I Miss The Old School Boom Boxes…I Guess Bluetooth Speakers Will Just Do Fine
I love African music. You should check my Spotify playlist you will find a mix of Afrobeats, Kwaito, South African House Music, Zimbabwean music to Kizomba — the one thing I cannot do without is my Bluetooth speaker. I am due to buy another Bluetooth speaker but I am using AJ’s Sony SRS-XB2 and it has been good. So good that I felt compelled to write this article reviewing the best Bluetooth speakers you can buy this year (2017) if you enjoy your music on the go.
BUT FIRST I WILL TAKE YOU DONE MEMORY LANE.
I am feeling a bit nostalgic today so we will talk about one of my favorite music devices, the Boom Box. I feel like Bluetooth speakers are the mini-versions of Boom Boxes. They might not match the Boom Boxes for sound quality, bass and size but there are some Bluetooth speakers that exceed expectations given their size.

In the 80s, boom-boxes reigned supreme. They were the epitome of being cool. Audio giants such as Pioneer made props out of the hip hop community in making ghetto blasters powerful enough to interrupt entire city and neighbourhood blocks. As technology got better, music became personal as services and products just like the Sony Walkman, and your Discman, and also, finally, the Ipod which let people readily roll together with their music .
Jay-z was recently seen on holiday with his family while devoting time to his personal boom-box, officially committing legitimacy into the brand new fad (or is it?). With the summer nearly here, expect the exact same notoriety with them wrapped on your own shoulder.
I digress.
WHY WERE BOOM BOXES SO POPULAR IN THE US?
Its in the name — BOOM! And there came out some loud bass for you to enjoy.
The boom-box was introduced into the US market in the mid-1970s. The urge to have louder and thicker bass contributed to heavier and bigger boxes; and by the 1980s, a few Boom Boxes had reached the exact dimensions of a carry bag. Many boom-boxes ended up battery-operated, resulting in excessively thick, bulky boxes.
The boom-box immediately became synonymous with urban society in the USA, especially among my fellow African-American brothers and the Hispanic youth. The wide utilization of boom-boxes in urban areas caused the boom-box being nicknamed the “ghetto blaster”, a pejorative nickname that was soon utilized as a member of a backlash against the boom-box and hip hop culture.
Mayors and cities petitioned for its banning of boom-boxes from people places but to no avail. Over time they became acceptable on city roads as time improved. Sidewalks or corner street became cool spots to hang out with your Boom-Box.
The boom-box became closely associated with American hip hop culture and has been instrumental in the increase in the popularity of hip hop. In most hip hop or rap videos you would spot a boom box.
The maturation of audio jacks attracted the boom box into the height of its prevalence, and since its prevalence climbed, so did the degree of invention in the features contained from the box. Consumers enjoyed the clarity and sound quality of boom-boxes, but among the very crucial features, notably with the urban youth market, had been that the bass. The urge to have louder and denser bass contributed to heavier and bigger boom boxes. (This really is exactly what got me obsessed together you can hear that the bass out of miles away).
They kept getting bigger and bigger and eventually became bigger to accommodate the increased bass signal; newer Boom-box versions were affixed with hefty Steel casings to deal with the vibrations from the bass. (Those were the days)

BOOM BOX AND AMERICAN HIP HOP CULTURE.
As I already mentioned and as you probably know, the Boombox became intrinsically linked to hip hop culture and, as Fab Five Freddy was quoted saying, the boom box was “instrumental” in the rise and popularity of hip hop music. Certain models like the JVC RC-M90 and the Sharp GF-777 were called the boom box kings, having the power to drown out additional ghetto blasters; they were often utilised in music battles (Recall scenes out of several black american movies?) . The Beastie Boys embraced the Boom Box as a signature, The Clash consistently had a Boom Box with them , and Schoolly D carried to Conion 100cf in Britain.
The 1990s, when I was in my nappies, was a turning point for the boombox in popular culture. The rise of the Walkman and other high level electronics eradicated the requirement to transport around such heavy and large audio equipment, and Boom Boxes quickly disappeared from the roads and sidewalks. As boom-box enthusiast Lyle Owerko puts it, “Towards the end of almost any civilization, you have the third or second creation that measures to the culture, which is indeed not even close to the origination, it’s the impression of what’s real, but it is perhaps not the full definition of what’s real. It’s merely cheesy.”
The Consumer Electronics Association reported that only 329,000 boombox units without CD players were shipped in the United States in 2003, when compared with 20.4 million in 1986.
Sadly, that cool error came by when I was way too young. I only saw these things on TV and came across a few people with them in real life.
LET US TALK ABOUT THE BEST BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS IN 2017.

I feel like Boom Boxes have made somewhat a return but now much more smaller but still somehow producing impressive sounds and BASS in the form Bluetooth speakers.
I am in love with Bluetooth speakers and probably for the same reason why I wished I was a teenager back in the 80s when Boom Boxes were super cool. They look cool, they are loud, last long (some can last up to 3 days on a single charge!) and no more worries about damaging my ears from earphones.
Ah yes, earphones tend to be bad for your ears and I didn’t know that once you lose your hearing it is irreversible! As an an audiophile I cannot risk losing my hearing of beautiful music.
There is so much more music out there for me to enjoy and immerse myself.
Talking about the beauty of music that reminds me of a beautiful story. It is a story about a man who could hear music for the first time ever.
He went onto Reddit and asked:
I can hear music for the first time ever, what should I listen to?
It’s a beautiful post and implore you to read it (the marketing person in me would like to think this is pure genius PR but maybe I am being cynical)
Maybe you are enjoying this article too much so I have included the story here for you to read.
My whole life I’ve seen hearing people make a fool of themselves singing their favorite song or gyrating on the dance floor. I’ve also seen hearing people moved to tears by a single song. That was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around. I was born profoundly deaf and all music sounded like trash through my hearing aids.
That is until a couple days ago when I put on a new pair of hearing aids for the first time in years.
The first thing I heard was my shoe scraping across the carpet; it startled me. I have never heard that before and out of ignorance, I assumed it was too quiet for anyone to hear.
I sat in the doctor’s office frozen as a cacophony of sounds attacked me. The whir of the computer, the hum of the AC, the clacking of the keyboard, and when my best friend walked in I couldn’t believe that he had a slight rasp to his voice. He joked that it was time to cut back on the cigarettes.
That night, a group of close friends jump-started my musical education by playing Mozart, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Elvis, and several other popular legends of music. Being able to hear the music for the first time ever was unreal. I realized that my old hearing aids were giving me a distorted version of music. they were not capable of distributing higher frequencies with clarity, instead it was just garbled gibberish.
When Mozart’s Lacrimosa came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn’t a dry eye in the car.
I finally understood the power of music!
WHAT MUSIC WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO SOMEONE LISTENING TO MUSIC FOR THE FIRST EVER TIME?
I probably would go for an A Capella or a powerful Ballad from someone like Whitney Houston or Phil Collins.
Anyway back to the best Bluetooth speakers you can buy in 2017.
A GUIDE ON HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS THIS YEAR.
I have only included Bluetooth speakers which I believe deliver room-filling sounds or close to it and has some interesting unique features like being waterproof or shockproof.
Perhaps the bluetooth speakers I mention here might not be to your liking. Since I am here to help you choose your mini-boom box, I have put together some things to look out for when choosing a bluetooth speaker. I have left out price because I believe you get what you pay for, if you want the best audio quality while on the move then go get the best bluetooth speaker with the best audio quality PERIOD!
DURABILITY.
I see everything I buy as an investment so I expect them to last. Please note that not all bluetooth speakers are created equal some if taken outdoors will become useless quickly and some you cannot take with you for a swim. If you want your bluetooth speaker to last for a while I suggest you start looking for wireless speakers that are shock and water resistance.
AUDIO QUALITY.
Unless portability are on very top of your priority list, sound quality is overrides it all. Loads of speakers do not offer much in the form of features, but produce audio that is the best around. Significant bass isn’t for everybody (but it is for most people into their music!) , but unless the speaker is still completely miniature, it ought to be giving you some good bass and sounds. For audio quality although hard to describe fully music clarity is more important than absolute power, and also a balanced, blank noise needs to be your goal while looking for Bluetooth speaker.
As blue tooth speakers vary widely in size, they are able to have vastly different variety of drivers indoors. The more compact speakers may just have two drivers however, the bigger ones could get somewhat more. Different-sized drivers can handle diverse frequency ranges. A woofer will manage the low frequencies, therefore in case you prefer bass response keep an eye out to get a speaker having a passionate woofer. Midrange and tweeters will manage the higher and mid frequencies. Concerning sound quality, it is normally better to get a separate driver for each frequency range, in the place of simply fewer drivers performing dual duties.
PAIRING.
Due to their wireless nature any Bluetooth speaker you buy should easily pair with your phone or tablet. Cheap Bluetooth speakers on the market are notorious for having pairing issues so watch out for those!
Be on the lookout for Bluetooth speakers that can pair with 2 or more phones — it stops the fighting over who should connect next and play their favorite music next.
CONNECTIVITY.
Some Bluetooth speakers have blurred the lines when it comes connectivity — they have both Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity and now its confusing how to categorise them. Would you consider Amazon Alexa a Bluetooth speaker or a Voice assistant? Take Apple’s AirPlay that used to be completely separate from Bluetooth and other Android-friendly wireless systems, but now there’s plenty of overlap, and you can find some Bluetooth speakers that do both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. The Libratone Zipp Mini, for instance, doubles as an AirPlay and Spotify Connect speaker. Other speakers, like the JLab Block Party, can be paired together for multi room audio, which is similar to what you get with a speaker like the Sonos Play:1. The Amazon Echo, meanwhile, is primarily a voice-controlled speaker that can work autonomously once it’s connected to your Wi-Fi network; you can just tell it to play music, if you don’t want to stream audio over Bluetooth. These multi-platform speakers sacrifice portability (they just awkward to carry around if you ask me) for their flexibility, however. For more options that aren’t necessarily Bluetooth
VOICE CONTROL
Google search has seen an increase in a number of voice searches so do not be surprised if you start seeing Bluetooth speakers with some sort of voice control function. A number of the very advanced Bluetooth and air-play speakers provide features like gesture and voice controller. The others are harmonious with virtual assistants such as Google Today or Siri. Even though Amazon’s Echo and also Google’s Home may be utilized as speakers, that they have been chiefly virtual assistants, forfeiting sound power for artificial intelligence.
The best thing is to just go into the shop get your phone out > get Spotify or Apple Music or Google Play > Pair up with a Bluetooth speaker you like > Play a couple of songs from different genres. I usually try an Afrobeat song (e.g. Jaiye Jaiye by Wizkid), then a song from Black Motion (e.g. Omo Dudu..it has loads of drums and bass), sometimes AfroGrime (You heard it first from here! — this is Afrobeats fused with UK Grime music), then I will try some A Cappella songs, a bit of Adelle or a Michael Jackson. I am just hearing out for sound quality.
Wow you really are enjoying reading this! Well done.
You can finish up reading the rest of the article on my website:-)
