Without fail, every year, as sure as Rihanna will have a #1 hit, the All Blacks will win the Bledisloe and a tier 2 brand will be accused of trying to kill an Apple iDevice, one piece of gadgetry will reach its zenith and all brands even remotely associated with technology will cross a rubicon to compete fiercely where once they couldn’t have cared less.
In past years we have had docking stations coming out the brazoo, a robot vac-athon and the heady days of headphones. 2013 was undoubtedly the year of the Bluetooth speaker. Just like the high concept headphone craze of 2012, there is a wide a gamut of designs, and what they may lack in celebrity endorsements they make up for with an array of colours.
To celebrate the Year of the Bluetooth Speaker, UnderCurrent presents its Top 25 Bluetooth Speaker Brands of 2013. Each speaker is accompanied with a YouTube link to a tenuously appropriate video for playback via that speaker. Congratulations to one and all!
Pure’s Jongo range is designed as colourful family of “big sound you can move around”.Even ultra-premium brands like Bose are slumming it with the speakers with its SoundLink.Blaupunkt Voss, for the Patrick White fans out there.Beats Pill is a distinctive speaker that we can’t stop promoting in music videos.If it weren’t for all those circular apertures, Yamaha NX P100 would be a white rectangle. And that would be impossibly ordinary for this category.
UE Boom! shake shake shake the room.Toshiba – not normally a brand you associate with audio – unveiled this flying saucer at IFA.TEAC’s offer in this space is for those that users that still like a lot of buttons and dials.Sony pink and purple offering is great for listening to bubblegum pop.From a distance, Sol Republic’s Deck looks like a river flowing through a desert.Samsung looking very serious in silver at an angle of 45.The Camden Square from Polk Audio – definitely a standout design – would surely have been popular with Camden’s favourite daughter.Perhaps not visually, but Philip will guide us audibly with this lantern-esque speaker.Panasonic’s Tough Outdoor Wireless Speaker has a genuine point of difference – it’s stronger than the average speaker.NudeAudio’s Move range comes with a cord attachment for hangin’ around.True Story: Rohan Marley from the House of Marley once played pro football for the Ottawa Rough Riders.Marantz Consolette. RRP $1,650.Design wise, this could be UnderCurrent’s favourite – it loves Logitech’s mix of white and refined tones, and the expanding conical form factor that reaches to a broad, aural crescendo.Purple is a very regal colour, which is appropriate, considering Klipsch’s spoke-rockers.JVC’s white box. It is also available as a black box.JBL’s speakers can also wirelessly charge some smartphones – another nice innovation.Jawbone’s Mini Jambox has aqua scales.Ferrari by Logic3 Scuderia FS1 is great for mixing fast cars with loud music.Triangles are your favourite shape? Try the Creative Airwave.Breven’s 855s looks like a heater, which would be an ideal conflation for when it is sweater weather.
