class of speaker, including the Pure Voca, the Denon Envaya Mini and Jam Heavy Metal.
However, the Bose SoundLink Mini II trounces them all when it comes to sound quality with deeper bass, silkier mids and smoother treble.
Since Bose has aced this radiator-led style so well, you’ll really need to find a good traditional driver speaker to get much better sound.
While the Bose gives the impression of having deep and full bass, it’s capable of bringing out sub-bass frequencies due to the limitations of its small driver/radiator array. It’s also worth noting that while we’ve been a bit sniffy about Bose’s audio style in the past, the wireless speaker space really makes great use of its tricks.
We get a bit suspicious of this tech when it’s used to cut down the size/quality of drivers in “hi-fi” products, but in the necessarily compromised world of Bluetooth speakers, it works wonders. Naturally, you don’t get a proper stereo image here, but we can’t imagine many people would look to the SoundLink Mini to replace a hi-fi.
It’s a total class act that makes meaningful changes to the original, including tweaks to the sound quality. It also outperforms just about every other wireless speaker in this size and class, delivering deeper, richer bass from a box that has roughly the same-sized drivers as Denon Envaya Mini.
There are plenty of cheaper alternatives out there, but the Bose SoundLink Mini II is the best wireless speaker in this class right now.
Bose SoundLink Mini 2 Review
No, it wasn’t the best speaker out there, but its combination of small size, solid sound, and stylish look made it a popular choice. Here you’ll find the charging stand, the wall charger, USB cable, and the manual and warranty information. It’s not identical, but if you know what the original SoundLink Mini looks like, you’ll identify this in a line up immediately. The look is almost too classic — while this is undoubtedly a Bose, it looks almost a little dated compared to some other speakers we’ve seen in the past year. Pairing isn’t a particularly difficult task with most Bluetooth speakers, but Bose has gone a long way to make the process as easy as possible, short of automatically doing it for you. Turn the speaker on and it automatically enters pairing mode — you’ll know this because a helpful voice will tell you, after asking you which language you want it to speak in.
If you’re looking for booming bass in as small a form factor as possible, this will likely be your best bet, especially in this price range, but you do trade off a certain amount of quality for sheer quantity. This might lead to missing some detail, but considering the hissing, ear-shredding highs present in speakers that avoid this roll-off entirely, it’s the more desirable outcome. There is no stereo separation here — that’s basically impossible in this size — but the speaker does sound a lot bigger than its modest measurements would lead you to believe.
It also gets pretty loud, though we did notice distortion at the highest volumes on bass-heavy material or electric guitar-driven rock. Still, with the improved battery life and added features, this is indeed superior to the original, and leaves no reason to buy that model. That doesn’t say anything bad about Bose — it simply says that its competition is beginning to catch up and even surpass it.
Bose SoundLink Mini II review: A great Bluetooth speaker gets even better
The new 1.5-pound (0.67kg) model looks nearly identical to its predecessor — a good thing, since it’s one of the sharpest-looking small speakers out there — but it now has a built-in microphone for speakerphone capabilities. Rounding out the improvements: the speaker now charges via a standard USB cable rather than a proprietary AC adapter, which is an important change. Or the fact that, at 1.5 pounds, it feels considerably more substantial than many of the tiny all-plastic Bluetooth speakers now on the market.
Soft covers, sold separately for $25, £21 or AU$30 each, will be available in deep red, “energy green,” navy blue, charcoal black and gray.
For what they are, they’re both very good speakers, with the Sony being at its best when it’s plugged in (it plays a little louder on AC power rather than working off the unit’s internal rechargeable battery). The Bose casts a slightly larger sound stage and excels with acoustic material, flattering it a bit more than the Sony.
For example, Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie – Live,” Laura Marling’s “Strange” and Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity” all sounded really good on the Bose. On a positive note, the Bose did a better job with Bleachers’ “Wild Heart” than a lot of Bluetooth speakers we’ve tested. It’s one of the best compact wireless speakers overall, with an excellent design, strong sound, an improved feature set and solid battery life.
Be First to Comment