So as of early 2023, JBL’s PartyBoost lineup of speakers is very robust and there’s a lot of speakers to choose from. Now whether you’re thinking about upgrading from one speaker to another… or if you’re simply trying to choose your first JBL speakers… we’re going to break down JBL’s current lineup and lets see which speakers is right for you.
Now first, im going to start off by saying that no, the clip 4 doesn’t have PartyBoost… but I am still including it in this video cause I think the Clip 4 is a great little speaker and it retails for $80. But then there’s the flip 5 which retails for $90. The flip 6 retails for $130. The Charge 5 retails for $180, the Pulse 4 retails for $200, the Pulse 5 retails for $250, the Xtreme 3 retails for $380, the Boombox 2 retails for $400 and the Boombox 3 retails for $500. Now overall I am a fan of JBL’s speaker lineup so if you want to pick any of these speakers up, they’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about the design of these speakers. Now clip 4 is a small little speaker that you can clip on your back pack and it also makes a great little speaker for the shower. Both the Flip 5 and Flip 6 are relatively small and they’re super easy to take on the go with you. But more importantly, they both pack a bigger punch than the clip 4. But then there’s the Charge 5 which is noticeably larger than both flips… but its still relatively is to take on the go with you. But then there’s the Pulse 5 and Pulse 4… now these speakers are a little larger and little heavier than the Charge 5… but they’re still easy enough to take on the go with you but the Pulse 5 does have a built in loop, so you can hang it from places. But next up are the big boys. Now the Xtreme 3 is a large bluetooth speaker. Its still easy enough to take on the go with you thanks to its shoulder strap, but this isn’t a speaker that you’ll be carrying around in your back pack. But then there are the Boombox 2 and Boombox 3. Now these things are pretty big, but they are still relatively easy to take on the go with you, considering their size. The only thing that I don’t like about them is that they will roll around in your trunk if you don’t tie them when you’re driving.
Now durability wise, all of these speakers are waterproof to a certain degree… but what really matters is that if any of these speakers get wet, or if they get rained on or if they get dropped in a pool, they will all be perfectly fine. Now the majority of these speakers also have mostly fabric wrapped bodies so they all do a really good job of standing up from constant abuse from bumps and scrapes. However, there’s the pulse 5 and pulse 4 which both have acrylic bodies. And from my testing, I found that these acrylic bodies are fairly durable. Now yes you are going to get some deep scratches if you were to drop these speakers from two feet in the air on to some pavement… but the important thing is that these acrylic bodies don’t shatter very easily.
But the reason why the pulse 5 and pulse 4 have these acrylic bodies is cause they have these built in light features. Now im going to be honest, with both the Pulse 5 and pulse 4, you’re mainly paying for the light feature. However these light features are very dynamic and they’re very impressive and they’re going to liven up your bed room or they’re simply going to look cool while they’re on your porch, at night. However during the day time they can be a little hard to see. Now the light features on both the Pulse 5 and Pulse 4 look the same… however the Pulse 5 does have a ground affect cause the passive radiator on the Pulse 5 has built in LED’s as well. But just keep in mind, these light features do take their toll on the battery lives.
Now when it comes to battery life, both the Pulse 5 and Pulse 4 have an advertised battery life of 12 hours. But real world use with these speakers playing at 80% volume, both of these speakers are good for about 6 to 7 hours of playback. Not bad given their light features… but these wouldn’t be the best to take on the go with you.
Now if you’re looking for stamina, then either the Xtreme 3 or Charge 5 would be your best bet. The Charge 5 has an advertised battery life of 20 hours, but real world use with its volume set to 80% its good for about 10 hours of playback time… And with the Xtreme 3, it has an advertised battery life of 15 hours and its good for about 8 to 9 hours of playback time.
Where as with the Boombox 3, Boombox 2, Flip 6 and Flip 5… real world use, they’re all good for about 8 hours of playback time. So these speakers are going to have no problem keeping up with you for a whole day of listening, but if you want a little more stamina you want to go with the Charge 5 or Xtreme 3… and if stamina is important you, you do want to stay away from the Pulse 5 and Pulse 4.
Now when it comes to charging these speakers most of them charge via a USB C port, which is good. However, with the Clip 4, Flip 5, Flip 6, Pulse 4 and Pulse 5… this is the only port that you’ll find on these speakers. And with all of these speakers you can only use them wirelessly. Where as with the Charge 5, this speaker has a USB A out port so that you can charge your own devices if you want.
But then there’s the Xtreme 3… now the Xtreme 3 also have a USB A out port so that you can charge your own devices and it also has a an audio jack. But the really cool thing is that with the USB C port on the Xtreme 3… you can use it to charge the speaker… but you can also use this USB C port to charge your own devices, and you can also use it as a wired connection. And this is a unique feature that isn’t found on any of these other speakers.
But then there are the boombox’s. Now the Boombox 2 charges via DC port and there is a power adapter that you have to keep track of. Where as the Boombox 3 charges via a universal AC port. So I feel that chargning this speaker is a little easier cause if you go to a friend’s house and if you forget your chargning cable… its very likely that your friend will have a universal AC cable lying around. But ports wise both of these boombox’s have a USB A out port and they both have an audio jack as well.
But when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to two devices at the same time so that you and a friend can both be DJ, they all have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone, and when it comes to audio codecs, they all only have support for SBC.
But now lets talk about listening to music with these speakers. The clip 4 has a single frontward firing woofer and a single frontward firing passive radiator. The Flip 5 has a single frontward woofer and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. Where as with the Flip 6, it has a frontward firing woofer, a frontward firing tweeter and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. Now the charge 5 has the same speaker set up, except its a little bigger. Now the pulse 4 has a single upwards firing woofer and a single downward firing passive radiator. Where as with the Pulse 5, it has an upward firing woofer, an upward firing tweeter and a single downward firing passive radiator. Now first I want to address the importance of have a woofer and tweeter on your speaker. Since the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs… this is going to help your speaker sound more open and have better instrument separation. But so that you can see for yourself, let me just show you.
So like you may have just seen, the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs. So this is why the Flip 6, Charge 5 and Pulse 5 are going to have better instrument separation than lets say the Flip 5 and Pulse 4. Now when it comes to the Xtreme 3… it has dual frontward firing woofers, dual frontward firing tweeters and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. Now the boombox 2 has a similar set up, except larger. But then there’s the Boombox 3 which has a frontward firing subwoofer, frontward firing woofers, dual frontward firing tweeters which are staked on top of the woofers, and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. But now we’re going to jump into the sound test, all of these speakers are playing with this stock EQ’s. But the boomboxes are both playing while at 75% volume, the Xtreme 3 is playing at 94% volume, and all of these other speakers are playing at max volume.
So obviously, the larger the speaker the louder its going to get and the more bass its going to have. Now when comparing the Boombox 2 and Boombox 3 together, the boombox 3 simply has more bass than the boombox 2 cause of the additional frontward firing subwoofer. And when comparing the Pulse 5 to the Pulse 4, the pulse 5 sounds more open cause of the additional tweeter. And the same thing goes for the Flip 6 and flip 5. The flip 6 sounds more open than the flip 5. However, its very important to keep in mind that with both the Pulse 5 and Pulse 4… you’re mainly paying for the light feature… cause the flip 6, and charge 5 sound and perform much better than both Pulses. However, I do feel that the Pulse 5 does sound better than the Flip 5. But the flip 5 does sound better than the Pulse 4. But finally there’s the Xtreme 3. Obviously its going to perform better than all of the smaller speakers here but its not going to get as loud or have as much bass as the boomboxes.
The only thing that I feel that you need to look out for is that JBL’s newer speakers have all be coming included with a brighter stock EQ on them. But that’s not a problem for most of these speakers cause most of these speakers have an adjust EQ. With the Boombox 3, Boombox 2, Xtreme 3, Pulse 5, Charge 5, and Flip 6, you can go in and adjust their EQ to your liking. However, the Pulse 4, Flip 5 and Clip 4 don’t have adjustable EQ’s.
And I do have to point out one final thing, with all of these speakers, they have onboard media controls buttons, just as you’d expect. So you can skip through your music and adjust the volume of your music directly from the speaker itself… very simple… but with the Pulse 5, which is the newest speaker here… they got rid of the media control buttons which I jut find to be super annoying and its not convenient.
But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers with other speakers. Now all of these speakers are using Partyboost expect the clip 4, But with all of these other speakers you can pair any of these speakers to other Partyboost speaker like either a Boombox 3, Boombox 2, Xtreme 3, Charge 5, Pulse 5, Pulse 4, a Flip 5 or to a flip 6 and you can pair up to 100 speakers together which is just overkill.
Now if you’re going to be mixing and matching your speakers, they’re going to play in sync. However, if you want to get left and right stereo sound going you’re going to need two of the exact same speakers. So if you want to get stereo sound going with your pulse 5 you’re going to need 2 pulse 5’s, or if you want to get stereo sound going with the Charge 5, you’re going to need two charge 5’s or if you want to get stereo sound going with the flip 6 you’re going to need two flip 6’s.
Unfortunately, if you were to pair a Pulse 5 to a pulse 4, or a Flip 6 to a Flip 5, or Boombox 2 to a Boombox 3… they are only going to play in sync, And also keep in mind, you can’t pair any of JBL’s smaller PartyBoost speakers to any of JBL’s larger Partybox speakers.
Now even though there is some fragmentation to look out for, if you plan on buying multiple speakers and if you plan on constantly pairing them together… than I do think JBL is the way to go, cause PartyBoost just works. You just press one button on each speaker, they automatically sync up very quickly, and skipping is never an issue like with some other speaker pairing protocols out there.
But with all of that being said, overall I am a fan of JBL’s current speaker line up. And I am very happy to see that they are continuing to expend their Partyboost line up. And JBL’s newer speakers are all coming included with improved sound quality from their predecessors cause JBL is adding tweeters or subwoofers to their newer speakers. Now if you’re looking for a small speaker to easily take on the go with you… the clip 4 is a great option. But if you want something with more sound… then you’ll want to go with either the Flip 6 or Flip 5. But personally I highly recommend that you go with the Flip 6 cause it genuinely sounds better than the Flip 5 thanks to the additional tweeter. And if you want even more sound but still want something super portable, then you can go for the Charge 5.
Now when it comes to the Pulse 4 and Pulse 5… these speakers, you’re mainly buying them for the light feature… cause the Flip 6 and Charge 5 easily sound much better than these other two speakers. However when it comes to choosing between the Pulse 4 and Pulse 5… personally I think I would go with the Pulse 4 cause the instrument separation on the Pulse 5 isn’t a big enough reason to upgrade.
But then there’s the Boombox 3 and Boombox 2… personally I do think that it is worth springing for the Boombox 3 cause of the improved bass response… because at higher volumes the Boombox 2 can sound a little too bright. Where as with the boombox 3, that additional subwoofer just makes your music sound more dynamic. And finally there’s the Xtreme 3… this speaker is a good jack of all trades. Its small and portable… and it has a good battery life. It also gets decently loud. My main critique about it is that it does have a bright sound signature… however you can easily fix that through its adjustable EQ.