So this is the Bose Soundlink Plus, its Bose’s newest mid sized speaker and I actually prefer the sound and performance of this speaker over the Bose Soundlink Max, which has been improved, but I still find it very hard to justify it. Now I think the Bose Soundlink Plus performs better than the Max, and I do have high hopes for the Soundlink Max 2 now… but bose is till doing bose things. So today we’re going to checkout the Bose Soundlink Plus and lets see if its right for you.
Regarding pricing, the Bose Soundlink Plus does have a very premium price for a mid sized speaker when compared to its direct competitors cause this speaker has a retail price of $270. Pretty steep if you ask me, and since this is a bose speaker, I dont expect it to go on sale all that often. Nonetheless if you want to pick this speaker up it’ll be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button. And if you want to further support the channel then go watch some of the related videos linked in the description down below.
So when it comes to design, like I said this is a mid sized speaker, however it is a little big and heavy for a mid sized speaker when compared to its direct competitors. The Bose Soundlink Plus weighs in at 3.3 pounds, which is a lot for a mid sized speaker. And this speaker is meant to take on the go with you. However, this speaker is so large it does have a tough time fitting into lets say your backpack’s water bottle holder… and it takes up a lot of space in your bag for a mid sized speaker. Now this speaker does have a built in loop, and this loop is very premium feeling and durable… however this loop does not stretch out and you also cant change this loop out like you can with the max. And since this speaker is so dense, attaching this speaker to your backpack jut feels like a hassle. Personally I really wish this speaker had a shoulder strap option, or at the very least a larger loop so that you can more easily carry it.
But portability aside, the Soundlink Plus is a very durable and premium feeling speaker, just like Bose’s other speakers, the Plus has a mostly silicone wrapped body which is going to stand up to bumps and scrapes and its feels good… and it also has a powered coated front grill on the front. And this speaker is rocking an IP67 rating so its dirt and water proof, and this speaker easily floats in water. So the durability of this speaker is great, but its ease of portability, not so much.
Now when it comes to battery life, this speaker is actually pretty good. The Bose Soundlink Plus has an advertised battery life of 20 hours, and thats with this speaker playing at 65% volume, not bad. And real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, which is good for when you’re doing chores around the house or when you’re with friends, its good for about 10 hours of playback time.
And to charge this speaker, it charges via a USB C port as it should, and you can also use this USB C port to charge your own devices. However you cant use this USB C port as a wired connection and there is no audio jack on this speaker, so you can only use this speaker wirelessly.
But when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, this speaker can be connected to 2 devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ, latency is not an issue for this speaker so you can use it to watch videos on your phone and when it comes to audio codecs, it has support for SBC, AAC and snapdragon sound, however you do have to be an android user for that.
But with all of that out of that way, lets talk about sound. Now when it comes to speaker set up, the Soundlink plus has a frontward firing driver, a frontward firing tweeter and dual passive radiators that shoot out the front and out the back of this speaker. So with the Soundlink Plus, you can always amplify its bass by simply placing it up against a wall cause your bass is going to have something to bounce off, and through Bose’s app you can go in and adjust the sound of this speaker to your liking. But more importantly. Since this speaker has a driver and a tweeter set up, thats going to help with your instrument seperation cause the driver is going to handle the mids and the tweeter is going to handle the highs like this.
Tweeter demo
So like you may have just seen, the driver handels the mids and the tweeter handles the highs, so this is going to help this speaker sound more open and have better instrument separation… and for such a premium speaker like this one, I do expect this type of speaker set. But now we’re going to jump into the sound test, all of these speakers are playing at 75% volume while unplugged.
Sound Test
So when we compare the Bose Soundlink Plus to last generations of speakers, the Sony XE300 and JBL charge 5… the Bose Soundlink Plus sounds great. It sounds very full and it has much better instrument separation that these other two speakers. Now the Bose Soundlink Plus sounding better than the Sony XE300, thats easy, but this speaker sounds way better than the Charge 5. However, my critique about the Bose Soundlink plus is that its bass does lack some physical kick to it, cause its mostly on the audible and higher end side. But besides that, I think the Bose Soundlink Plus sounds great and if bose stays on this track, I think the Bose SOundlink Max 2 is going to sound much better than the current max. And when it comes to max volume performance, I think this speaker is good for like an 8 person get together. But overall, I like how the Bose Soundlink Plus sounds cause it sounds much fuller in the mids than the Soundlink Max… and I hope that this also means that the Soundlink Max 2 is going to sound similar to this speaker.
But finally lets talk about pairing this speaker up to other speakers. And Bose’s speaker paring protocol is pretty limited. If you have two of the exact same speakers then you can wirelessly pair them up and get them to play in left and right stereo mode, but they have to be two of the exact same speakers.
Or you can pair up your Bose Soundlink Plus to either your Bose Soundlink max or bose soundlink Flex 2… and get them to play in sync, but you can only have a total of 2 speakers paired together. Which is super limited when compared to other brands out there. So if you plan on growing your collection of speakers, bose wouldn’t be my first pick.
But with all of that being said, I think the Bose Soundlink Plus sounds great, and I prefer the performance thats coming out of it over the performance that you get out of the Bose Soundlink Max. Cause I feel the Bose Soundlink Max sounds hollow. So I hope that the Bose Soundlink Plus means that the Bose Soundlink Max 2 is going to sound much better. However for me it is still hard to justify the Bose Soundlink Plus, first off theres the price, this speaker is more expensive than its direct competitors, but a lot. But also for a mid sized speaker, this speaker is just a little too big and too heavy, and I really wish that it had more than just a loop… a loop is what I would expect on a small speaker.