If all I needed was a great general-purpose wireless speaker for around the house and elsewhere, I'd get the new Big Jambox.
Granted, at $300, it's nearly twice as expensive as its category-defining predecessor. But considering that its sound quality comes close to rivaling much more expensive wireless systems and the fact that you're still getting unparalleled portability and ease of setup, most reviewers say it's well worth the cost. Moreover, the $300 price point puts the Big Jambox right at the upper end of the sweet spot for wireless speakers, making it an attractive choice for those who don't want to pay extra for something like AirPlay, but who still want decent portability (and why else would you have a wireless system?).
Like its smaller cousin, which we still love, the Big Jambox is surprisingly loud, says Gizmodo's Matt Honan. Considering it's three times larger, that's not terribly surprising. What is surprising is that Jawbone once again managed to imbue this still relatively small wireless speaker with big, spatially-open sound. "Oh man, this thing sounds great," says Honan. "Even maxed out, bass sounded smooth and not at all overblown, midranges came through nicely, and high notes sounded like MJ's ghost his own self."
CNET's David Carnoy also liked the Big Jambox's sound. "As you can expect from a speaker that's three times the volume of its little brother, the Big Jambox sounds significantly better, plays much louder and delivers a good deal more bass," he says. "In all, it sounds very good for a small speaker and easily beats out value products like the Soundfreaq Sound Kick." Carnoy does say the speaker has its limitations, particularly the fact that it can sound a little bright or shrill when you crank up the volume. This makes it slightly less sonically impressive than Bose's SoundLink Wireless, but the latter doesn't offer built in speakerphone capabilities. It also only has 8 hours of playback time versus a rated 15 for the Big Jambox.
Michael Calore from Wired says the Big Jambox also easily beats systems like Altec Lansing’s $200 inMotion Air IMW725, both in sound quality and features.
The Verge's Thomas Ricker says it also bests the similarly priced iHome iW1 rechargeable. In fact, the only real competition, aside from the Bose, seems to be the $300 Sonos Play:3. "At this price Jawbone has positioned its Big Jambox against the well-regarded Sonos Play:3 which offers better overall sound," says Ricker. "The only AirPlay speaker available at this price is the poorly reviewed iHome iW1 rechargeable. Of the three, the Big Jambox offers the best balance of design, sound and portability. It's also a vast improvement over the palm-sized Jawbone Jambox in terms of audio quality, though it loses some mobility in the process."
Jump up a step to the $400-600 range, and you may get slightly better sounding speakers, but you're also mostly dealing with multi-room, Wi-Fi and AirPlay systems like the Sonos S5 and B&W Zeppelin Air and the new $400 Sony RDP-XA700IP. With the Jambox though, you already have single-room connectivity (Bluetooth), so you don't need AirPlay or any other fancy wireless protocol. The extra range of Wi-Fi is useless if you're going to be in the actual room you're listen to the speaker in — and why wouldn't you be? Even with its bigger size, none of the latter systems come close to the Big Jambox's portability, either.
So while CNET's Carnoy ultimately thinks the Bose SoundLink is a more portable, better sounding option, we still believe the Big Jambox offers a bit more overall. The fact is the Jambox's sound quality is very, very close to the Bose. And as USA Today's Ed Baig notes, it also pairs fasters, stores more Bluetooth devices, lets you connect two Bluetooth devices at once, lasts longer on battery, lets you use it as a speakerphone, and has a 3-D liveAudio feature for more open and immersive sound.
If you simply want the best sound quality available in a wireless speaker, we recommend either the Bose or the Sonos. But if you want sound that rivals the previous two, while adding a great feature set and better portability, the Big Jambox is where it's at.
