Share experience when choosing a Bluetooth speaker

Portable speakers are an increasingly popular device these days. Manufacturers race to launch many products with many different features and technologies, which leads users who are not familiar with the technology. They will be confused before a forest of products are available on the market. Today monospace will share some experiences to help users easily choose for themselves a satisfactory portable speaker.

NCF (Near Field Communication)

NFC is a wireless communication technology that uses radio waves to transmit and receive data. For NFC to work, we must have two devices: the source device (initiator) and the target device (target). The source device will be equipped with an energy source to generate radio waves to power the target device. The target device does not need electrical power, has an NFC circuit board attached; it will use the energy provided by the source device. That makes NFC different from Bluetooth technology because Bluetooth requires both devices to have a power supply to work.

Thanks to NFC, we only need to let two devices touch each other to connect without using a code to confirm two devices like when using Bluetooth. Although convenient, due to transmission limitations, NFC is only used to connect devices. NFC doesn’t work on the iPhone either.

WIFI

Although Bluetooth is very powerful in the field of audio transmission, wifi still has its outstanding points. Wifi has larger bandwidth, so the quality of the audio signal is better. In addition, wifi can be set up as a host and allows data access from NAS or Media Server. However, the weakness of wifi is that it is more expensive and can only work around a certain range (usually a home router). Wifi is also quite difficult to set up on certain speaker devices.

DLNA

DLNA (short for Digital Living Network Alliance) is a protocol for transferring images, music, movies… over wifi. That is the default protocol for Android users today. Most Android smartphones and tablets support DLNA. Its weak point is that it is slow and difficult to set up.

Multiroom

Multi-room technology is getting more and more attention, especially with today’s room design standards. Using wifi connection, users can link the multi-room speaker devices they own into a local network, allowing music streaming with almost zero latency. The multi-room speaker also has generally outstanding sound quality with minimal CD-level transmission limits. Multi-room systems always have the highest sound quality and convenience, but the price is not low either.

Airplay

Airplay is a wireless transmission method developed by Apple that helps connect Airplay-enabled devices by connecting to the same wifi network without cables. Apple also charges very expensive licensing fees for other brands’ products if it wants to integrate AirPlay, so the cost to the end-user will also increase quite a bit.

The advantage of Airplay is that it is extremely easy to use, has a fast transmission speed, and has good images and sound by keeping the original file’s quality. However, the weakness is that it can only be used encapsulated in Apple products.

Airplay and Cast?

Both are methods of communication between the speaker and the source device via wifi with Apple’s proprietary AirPlay connection standard and only work on Apple devices (macOS, iOS). Chromecast is used on most devices from iOS, Android, Windows and is quite easy to use with Chromecast sets or Android TV, but for iOS, Chromecast is still quite limited compared to the number of supported apps compared to the Android.

Regarding audio, both Chromecast and Airplay 2 (just introduced on iOS11) can transmit Hi-Res or Lossless Audio data and support multi-room audio over the wifi band. Although it is a strong point, it is also a pretty big drawback when wifi is lost; it certainly can’t hear anything (different from Bluetooth).

In terms of sound quality, it can be called equal with normal music systems hardly discerning the difference.

Most Speakers that support AirPlay are quite expensive compared to the general level of wireless speakers, although with an affordable Chromecast, the quantity is smaller but quite difficult to find.

Comparing AirPlay 2 and Chromecast is like comparing iPhone vs. Android phones; if you’re using iPhone, Airport Express, use Airplay, but it’s simple for most Android, Android, android box, and Chromecast tv. Select speakers that support Chromecast.

Things to keep in mind when choosing a Bluetooth speaker

First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between portable speakers and wireless speakers clearly. Portable speakers are speakers with a compact design that can be carried around. Wireless speakers are also equipped with Bluetooth connectivity but have a larger design, equipped with many internal speakers, often for better sound quality at the same price as portable speakers. In the past, portable speakers usually only had one driver, but manufacturers have equipped more drivers with increasingly developing technology into a compact design for greater capacity and better sound. The sound is more detailed, but the separation is still difficult to be as good as the large speakers.