Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker Review

Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker Review

Buy it at Amazon: Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Compact, clear/bright sound, fully featured waterproof travel speaker.

The Bluetooth speaker comes with a microUSB charging cable, male-to-male audio cable, and instruction manual. The speaker is a compact cylinder with a fabric wrapped grill exterior and rubberized top and bottom rims. Inside are two 6W drivers and dual passive radiators located on the top and bottom. It's got a chunky knit wrist strap loop, and below that you'll find a rubber door to protects the USB charging port, AUX-in port, status LED, SD card slot, and pinhole reset. While this speaker has a waterproof rating of IPX6, and can get wet but not fully submerged, it is only water resistant if the rubber door remains closed. When charging, the LED indicator will be orange and turns off when the battery is fully charged. The unit will take about 4 hours to charge and lasts up to 6 hours of continuous playback at 70% volume.

On the opposite side from the ports are the playback controls: power/mode key, plus and minus for volume and track navigation, and play/pause button. There are 4 audio source modes for the speaker: Bluetooth, FM radio, TF card, and Aux-In. Switching between modes is performed by short pressing the power key. In all modes, the sound from the speaker is clear and bright with boosted high frequencies that add a touch of extra sibilance in the upper ranges. The volume on this speaker can get decently loud too without much distortion creeping into the audio. The bass ranges are a bit lacking in presence, but despite this bass beats are generally tight and punchy. What impressed me was the clarity and sound quality from the FM radio mode. I was expecting the grainy muffled audio that you sometimes get from portable radios, but when used in areas witha strong signal like outdoors or near a window, the stations it picked up were crystal clear and sounded CD quality. Of course, if the signal is not so good, there's plenty of static and the speaker is a bit picky when it comes to location, orientation, and what objects are nearby that might amplify the signal (oftentimes, holding my hand above the speaker gave the signal enough boost for clear audio, but I'm not going ot hover my hand over it constantly just to listen to NPR). In radio mode, you scan for local radio stations by pressing and holding the play/pause button and it'll store any decently strong signals it encounters. After the speaker has found all available stations you scroll through them the same way you'd skip tracks in a playlist, by short pressing the plus and minus buttons. You cannot, however, choose which stations to save and which to discard. In all modes, volume can be adjusted by long pressing the plus and minus keys.

One cool feature of this speaker is if you have a two of them, you can pair them together for true stereo playback with one playing the left audio channel and the other playing the right channel, but unfortunately I don't have a second unit with which to try out this feature. I have seen this feature on other speakers and have liked having that capability, but I can't vouch for the ease of setup or connection quality using the Sbode M350s from my own experience. The speaker also supports wireless calling when connected to a phone over Bluetooth and call quality is clear without too much lag. Overall, this compact speaker has a lot of features and surprisingly good audio performance packed into its small frame. Its weatherproof and durable design makes it great for travel, using outdoors, or even in the shower. Just keep in mind that it does not sound as awesome when it is waterlogged, just FYI!

Buy it at Amazon: Sbode M350 Bluetooth Shower Speaker [Affiliate Link]