If you’re looking for a standalone home speaker, going the Bluetooth route is still a great option. The best ones these days all support the Bluetooth aptX, so they’ll stream high-resolution tracks, and they’re so easy to use that we can’t not recommend them. There’s no proprietary app to deal with. Nor is the speaker dependent on the strength of your home’s wi-fi. You just connect and play.
Take Marshall’s Stanmore Bluetooth speaker, for example. It’s a powered Bluetooth speaker — so it’s not portable like a UE Boom or a Bose SoundLink speaker — that looks like the company’s classic guitar and bass amps. You connect via Bluetooth (or via RCA or aux, in case you want to connect the speaker to a turntable or just don’t feel like dealing with Bluetooth) and then there are three tactile knobs for adjusting treble, bass and volume. That’s it. Easy peasy.
The speaker is normally $349 — it’s a very good-sounding speaker — but Amazon Prime members can pick the speaker up for $170 today (black model only). That’s over half off. If you need further convincing, Best Buy has the same speaker on sale for $315 (here), which is nowhere near as good of a deal.
If you haven’t signed up for Amazon Prime, you can do so here.
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