Boom boxes with sleep mode. Alexa dot

So, I’ve figured out that I want large speakers…like the new JBL Party box 200 in all my rooms. I dont care for the smaller Sonos or UE or Echo plus. I need large speakers.

But, I want the capability to use voice to play my amazon music service through my echos. And, I dont want to have to turn on the speakers when I come in the room, just have all my little dots plugged into them and wake them up when I tell Alexa to play some music.

Do boom box type speakers need to be turned off when not in use. Are there any that have a sleep or low power mode so they can just start up when I tell Alexa to play? My family is all about saving electricity so leaving on 5 large speakers might not appeal to them so am trying to see if any big speakers have any kind of sleep mode…or maybe that wont matter…I’m not up on electricity usage.

Thanks for any info.

Ok so real speakers need to be connected to a receiver or amp normally. It’s not the speaker that determines whether it uses power or not. Normal speakers are passive, you give them electricity and they make noises. Powered speakers do exist thought, I have some huge tower speakers that take AC power (built in subwoofer), and the ones you typically buy for a PC are powered as well.

Anyway when you have a normal bookshelf speaker they are normally passive. You have to plug them into a receiver. I have had old receivers that sucked power even when ‘off’, because they remained quite warm. The current one I have is cool so it can’t be too much.

Receivers actually use a lot. I used to put a power switch to flick them off manually.

Where are you gonna plug these speakers into anyway? You mean those little ones plugged into your dot/echo? They won’t be drawing any additional power beyond what the echo is (which it will because it’s always listening for commands.)

I took a look at that JBL PartyBox manual, and it said that it goes into a standby mode if nothing is playing for 20 minutes. To wake it back up, either press the power button, or play something via bluetooth. So, in theory, you can pair the Dot with this speaker using bluetooth, and the speaker will stay on or standby forever. It draws less than 2 amps on standby with bluetooth enabled.

This PartyBox is a powered speaker, so it has its own amp.

There might be other powered speakers than can react to signals playing in the AUX input to turn itself on, but this one doesn’t.

I almost bought a partybox 200. I have an integrated amp, a Sprout, connected to some decent mid-fi towers. I’m going to hook one of my dots thru Bluetooth to that and see how that works. It’s always on so should work ok. it’s a start.