Hi, this is Ethan from NoSleeplessNights.com. And in this review,
I'm going to be talking about the Sangean pillow speaker. This is actually the PS-300 model.
They've got a couple of different ones,
but I like this one because it's very
flat, thin and small, so you can slide it underneath your pillow and listen to your music or your radio, or your podcast quietly in bed without
disturbing your partner. And that's great
if your partner doesn't want to listen to your music or your radio, If they need silence to sleep,
or if they just don't like your choice of music, which obviously happens sometimes. With this one,
you also have an inline volume control so you don't need to alter the volume on your
device on the nightstand. And it has a built-in amplifier,
just to make the music or your radio a little bit louder. It connects with a 3.5-millimeter pin,
so you need a standard headphone jack.
And that means that it will be fine for most televisions and radios, and a lot of smartphones and tablets.
But some of the latest Apple devices will need an adapter now. I think with pillow speakers in general, it's really important to have
reasonable expectations of what you're going to get. I paid $30 for this one
which is obviously a lot less than you would pay for a really high quality speaker or even headphones
The maximum power output of the PS-300 is 50 microwatts, and the speaker itself is just a modest 57 millimeters.
But the idea is that it just plays music quietly. And so it doesn't really need to be a massive speaker.
And so it's relatively cheap, which is obviously a good thing. Now
Let's have a look at the components
closer, and then I'll play some music and some radio through it
so you can listen to it. I'll show you some positioning choices and then give you my final verdict.
So without further ado, let's take a closer look.
I'll try and go through this quite quickly
so it doesn't make the video too long. The pillow speaker is quite small and flat as I already explained. The volume control
which you've got here, and the amplifier off and on. If you do use the amplifier
then you're going to need to open it up and pop in a AAA battery.
But you don't need to use the amplifier. It will work just fine without it.
So let's start with a BBC podcast,
Hear the sound of a podcast or radio. through it.
(the podcast voice says "you can hear the vibrations")
That's true! You can, through the pillow speaker. Now you can hear that the Bass
is slightly distorted with the amplfier on. So you need to be careful. And here's a Mozart piece.
With classical music it tends to sound really nice through the pillow speaker once you get the volume right. Again,
you don't want to put it too loudly. In
Fact, you can turn the amplifier off and turn the volume up with classical music and it sounds pretty good in my experience.
And one final example, if I
can find it.
This is a good example of what happens if you put a song with a little bass through a pillow speaker,
which I'm not going to do for very long.
So if I have it on with no amplifier, it sounds absolutely fine. But if I turn the amplifier on
you can immediately hear that bad things happen to the speaker.
Yeah, you really can't put bass heavy songs through a little pillow speaker. You need to listen to
very quiet music, soft and gentle music, music without heavy bass.
And if you do put songs on with lots of bass,
Then you need to keep the amplifier off or turn the volume right down.
So that's the speaker in action
Now
let's go through to the bedroom and I'll show you some positioning choices, how to set it up and get the best out
of it underneath the pillow.
When you're ready for bed, the basic way to set up the Sangean pillow speaker is really simple.
Just take the cable and plug it into
the headphone jack on your audio device, which you can then pop out the way in the nightstand. Then the pillow speaker itself,
you just slide underneath your pillow,
roughly where you think your head's going to be - at least when you start the night. Then you've got all this cable,
which is great if your nightstand is really far away. But if not,
then you can either drop it into the gap between the mattress and your
nightstand, and then slide the volume control and the cable underneath your pillow.
Or if you prefer to have little cable underneath the pillow with you,
then you can have
the inline volume control over on the nightstand, and work out what to do with all that cable, basically!
Something to bear in mind is that your pillow choice and position makes a difference. If you lie on your side you can generally hear
it - even through a dense pillow.
But if you lie on your back like this, on a thick and dense pillow, you're going to struggle to hear it.
So what I found, if you do have a
particularly huge pillow, is that if you pop the pillow speaker inside the pillow case on top instead,
then you can have it right next to your ear.
And that just means that it's easier to listen to. But obviously, you might find that slightly uncomfortable in the night. In which case, my
recommendation is to get rid of that giant pillow, and find yourself a smaller, lighter or thinner one.
Potentially all three of those things! And then when you lie on your side,
you can hear the music and people talking really nicely through the pillow. And even if you lie on your back
I've found that if the pillow is small enough, and light enough, you can hear talking as well, which is great.
So all in all, I think the Sangean pillow speaker is a useful little device if you want to listen to your music or
radio quietly in bed without disturbing a partner.
And really, I think there's very limited chance that you're going to disturb your partner.
Partly because of that quiet volume, and also because ideally you're going to have it buried underneath your pillow.
I've used it with my partner many times, and even in the night time when she's half asleep and I pull the pillow speaker out
from underneath my pillow to change the position, and the the sound is obviously then in the room,
she doesn't hear it, doesn't wake up at all. It's that quiet.
However, when you have it underneath your pillow and it's a decent sized pillow, it's not too thick or dense,
And you're lying with your ear roughly over the top of the pillow speaker,
then you can hear it nicely. And then you can relax, you can enjoy it, and hopefully fall asleep.
But again, as I said in the beginning, it's important to have reasonable expectations of the sound quality and the volume.
So, thanks for watching, and please subscribe to my Youtube channel to keep in touch with me, and see more reviews.
I'll probably do more pillow speaker reviews in the coming weeks. So you'll also have an opportunity to see what else is out there.
Thanks again. This is Ethan, from No Sleepless Nights.