Bluetooth Speakers are the rage these days. You see them at the beach, you see people holding them in their hand and bumping a jam in the car, they’re in living rooms, in the park, holy crap you name it everyone you know has one. Walking around with a radio or cassette boom box just isn’t cool anymore. Bluetooth sound technology has grown over the past decade and we are at the point where high quality sound transmitted wirelessly is an expectation. These days you have portable speakers ranging from $10 all the way to high end gear in the thousands.
Everyone wants the best value for their money. Not everyone can spend $1000 for mind blowing sound, and we end up compromising cost for quality. Hell, before I had the Sound Stage 3, I had a Logitech UE Boom as my “home sound system” to stream music from my iPhone, which worked great. And you know what? For a lot of people that’s OK and great for people who like to bring their music around with them. However, if you were to spend just a little more you can get the Sound Stage 3 and sometimes for the same price. Let me tell you, this thing blew me away. I really didn’t know what to expect and was pretty set on my Bose 5 Sound Bar for my home music needs, but isn’t as practical as I like it to be.
The Mono Price Sound Stage 3 is compact enough to go on a book shelf, but powerful enough for a medium to large sized living room. It’s about the size of a shoe box but it comes packed with 120W of sound (1x80W and 2x20W) with RCA, 3.5 AUX, Optical S/PDIF, on top of the Bluetooth aptX connection.
You can also pair this with another SoundStage for a richer stereo experience. Setup was really easy. You can just plug into the outputs or quickly pair to your Bluetooth device. There’s also a simple remote that allows you to adjust the volume, bass, treble, and source which is always nice to have.
Most of us don’t care about all of the above… what we care about is how it sounds. In one word… fantastic. These sound way up there with the Sonos speakers that I’ve heard with great sound range, deep bass if you want it, and great clarity. I play a mix of alternative rock, reggae, latin pop, classical, R&B and hip hop and every genre sounded amazingly loud and clear. Even in the lower volume range was good too but these things get really loud even in a large size room.
I’m not saying this will replace your mega expensive sound system, but for those who want to spend less than $200 and have a classy looking system with excellent sound, the SoundStage 3 is an excellent value.