JBL - Xtreme 2 Portable Bluetooth Speaker - Black

This speaker is not for you if you are looking for a party speaker or are looking for quality sound. Lemme back up...I have owned a Jawbone Big Jambox for about 5 years now, which is a discontinued speaker that looks like a brick. It was a fantastic purchase, very solid, with huge sound and a ton of bass. I mounted it on the front of my bicycle in such a way that I could access it easily and play music via bluetooth from my phone while biking for fun and while commuting. Many people have commented on how great that speaker sounded. The bass would reverberate through the handlebars, and you could "feel" the bass easily. I recently decided to upgrade to a larger, and presumably louder speaker, since the Big Jambox is discontinued and I assumed technology had advanced in the five years since I bought it. After reading a number of reviews, I purchased the JBL Extreme 2 recently. Bad decision. I built a mount for it for my bike on which to solidly place the Extreme 2, and I have now taken it for a spin on my bike three times, and have done a number of sound tests, and I am sadly very disappointed. I almost never write reviews for products or contact the manufacturer, so this is something new for me. The issue is that at higher volumes, the sound of this device is nothing like what I expected. Indoors, it sounds fantastic. The bass is great, and it really is a fantastic speaker in small enclosed spaces, so no complaints there. But at top volume outside, it is actually quieter than the Big Jambox at top volume, and that is a 5 year old speaker that is much smaller and half the weight. Now, the bass at lower levels is great on the Extreme 2 indoors. But when you slide the volume up from about 60% to anything approaching 100% on an iPhone, for example, the bass disappears, and the sound starts to become muddy. It's as though they purposefully nuked the bass at higher volumes. The speaker loses all punch. This is not something that can be rectified by changing the EQ or other settings; believe me, I have tried. For me it's important that the speaker be at least as loud and as clear as the old Big Jambox I bought. What I have discovered looking around is that JBL seems to have halved the output on the battery from 40 watts to 20 watts when using a battery... I guess in order to save overall battery life? For me this would have been an important thing to know when I purchased the speaker, as 20 watts overall is what the Big Jambox put out I think. I upgraded to the most recent firmware 1.9. A number of folks on the interwebs have said that yes, the update to 1.9 made some sound changes, but that the original JBL Extreme was louder even without the updates, so it's not just me. I contacted JBL with these specific complaints before writing the review...they say an update is coming, but don't discuss if this will address my issue, and they recommended returning it, which I (sadly) did. They had no real answers to my questions, although they did get back to me quickly. Bottom line is, if you are looking for a party speaker or a speaker with good sound for outdoors, this speaker is definitely NOT for you.

I have the JBL Charge 3 and the JBL Boombox as well as this JBL Xtreme2 and they all serve their purposes for me. The charge 3 is for personal on the go music (kayaking/biking), the boombox is for larger louder outdoor gatherings. The Xtreme2 is truly the best dynamic/full/clear sounding speaker, it's exceptional for listening to moderate to low volumes, where most personal speakers fail. We use it mostly indoors or outside on the deck if it's just my wife and I. You can actually hear the stereo separation which is unusual for these small speakers. The Unit is well built, nice looking (IMO), and lasts a very long time per battery charge. ALSO NOTE: I returned the first one I bought because I did the firmware update (which you can not revert back from) on the original Unit. This, IMO ruined the beautiful sound. I confirmed with Best Buy that you cannot go back to the original firmware once updated, and was advised to return the unit if I was unhappy with it, which I did. I then purchased another unit and left it alone, no updates, and it is now my favorite, best sounding bluetooth speaker ever. Although some people say the Xtreme2's volume doesn't go loud enough, I believe it's plenty loud, and NEVER distorts even at full volume. If I need Louder Volume, I have the Boombox for Ultra Loud Volumes, but It's the Xtreme2 that gives the most true, clear, full sound, and is the most used speaker of my JBL family.

Ok, so I was looking for a good Bluetooth speaker to keep in the bathroom, i didn't care much about if it was waterproof but that's a good perk, I was thinking very very hard about this because I heard that the Xtreme 1 had more bass and that was my initial intent to buy, but i heard the battery had issues on them plus we about to go into 2019 and i don't want no outdated 5 year old used speaker (most are about refurbished or like new) so i looked into this bad boy the Xtreme 2, and i must admit i love the design, the color, the weight is pretty heavy but that what you would expect from the size of the Xtreme anyway, the step below this was the charge 3 and that to me was a joke. For some reason, JBL decided to focus more on battery with this or there newer model bluetooth speakers than actual sound quality, and sometimes with the Xtreme 2, i don't feel the bass like I would with my Onyx studio 3. The only reason why i decided to keep it was because its a newer model and its %100 water proof where as the Xtreme 1 was water resistant but still can take a few decent splashes. Now if u leave this thing plugged it then WOW. Can feel it through wall, The bass is increased and the sound is louder, but on battery not to impressed with how they cut sound quality to preserve battery life. They did do a update for it which you have to do through an app but it didnt help it much, still sounds good but not great. I wished they would make it to where it has a option to how you want to hear you're music, like playing it louder but u sacrifice battery life, those little options means alot when you only use it for only a few minutes a day. Still a good speaker with a decent punch.

I will be using my current UE megaboom as a comparison as it’s been a great speaker for the last 2+ years. First off I would like to make very clear that this speaker does not output the rated RMS when on battery mode. It seems to have caught a lot of people out like it did me. When I first plugged the speaker in I was happy with its output. I then took it to the beach and it felt like it was a lot quieter. After further investigation I noticed that output is halved in battery mode which explained the lack of power. So let me explain the differences Extreme 2 has only 20w RMS compared to the UE megaboom 36w RMS in cordless mode. Extreme 2 uses a proprietary AC power cord and power supply to charge which means no boost charging with a power bank or charging from phone chargers when you are not near power. Extreme 2 is considerably bigger than the Megaboom. Extreme 2 has to be pointed towards your listening area to get the full sound unlike the 360 sound of the UE megaboom. Extreme 2 has only a 15hr battery compared the the megaboom 20hr. Extreme 2 has exposed driver vulnerable to damage in back packs or just around the pool. Def not young kid safe as they like to poke them. Extreme 2 has worse Bluetooth range than the megaboom. I can’t walk down to the ocean with my phone with megaboom (50ft) and I get about (30ft) with the extreme 2 Extreme 2 costs twice what the UE megaboom costs. Not very good value for money. Extreme 2 warranty is only 1 year compared to UE’s 2 years. Extreme 2 does have slightly better bass output which I like but it has way too many downsides to make up for that. Conclusion. If you want a hard wired speaker to use in your home it might be a good option for around $200 retail. The Apple homepod would be a vastly better option at $300.

Yes this is not a tiny speaker, but then isn’t that the point here. There are a multitude of tiny portable BT speakers on the market, but for a mid size yet still very portable speaker this is awesome. I have used it several times over the past month while working at a rental property. The speaker fills the whole house and plenty loud enough when a great song comes on the playlist. I love that this speaker doesn’t need WiFi to connect like so many others in this size. Simply turn on with a touch of the power button and away you go. It automatically connects to the last device synced. On a full charge it has lasted up to a week at mid volume. Twice I have had to use the charge feature for my phone and have absolutely loved that. Just plug your phone into the USB port on back and it will charge while jamming to music. This BT speaker is well worth the price. I am even thinking of buying another speaker as this speaker will also link with the full line of JBL speakers. Add as many speakers together as you want by linking them via BT. Very cool!!

So I have bought a lot at Best Buy, I'm an employee, so when I needed a speaker I did a lot of asking around to see what everyone recommended. Almost everyone recommended JBL for sound quality and price and they were right. The price is a little steep but this speaker is everything I ever wanted. It pairs seamlessly to all types of phones (pixel, samsung and iPhone). It also can connect up to 100 other JBL speakers to it which means a lot of sound. It's called Daisy pairing and it works, I have connected 5 other JBL speakers to it (a clip, a charge and 2 flip 4's) during a bonfire. The sound is insane! I've had this sucker up all the way on every level and it didn't even inkle to blow and wasn't distorted in the slightest.

This Xtreme actually sounds like a real speaker unlike the original Xtreme 1 with the harsh treble and boosted bass at 75hz. The sound quality is night and day between the two, much better highs, mids and lows (if you like real, deep bass). Xtreme 2 = balanced, accurate sound (hifi even) with deep bass (great for indoors and outdoors) Xtreme 1 = boomy, boosted upper bass with harsh treble (which makes it more suitable for outdoors) The only con about the Xtreme 2 is that it's not as loud as the original (loud enough though with zero distortion) I also had the Bose Revolve Plus for a year and I tried 20+ other bluetooth speakers since, but none came close to beating it except for the Xtreme 2.

These things sound great! After owning one for a little while, I decided to get a second Xtreme 2 to take tailgating and use around the house. It's nice that you can connect other JBL speakers together. The sound is amazing, has nice bass. The battery is great, it will last all day on a charge, no problem. I used it at the beach for several hours a day, 4 days in a row on a single charge, still had some juice. It's very durable. Again I used it at the beach for several days, just tossed it on the sand and it did a good job of keeping the sand out of its small crevices. I even got a little tipsy one day and tossed it in the pool while playing music to test out its water resistance, worked like a charm.