So this is the JBL Boombox 3, unlike the Boombox 2 which was just a very marginal upgrade from
the original boombox… the boombox 3 looks very different on the outside and its fairly different
on the side as well. Overall, the Boombox 3 is a very solid speaker… but I still wish that
JBL did a few things differently. Nonetheless… if you’re thinking about pickup the Boombox 3,
or upgrading from the Boombox 2 or original boombox… lets see what the Boombox 3 is all about.
Regarding pricing… the Boombox 3 retails for $500. And personally I do find this
a little surprising cause the Boombox 3 is one of the few speakers from JBL that hasn’t
gotten a price increase. Nonetheless, if you want to pick this speaker up,
it’ll be linked down below or you can press on the YouTube shopping button. Just give it a try.
Now first lets talk about the design of this speaker. Now looks wise, the boombox 3 now
has that huge JBL Logo on the front which I know some people just aren’t a huge fan of… but that’s
neither here nor there. But something that’s also a little different on this speaker is its carrying
handle. The carrying handle on the boombox 3 is now metal… now personally I am indifferent about
the look and feel of this carrying handle… but I still wish that the boombox 3 had a shoulder strap
like the Xtreme 3. Now the Boombox 3 is still a portable speaker and its easy enough to take on
the go with you… but it is a noticeably heavier than its predecessors. The Boombox 3 weighs in at
14.7 pounds… where as the Boombox 2 and original boombox weigh in at 13 pounds and 11 and a half
pounds, respectively. And this weight gain on the Boombox 3 is very noticeable. But like I said,
the Boombox 3 is still easy enough to take on the go with you. The only thing that you want
to keep in mind about the cylindrical design about this speaker is that if you throw it
into the trunk of your car… you’re going to have to secure it somehow…. Or else its just going to
roll all around your trunk. But thanks to its mostly fabric wrapped body, the Boombox 3 is
going to have no problem standing up to constant abuse either from rolling around in your trunk,
from bumps, or from scrapes. And in general, the Boombox 3 is a rugged speaker rocking an
IP67 ratting… meaning that its both dust and water resistant. Now both the Original
boombox and Boombox 2 are IPX7 rated… meaning that they’re water resistant… but honestly,
I wouldn’t give this IP rating too much mind, cause all of these speakers are equally as rugged.
JBL is just trying to pad their spec sheet here. Just know that the Boombox 3 isn’t afraid of water
or of a down pour… and don’t push in those passive radiators on the sides… and you’ll be fine.
But now lets talk about tech specs… the Boombox 3 has a 72.6 watt hour battery in it just like the
boombox 2 and this is actually a little smaller than the original boombox which has a 74 watt hour
battery in it. However, all of these speakers have the same advertised battery life of 24
hours… but that advertised battery life on all of these speakers is with these
speakers playing at 50% volume, which is already a good listening volume.
But real world use with the Boombox 3 playing at 80% I have found that it is good for about
8 hours of playback time, the same as the boombox 2. Now I will say that this is a good thing given
that the Boombox 3 has more speakers to drive than the Boombox 2… But I also noticed that the Boombox
3 has a brighter sound signature to it. So this speaker sounds a little louder than the Boombox
2 when they are both playing at 80% volume… but its bass is just as strong as the Boombox 2.
But something that I do appreciate about about the Boombox 3 is that it now charges via an AC port.
theres no longer an external power brick that you have to keep track of with either the Boombox 2
and original boombox. And personally, I do feel that this makes life a little easier cause its
easier to replace this cable if anything happens to it… or if you go to a friend’s
house and you need to charge your speaker, chances are… they will might have one of these cables.
Now when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity… the Boombox 3 is using bluetooth 5.3, but more
importantly, this speaker can be connected to 2 devices at the same time so that you and a
friend can both be DJ, and this speaker has zero latency across the board when watching
movies or videos on your phone whether you using an iPhone or an android device. And when
it comes to audio codecs, unfortunately, the Boombox 3 is still only using SBC.
But if you want to, you can still use a wired connection on this speaker cause it still has
an audio jack. But this now leads us to one of the things that I wish JBL would have done
differently. Unfortunately, the Boombox 3 doesn’t have a USB C port on it that allows you to use it
as a wired connection like on the Xtreme 3… and you can also use it to charge your own devices.
Instead, the Boombox 3 still has a single USB A out port so that you can charge your own devices.
And personally, I think JBL should just get rid of this USB A out port cause most phones these days
come included with USB C cables… and you can’t plug in a USB Stick like you can with some other
speakers out there. But overall, the port set up on the Boombox 3 gets the job done and its
very similar to the port set up on the Boombox 2… but I was really hoping the Boombox 3 would have
dual USB C ports on it that would allow you charge your own devices and use them as wired connection.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with this speaker. Regarding speaker set
ups, both the Original boombox and boombox 2 have dual 4 inch frontward firing woofers,
dual 3 quarter inch frontward firing tweeters and dual passive radiators that shoot out the
sides. Where as with the Boombox 3, this speaker is fairly different. Now the Boombox 3 still has
your exposed dual passive radiators that shoot out its sides… but this speaker now also has
a frontward firing subwoofer. Now this speaker still has a a pair of frontward firing woofers
for the mids… but they are a little smaller coming in at 3.2 inches. But the boombox 3
still has your dual frontward firing 3 quarter inch tweeters… however they’re stacked on top
of the mid range woofers. Now don’t be alarmed, the Boombox 3 doesn’t sound muffled cause its
tweeters are on top of its woofers… but I did find that the Boombox 3 is a little brighter
than its predecessors when running off of its stock EQ. Nonetheless, we’re going to jump into
a soundtest… all of these speakers are playing at 75% volume, both the Boombox 3 and Boombox 2
are playing with their EQ’s and the Original boombox is playing while in its indoors EQ.
So like you may have just heard, sound signature wise, the Boombox 3 does sound a little brighter
than the both the Boombox 2 and original Boombox. The highs on the Boombox 3 are more prominent.
And personally, I am not too surprised that the Boombox 3 has a brighter sound signature than its
predecessors cause all of JBL’s more recent speakers have come with a brighter stock EQ
on them. But thankfully, the Boombox 3 has an adjustable EQ, which is a new feature for JBL
speakers in general. And personally, I like to use this speaker with its Bass raised 2 clicks and its
treble lowered by one click. With this setting, I find this speaker to sound much more balanced. Now
thanks to a recent firmware update, the Boombox 2 also now has an adjust able EQ. Where as with the
Original boombox… you have its indoors mode… or you can use its outdoors mode which is going to
make this speaker sound brighter by lowering its bass and raising its highs. But overall
performance wise, I feel the boombox 3 has very similar instrument separation to the Boombox 2.
Where as the original boombox does sound a little narrower by comparison. But definitely, when used
with the correct EQ settings, the Boombox 3 does have noticeably more bass to it than these other
two speakers thanks to its additional subwoofer. Even its you were to go in and raise the bass on
the Boombox 2 all the way up… its not going to match the Boombox 3. And regarding max volume,
both the Boombox 3 and Boombox 2 have a higher out put than the Original boombox. So at max volume,
the Original boombox is a little quieter than these other two speakers. Now even though the
Boombox 2 and Boombox 3 have similar output ratings for their mid range woofers… since
the Boombox 3 has that additional frontward firing subwoofer… and since it does have a brighter sound
signature… the Boombox 3 also manages to get noticeably louder than the Boombox 2. But with
all of these speakers… if you were to use them while they are plugged in, you are going to get
a noticeable performance boost out of them. They are all going to get a little louder and they’re
all going to have noticeably more bass. But still, even while the Boombox 2 is plugged in,
its not going to get as loud or have as much bass as the Boombox 3. So overall performance wise,
I will say that the Boombox 3 performs better than the Boombox 2… and this is a much larger
performance improvement than what we saw when going from the original boombox to the boombox 2.
However, the performance boost that we are seeing from the Boombox 2 to the Boombox 3 is mostly just
more bass and louder. Instrument separation here hasn’t really been changed… and also keep in mind,
in order to get the best sound quality out of this speaker you have to go in and raise the bass and
lower the treble on this speaker, cause with its stock EQ… it is very bright and a little harsh.
But when used with the correct EQ, the Boombox 3 no longer sounds relatively flat or nasally
at higher volumes, which was an issue an issue for the Boombox 2. The Boombox 3 does
a much better job this time around of linearly increasing its bass as you increase its volume.
But now lets talk about pairing this speaker up with other speakers. The
JBL Boombox 3 is using JBL’s PartyBoost, meaning that you can pair it up to other
JBL speakers that are also using Partyboost like either another Boombox 3, a Boombox 2,
Xtreme 3, Charge 5, Pulse 4, Flip 6, flip 5, or to the up coming Pulse 5.
But unfortunately, you can not pair a Boombox 3 to any of JBL’s older speakers that are using
JBL connect plus. So you can not pair a Boombox 3 to an original boombox,
or an Xtreme 2, charge 5, or Pulse 3 or Flip 4. Now even though this does suck, PartyBoost
does have some benefits over JBL Connect plus. Mainly, you can have a much greater distance
between your speakers… and also, your speakers are much faster to connect to one another.
The only thing that you have to keep in mind here is,
you can not pair your Boombox 3 to any of JBL’s larger Partybox speakers… and also,
if you want to get left and right stereo sound going, you need to have two of the same exact
same speakers. Even if you have a Boombox 3 and Boombox 2 like I do… they will only play in sync.
But overall, JBL’s PartyBoost is my preferred speaker pairing protocol out there. You simply
press on button on each speaker, they sync up, they start playing music, and skipping is not
an issue. If you plan on getting multiple speakers and if you plan on pairing them up
all of the time… then I highly recommend JBL. Plus JBL has a fairly large line up of speakers
to choose from… and for the time being… it looks like their line up is going to continue to grow.
But with all of that being said. Overall, I like and recommend the JBL Boombox 3. Now there are
some things that I don’t like about it like its brighter Stock EQ, I’m also a little disappointed
that it doesn’t have any USB C ports like on the Xtreme 3 that will allow my to both charge my
phone and use it as wired connection, and I still really wish JBL would build in a carrying handle.
But bedsides that, I like and recommend the JBL Boombox 3. Thanks to its higher output,
this speaker gets super loud. Louder than both of its predecessors. And thanks to its additional
frontward firing subwoofer… the Boombox 3 now has more bass than its predecessors… and it also no
longer sounds nasally and flat at higher volumes, unlike its predecessors. I also really like that
the Boombox 3 has an adjustable EQ… a new concept for JBL. And if you do decided to pick up multiple
JBL Speakers to complement your Boombox 3… you have a healthy eco system to choose from.