Portable Sound (and home sound too!)

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I don’t get enamored easily with sound devices as I’ve got a pretty expensive HT, but I picked up one of these ION Pathfinder 2’s at Costco for $119 ($30 off) and this is a very impressive unit. So impressive, I’m tempted to get another one so I can pair them together.

I’ve been using it the past week - out on the deck and in the house just to give background music while we play games.

It pairs effortlessly with your phone, so you can stream whatever your phone has. My only small complaint is the BT antenna must be short, because I can only get about 15’ away before the sound starts chopping out, so I typically leave my phone near it.

What makes this a great $120 speaker?

  • First & foremost it sounds great. And this is very important. 2-way system with decent bass.
  • A nice heavy battery that “lets you play for 100 hours”. I haven’t fully tested this, but my primary intent was to use this with camping, and the ability to last the weekend and more is awesome
  • Very water resistant. You can leave it outside in the rain.
  • USB charge ports so you can charge your phone off that huge battery
  • Long telescoping handle & good wheels as this thing weights over 50 lbs!

What could have been done better?

  • A storage compartment for the cord & Microphone (hard to believe they didn’t include this)
  • Longer BT range
2

I have quite a bit of experience with their older products (like this), and they are great. Sound good, long battery life, pretty rugged even before they were advertised as such.

We have 2 that have been used almost daily for years, including beach trips and such. Several of my friends own them also.

3

Man … this post is SO timely. Ordered.

I have 3 days late next week of nothing but boating, I’m hoping this will roll in for at least a day or so of that, if not more.

4

On the lower end of things, I’ve really dug my $30 Oontz Angle 3 Plus by Cambridge Soundworks. It’s perfect for providing some musical punch to my RPG tables and kicking some sick jams while getting ready for work in the morning. The Plus model doesn’t, as far as I know, provide much sound benefit over the regular one, but has a much higher battery capacity (30 hours in a ring package!).

Obviously it doesn’t really compete with the above at all, but for my specific purposes, it’s great. I’ve sold about half a dozen of these things to friends and acquaintances since I got mine last year for my GenCon sessions.

There’s also a 14W variant for $10 more, but this was my sweet spot.

5

Cambridge Soundworks makes great stuff. Nothing wrong with a small portable. To be fair, the one linked above is huge, but would work well outdoors.

image