Portable speaker recommendations

Lestratcaster

Looking for something small-ish I can transport, but not sacrifice on sound quality. Seen a few portable speakers with tinny rubbish frequency response, needs to be something I can play guitar along to and still hear it, yet won't break the bank.

Bluetooth is obviously the new thing but I would like something with an aux 3.5mm input facility, though I'd expect most of them to have this anyway?

Suggestions welcome.

Phil_aka_Pip

How portable? Pignose portable or just more-than-FullStack portable? Active, passive? Mains or battery?

Lestratcaster

Phil_aka_Pip said:

How portable? Pignose portable or just more-than-FullStack portable? Active, passive? Mains or battery?

Something I can carry in my bag, I do a few home teaching guitar lessons now so I have to take something to allow us to play to audio, enough for 2 guitars to be heard, but don't want the big ass setup of monitors that I normally use in my teaching room.
Passive preferably, as I said just loud enough to play guitars over, and I can use it at home too if I want to listen to music around the house. They have a mains supply there so can use that.

Phil_aka_Pip

I used to take a Marshall MS-2 Micro-Stack in the long past days when I did home visits. Customers usually had their own stereos for the Rockschool CD. An alternative might be a Yamaha THR which will presumably accept a digitised source (do they do Rockschool on a USB stick?) and a guitar.

EDIT: having audio gear at home (incl turntable & records) for the demonstration of riffs & techniques was one excuse I gave for not doing home visits. I used to say all my teaching resources are at home and not very portable. Natch, the other reason was the cost time and hassle of travel, which I wanted to avoid.

Lestratcaster

I have a Roland Microcube amp that has an aux input I could try but I don't know how good it will sound. They have mp3's for Rockschool that I put on my ipod but its not bluetooth so I have to use an aux lead. 

I try not to do many visits but these are young children who can't travel or parents can't be arsed to take them to my house. I too have to say that because I have to travel I can't take everything with me. But if its the choice between a bit of agg and losing work I know what I'd choose.

Fretwired

I have one of these .. Boss eBand JS-10 - two guitar inputs, guitar modelling, stereo backing track playback and much more .. great sounding unit. Plays music as well. About £280.

Website: https://www.boss.info/uk/products/eband_js-10/

Snags

If it's just for the aux audio and not for the guitar(s) as well then the Anker (yeah, yeah, fnarr-fnarr) bluetooth speakers are stupidly good for the money.

I got one so Mrs Snags could listen to podcasts from her phone around the place without needing earphones, and it has ended up being our portable hifi for holiday etc. (music on an SD card on the phone/laptop, bluetooth to the Anker).

I doubt it would handle two guitars + aux audio, though, and if your lessons/whatever are done "at volume" it might not have enough oomph. Easily loud enough to make talking over it a pain, though.

Link to Amazon

Lestratcaster

Fortunately at the moment both people I do the visits for are acoustic guitar learners so no need for plugging any guitars in at the moment. But if in the future someone wants me to visit and they're playing electric it could prove handy.

Its solely for playback really but once 2 guitars are playing you can't really hear the audio well on smaller speakers.

munckee

My THR5 has 3.5 aux input and you can use as an ipod speaker and then plug your guitar in and play along, I can't see why your cube couldn't do that. although THR is stereo so might not get the greatest sound, give it a whirl.  If not get a THR, can run on batteries, many batteries though I believe, never tried it.

Snags

I've used the Anker to play backing tracks whilst then playing electric through a Fly 3, but admittedly not hammering it. It projects surprisingly well.  I'll have a fart about over the next few days if I get a chance, or if you're nearby (Herts) you're welcome to give it a whirl. I guess it depends whether you need the music to come over the guitar, or to balance with it, or sit under it ...

Lestratcaster

Snags said:

I've used the Anker to play backing tracks whilst then playing electric through a Fly 3, but admittedly not hammering it. It projects surprisingly well.  I'll have a fart about over the next few days if I get a chance, or if you're nearby (Herts) you're welcome to give it a whirl. I guess it depends whether you need the music to come over the guitar, or to balance with it, or sit under it ...

I want to hear the music well enough to keep in time and for the harmony to be heard, etc. The bass response of the Microcube sounded a bit crap when I last tried it, though.

stimpsonslostson

I've got an Anker Soundcore Mini.
Bluetooth, aux etc. Sounds splendid for something SO small & portable. It'll go loud enough to down out my kids or to compete with my acoustic playing. Battery life is excellent. 
Cheap too! 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluetooth-Anker-SoundCore-Portable-Playtime-Black/dp/B01HTH3C8S

57Deluxe

Fender Frontman 10 but get a used 15r

Lestratcaster

57Deluxe said:

Fender Frontman 10 but get a used 15r

An amp with an aux in function? Seeing as I already have a Microcube that can do that it’s sorta the same thing.

57Deluxe

/\ yes indeed -- but is a good speaker for Bass response and can be had cheap used...

front panel spec:

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/239233/Fender-Frontman-15g.html?page=6#manual

Lestratcaster

I’m going to give the Microcube a go first, they said they’re happy to invest in some form of Bluetooth speaker but it’ll be some crappy cheap one which they can’t hear.

Lestratcaster

So they went ahead and bough the Anker Soundcore Bluetooth speaker

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker-SoundCore-Dual-Driver-Distortion-Microphone/dp/B016MO90GW/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1528140816&sr=1-3&keywords=anker+speaker+bluetooth

I've just done a lesson at the house and we tested it out with Spotify tunes and stuff. I'm quite impressed by its volume projection! For such a small device its surprisingly quite decent and allows acoustic guitars to be played along to it. ANd its got an aux in function which is a bonus.

I'm quite impressed so much I may just pick one up myself for listening to music around the house and any further home visits!

Snags

See!  See!

I had a similar reaction when I got mine. Tested it out expecting it to be pretty tinny, and was very impressed.

fandango

Has the OP considered a Vox? E.g the Vox VX series. Comes in 15w and 30w flavours.

Lestratcaster

Snags said:

See!  See!

I had a similar reaction when I got mine. Tested it out expecting it to be pretty tinny, and was very impressed.

I looked on Amazon and there seems to be 3 different speakers, with 3 different prices, the one they had was the £40 version, so I wonder what the extra £10 for the next one up would get me in terms of features? Better bass response perhaps?

Snags

More noise, I think - they seem to run 6W, 12W, 20W as you go up the range.