The Loudest Portable Bluetooth Speaker Of 2016

Agreed, 2017 will be interesting with the introduction of the Diamond box XXL, It's great to see manufacturers competing again for the biggest, baddest portable stereo.

 

I believe bumpboxx is coming up with four new models for 2017 and I believe Retro is involved. So please be patient and see what they come up with. I also think they are doing something about the mono..

 

This is great news, if Retro is involved we might get a decent boxes for once

 

I agree with brother..Retro is way ahead of his time. His ideas are out of this world. Finally the world will get to enjoy his concepts!

 

And it's long overdue, really looking forward to this, just hope they sell them in the uk because upto now i don't think the bumpbox is available in the uk

 

If I had the funds to start up a boombox company. I definitely would want Retro on my team. Them bumpboxx can be shipped anywhere in the world by reaching out to Rob Owens directly but It's going to be really expensive to ship until they establish a distributor there.

 

Thanks for the kind words guys, but so far we have only discussed exchanging Ideas. I do have two models in mind and the renderings are almost complete.

 

I would like to hear his impressions on the The Devialet Phantom (Not portable) and the Thodio iBox.

The Devialet Phantom






Thodio iBox

 

I have never seen the Devialet Phantom before, definitely the XXth century evolution of the "egg" But I remember a crazy discussion of the Thodio boombox on stereo2go back in 2012. I had just registered and there was a guy who was spamming the site with his overenthusiastic comments concerning this model. He was eventually thrown out of the site, as he was acting rather aggressively.

I've read more than once that the Thodio is indeed a quality box (look at the wood!) with a phenomenally good sound. To me, however, a box should also look good: elegant, attractive... you name it. In my opinion, the Thodio lacks these qualities. Also the lack of classical switches, knobs, keys etc makes it less interesting to my retro-mind.

I know I belong in a minority, but I have also mixed feeling for the bumpboxx (why 2 'x' in the name, I wonder?). But the BPBXX is a definite improvement over the look of the Thodio. What fails to impress me in the present bumpboxx design? I find that (1) the brand name is too big; (2) the covers of woofers and tweeters could have been more accurately designed; (3) the net securing the musical source hosted in the hollow space where tape doors used to be back in the days, although an extremely functional element, is not entilrely appropriate to such a badass boombox.

Please take the above observations not as criticim but rather as suggestions. Indeed, all the owners of a bumpboxx have given their unanimous seal of approval concerning the loudnesss and quality of sound, and the convenience of the quality/price ratio. Indeed, I believe that more attention to performance than to design contributed to the lowering of the costs of production, without sacrificing the excellence of the sound.

I think that the bumpboxx project should be encouraged, and I'm looking forward to enjoying the forthcoming artworks by retro. Knowing that he is involved in future bumpboxx releases makes me happy and full of expectations. His ideas are fantastic and his eye for elegant design and finishes almost unique. Chances are that in 2017 we'll get the best of the best

 

Retro, TBH I think the Phantom is more form than function. It's sound is no doubt good but it's plastic chrome shell makes it look like a kitchen appliance IMHO. I'm not sure what I'd do with it. It looks like a modern day Bose Waveform.

The Thodio on the other hand is elegant with it's wood chassis but it's appearance reminds me of a surprised Wall-E character. The luggage handle is entirely out of place for an upscale model.

I have to agree with Samovar above. Let's keep these modern day boomboxes coming and evolving.

P.S. On a personal note, make a work site radio/charger that runs on 18V batteries and has a charger built in, and looks like a vintage 80's one piece. I'm sick of looking at my hideous day-glo orange plastic crap that has a speaker from a "Speak N' Spell" in it.! I'll be the first in line to buy it

 

A couple of interesting concepts above

Thinking practically my guess is that the tooling cost for the Phantom would be way too high for a small company to consider.
In contrast, being wood the Thodio would be well suited for a small production run.

Something that was very noticeable with the introduction of DAB (Dubious Audio Broadcasting) radios in the UK
is that most companies went for retro looks e.g.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/1622...=9045751&device=c&campaignid=726760769&crdt=0

I suspect that this was to keep production costs (NRE) - down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-recurring_engineering

One small injection moulding for the front panel and the rest is wood which has much lower setup costs.

 

Two Aiwas E9 in stereo mode on open space.

 

That does sound loud the Aiwa is growing on me.

 

Honestly, the Bumpboxx and Aiwa Exos 9 were hard to decide between the two.


The Aiwa has everything going for it, size, sound, BT, rechargeable but NO handle and NO FM radio just doesn't work for me.

The Bumpboxx has all the same things going for it but has a handle and FM radio. Things about the Bumpboxx that are not good to me is the sheer size of it is so impractical for taking anywhere. Just plain MASSIVE. The cargo net on the front, come on - there were no other good ideas for that? Another thing that bothers me are the style of tweeters and woofer grills. They look like just trunk speaker box grills with the 4 plastic tabs holding it on. Yuck.

Luckily the tweeters can be changed, the woofer grills can be changed to a hidden fastener 2 piece grill, and the cargo net can be removed and the pocket area modified. You can even do a new vinyl wrap for the box if you want to change the style.

I went with the bumpboxx because even though there are cosmetic things I don't like, those can easily be changed and who gives a heck if the bumpboxx is BIG, I can't wait to scare people with it.

 

I totally like the diamond box and if Retro is going to be involved in the next project for sure is going to look great.

 

Well, I might have to re-nig on some of my comments about Bumpboxx vs Exos9. The bumpboxx does look better as far as going retro is concerned but the FM radio doesn't work at all (on any of them). Yeah it gets louder, but the bumpboxx is mono not a true stereo sound, which I knew before I purchased. It would sound considerably better if it was separate L/R audio.

If there is no FM, the bumpboxx looks better, doesn't sound as good as the Aiwa but is louder, and the bumpboxx has a handle. I'm to the point where part of me wishes I went with the Exos 9 and added my own handle. Maybe I just need them both.