Why Bluetooth Speakers Suck

...for serious listening. I had to add that caveat because not all bluetooth speakers suck, and it depends on why you're listening. If you're tooling around the house or cooking a Christmas turkey, then there are quite a few bluetooth speakers that will fit the bill of supplying decent music reproduction even for a closet audiophile. What bluetooth speakers do suck at is producing audio that can be tolerated for more than a few minutes if your intent it to simply listen to the music.

Why? There are very few, some would argue no, bluetooth speakers that can accurately produce sound worth sitting down to listen too if listening is your primary intent. The primary reason is bass response. With most small speakers having a maximum size of 2.5-3 inches there is NO way you'll get even a remotely decent bass response. This is simply a matter of physics. A speaker that small cannot move enough air to create satisfying bass. Some companies, looking at you Bose, trick your ears into thinking you're getting really decent (debatable) bass from their tiny speakers but in fact you're only hearing one low frequency note. Every low note is the same. Not literally because they will still push the higher end of that note to make you think you're hearing the entire pitch but you're brain is really doing all the heavy lifting to make you "think" you're hearing different low notes. Now there is nothing wrong with this, if you're cooking the aforementioned turkey.

Are there any good small speakers?
There are several decent sounding bluetooth speakers you can pick up for casual listening. But if you want to get the complete sound the artist intended you to hear there is no escaping getting at least a pair of 2 or 3-way bookshelf speakers or a pair of small tower speakers. If you don't have the space there are some reasonably priced in-ceiling speakers that could do in a pinch. So go get your turkey speaker, (ah, that didn't come out right) and pick up a pair of bookshelf speakers for when you really want to hear your favorite song.

 Click to see some good bluetooth speakers
Click to learn more about 2 and 3-way Speakers.