If you are looking for a Bluetooth speaker, especially in the current Indian market, you can stay assured that you will find precisely what you are looking for. In some cases, you might even be spoilt for choices. The market is flooded with speakers in all price brackets at the moment, and it is easy for you to get lost, especially if you do not have a specific set of expectations in your mind. Speakers that can be truly termed as the jack of all trades are few far and few between. But, with the right research, you can hit the sweet spot and get yourself a loud and great-sounding package with ample battery life and features. In the last few years, speaker technology has evolved a lot. With calling, voice assistants, multi-point connection, 360-degree immersive audio, and adaptive EQ correction being baked into them, finding the best speaker of all is a tough task. However, this year, when Bluetooth speakers showed up at the Digit Test Center for the Digit Zero1 Award 2022, we were on the hunt to find the best-performing speakers and the ones that will give you the best value for your money and win Digit Best Buy Award 2022. Let’s look at which speaker took the top spot in our Digit Zero1 and Best Buy awards.
The AIWA MI-X 330 Meteor, during our testing, emerged as the best Bluetooth speaker launched in 2022. The speaker comes packing an impressively tuned 3.5mm tweeter and a 3.5-inch subwoofer, which produces a 60W sound output. The sound output from the speaker was surprisingly close to neutral. However, if you are looking to tune the sound to your liking, you get dials on the speaker itself. The speaker’s sound is clear yet loud enough to fill a large room with ease. Yes, you will not get the soundstage as wide as a speaker with 360-degree sound baked into it. But, it is something that one would expect from a bookshelf form-factor speaker. The AIWA MI-330 Meteor boasts a 24-hour battery life which should ensure that you don’t have to hook up the speaker to its Type-C charger. In our testing, the speaker got pretty loud without distorting, and the latency on the Bluetooth playback when consuming content was also minimal. All this ensured that the speaker took the top spot in our awards!
The LG RP4G XBoom 360 gave a tough fight to the AIWA MI-X 330 Meteor during our testing. It comes with the famous 360-degree audio, which means that you get a sound stage like no other. It trumped the humble setup of the MI-X 330 Meteor. However, the sound quality of the RP4G did not come close enough when they were pitted against each other in a head-to-head battle. The RP4G, is a great speaker no doubt, but the overall sound signature of the speaker, out of the box, leans towards being slightly bass heavy. It gets insanely loud and can be a great companion to large gatherings, both indoors and outdoors. In songs like Uptown Funk which we use to test the bass response of speakers, AIWA’s bass felt better overall than that of the RP4G. It had a defined substance to it, compared to that of LG’s offering, which at times felt a bit too overwhelming. All in all, the LG RP4G XBoom 360 makes for a great buy if you are looking for a speaker that you can use for outdoor parties and large indoor gatherings.
The Sony SRS-XE300 is the latest addition to Sony’s lineup of Bluetooth speakers. In the battle for the top spot in our Zero1 Awards between the AIWA and the LG speakers, the humble Sony also registered its strong presence. The speaker comes with an insane 24-hour battery life, which puts the 10-hour batteries of the LG and AIWA to shame. However, when it comes to the sound signature and other aspects of our performance metrics, Sony fell behind slightly. In vocal-heavy tracks like Rescue Me by OneRepublic, it shined like the sun on a summer morning. However, other factors, such as loudness, prevented it from aiming for the top step. While the peak volume of the speaker is enough to fill a small room, in a larger setting, it struggled to keep up against the likes of AIWA and LG’s offerings. Don’t take us wrong here. Its sound signature as a speaker is great. It paled only when pitted against the speakers from AIWA and LG. The overall sound quality of the speaker is excellent, as we have come to expect from Sony. If you are looking for a speaker for your living room and have trust in the brand.
The JBL Flip 6, priced at ₹14,999, was crowned the winner of our Best Buy Awards. For the price, it is quite a package. It has a 2-way speaker system that simulates 360-degree audio and does a fairly good job. The Flip 6 is loud enough for small rooms, but to cover a larger area, it has to be pumped up to a hundred per cent volume, where it loses out on some of its punch. As for the sound signature, the speaker comes with a bass-heavy sound signature out of the box, which is advertised by the brand as “JBL Original Pro” sound. This is something that has been lauded by bass lovers for years. The companion app, JBL Portable, packs an equaliser that you can use to tune the audio to your liking. All of this is powered by a 12-hour battery. If you want to boost the volume to even higher levels, then you can daisy chain multiple JBL Flip 6 speakers together using the Paty Mode. And, if you are planning to use the speaker outdoors, then its IP67 protection will serve you just right. The size, the portable form factor, and the overall sound performance of the JBL Flip 6 made it the perfect contender for our Best Buy Award.