The Soundcore Motion 300 is a very portable, durable and loud 30 watt speaker what’s also very affordable. But today we’re going to see how it stacks up to both the JBL Flip 6 and the JBL Charge 5, cause these are some of my favorite speaker to recommend, especially the JBL Charge 5.
Regarding pricing, The soundcore motion 300 has a retail price of $80 where as the Flip 6 has a retail price of $120 but it likes to routinely go on sale for $100 and the Charge 5 has a retail price of $180, but it likes to routinely go on sale for $150 and sometimes a little less. Now personally, I think the Soundcore Motion 300 gives you a really big bang for your buck. Nonetheless, if you want to pick any of these speakers up they’ll be linked down below.
Now first talk about the design of these speakers, now both of JBL’s speakers have cylindrical bodies, and they are wrapped in fabric so they do a really good job of standing up to constant abuse from bumps and scrapes. Now size wise, the Charge 5 is decently portable, but the Flip 6 is smaller and it also has a built in loop so you can hang it from things. But then there’s the Motion 300… not first off the motion 300 has a metal front grill and the rest of its body is covered in silicon… so its also very durable and all of these speakers are water proof as well. But with the Motion 300, you can either have it so that its standing up right and you can direct all of the sound towards you, you can also use it while its laying down flat and get omnidirectional sound out of it… or you can use its built in loop and you can much easily attach it to things like your backpack. So portability wise, I am going to have to say that the Motion 300 is more portable than the Flip 6… cause of its built in clasp… cause with the Flip 6, if you want to attach it to something then you’re going to have to get a carabiner.
Now regarding tech specs, the Soundcore motion 300 has an advertised battery life of 13 hours… but that’s with this speaker playing at 50% volume. Real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume and with its bass up feature turned off, which is how I prefer to use this speaker, its good for about 8 hours of playback time.
But then there’s the JBL Flip 6 which has an advertised battery life of 12 hours… but real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, its going to be good for about 80 hours of playback time as well. And just like with the Motion 300, the flip 6 is a 30 watt speaker.
And with the Charge 5… it has an advertised battery life of 24 hours… but with it playing at 80% volume… its going to be good for about 10 hours of playback time… and this is a 40 watt speaker. So its going to get louder and have more bass.
Now in order to charge all of these speakers, they all charge via a USB C port as they should… and with all of these speakers, they can only be used wirelessly cause none of them have an audio jack. But the charge 5 does have a USB A port so that you can charge your own devices… but I do feel that this port is a little obsolete now cause most phones these days come with USB C to USB C Charging cables.
But when it comes to connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to 2 devices at the same time so that you and a friend can both be DJ, and latency is not an issue, so you can use these speakers to watch videos on your phone.
But when it comes to audio codecs, both of JBL’s speakers only have support for SBC… where as with the motion 300, it has support for SBC, AAC and LDAC which is Sony’s high res audio codec. However if you want to take advantage of LDAC you do have to be an android user cause iPhone’s top out at AAC and if you do decide to use LDAC than that is going to take an additional toll on the battery life.
But with all of that out of the way, lets talk about sound. With the motion 300 you have dual frontward firing woofer and dual passive radiators in the center that shoot out the front and back. And this is a typical speaker set up. Where as with both the JBL Flip 6 and JBL Charge 5, they both have a frontward firing woofer, a frontward firing tweeter and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. Now the reason why its a big deal that both the Flip 6 and Charge 5 have a woofer and tweeter set up is cause this helps with instrument separation, but so that you can see for yourself let me just show you.
Tweeter Demo
So like you may have just seen, the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs. So this helps your speaker sound more open and just better. But now we’re going to jump into the sound test. Both the Flip 6 and Motion 300 are playing at 87% volume where as the charge 5 is playing at 75% volume.
Sound test
So when it comes to sound quality… I am going to have to say that the Soundcore motion 300 sounds decent… now in this sound test had its bass up feature turned on which gives you more bass but it does reduce the mids and highs a little bit, so that is why this speaker sounded a little warmer than these other two speakers. But nonetheless the Motion 300 sounds good. However, when compared with the JBL Flip 6, the flip 6 does sound more open cause it has better instrument separation cause it is able to delegate the mids and lows to its woofer and the highs to its tweeter. But also, the Flip 6 does have a little more bass and the flip 6 does get a little louder than the Motion 300 as well. And then there’s the Charge 5. Again the Charge 5 has better instrument separation here thanks to its woofer and tweeter set up… and since the Charge 5 is a 40 watt speaker… its just gets louder and has even morass than these other two 30 watt speakers. Now in general, I like how both the Motion 300 and Charge 5 sound with their stock EQ’s… but with all of these speakers you can always go into their app and you can adjust their EQ’s to your liking. And with the JBL Flip 6, I do feel that this speaker sounds a little too bright, so I do like to go in and raise the bass by two clicks and lower the treble by on click. But overall, the soundcore motion 300 sounds good and its really does give the JBL Flip 6 a run for its money. But ultimately the JBL Flip 6 does sound and perform better than the Motion 300 cause it has better instrument separation thanks to its woofer and tweeter set up… and with the charge 5, it get noticeably louder.
But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers up with other speakers. Now with the Motion 300, if you have another motion 300 you can wirelessly pair them up and you can get them to play in left and right stereo mode. And when your two speakers are playing together… you music is going to be louder and your music is going to sound a lot more open thanks to the two separate channels.
But with both the Charge 5 and Flip 6, they’re both using PartyBoost so you can connect them to other PartyBoost speakers like lets say a Boombox 3, a boombox 2, Xtreme 3, Charge 5, Pulse 5, Pulse 4, Flip 5 or to a flip 6 and you can pair up to 100 speakers together.
Now if you’re going to be mixing and matching speakers, like lets say connect a flip 6 to a charge 5… they are only going to play in sync… but if you have two of the exact same speakers… then your speakers will play in left and right stereo mode. Overall, if you plan on collecting a lot of speakers then JBL is the way to go here.
But with all of that being said, the Soundcore motion 300 is a very solid portable bluetooth speaker that very durable, it sounds good and it get decently loud… all while being very affordable especially when compared to both the JBL Flip 6 and JBL Charge 5. Portability wise, the Motion 300 does have a slight advantage over the flip 6 cause its easier to attach it to things without needing an additional carabiner… but soudn quality wise, both the Flip 6 and Charge 5 are the better option here. Nonetheless the Soundcore motion 300 is a great value.