Buying guide: The best Bluetooth speakers under Rs 20,000

Best Sound Quality 

Bose Soundlink Mini is ahead of the competition when it comes to Sound Quality.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Bose Soundlink Mini is the best of these in terms of pure audio quality. But what will surprise you is the bass.

Compact Bluetooth speakers usually don’t have good bass output, but the Soundlink Mini excels at low and mid-range frequencies. Other speakers in this range offer “TerraBass”, “bass booster”, and other such buttons that artificially amplify the bass, but the Bose’s clean sound wins easily.

If you have a keen ear, just don’t bother with the rest and get the Soundlink Mini. The audio quality alone makes up for its misses.

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The best of the rest, in order:

JBL Voyager: The Voyager came the closest in matching up to the Soundlink, especially when you consider its secondary sub-woofer dock system; but that’s not what you’ll travel around with. Still, we loved how the Voyager filled a room, doing as good a job as the Soundlink Mini, if not better.

Sony SRS X55: The SRS X55 is a good set of speakers, unfortunately outclassed by the Voyager and Soundlink Mini. You won’t be disappointed with it. But once you listen to the Soundlink Mini, you’ll wonder why this costs the same amount of money.

Creative Sound Blaster Roar: There isn’t much to differentiate the X55 and the Roar apart from the volume. The Roar sounds fine, but our problem is the volume. If you turn it up all the way, it starts cracking, and that’s a no-no.

Best Speakerphone 

Sony’s SRS X55 was clearly the king for hands-free phone calls.

While it’s not in the same class as the Soundlink Mini and the Roar, there was one audio area where the X55 was clearly the king: hands-free phone calls. If your phone is connected to the speakers and you want to use it to answer calls, the X55 is the best at picking up your voice. Just tap a button, answer your call, go back to listening to music. Simple!

None of the other speakers were particularly good at picking up our voice across a room, or if a window was open. The idea of Bluetooth speakers is that you just need it somewhere in the room you are in, that you don’t need to sit next to it to be heard. Apart from the X55, none of the others did this well.

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The best of the rest, in order:

Creative Sound Blaster Roar: The one-tap call button is replicated in the Roar, but it can’t pick up your voice well. Additionally, the Roar has a peculiar problem. It can connect to two devices at a time. That’s fine if both devices aren’t phones, but in case they are, the Roar can’t interrupt music playing from Phone A if Phone B gets a call. It’s not a big deal, but we did miss a couple of calls because of that.

JBL Voyager: Again, since it can’t pick up your voice well, it defeats the purpose. The Voyager also was more susceptible to ambient noise than the others.

Bose Soundlink Mini: It does not support hands-free calls, so it can’t be used as a speakerphone. Boo!

Best Battery Life 

Creative’s Sound Blaster Roar lasts around 8-8.5 hours.

Creative’s Sound Blaster Roar and Sony’s SRS X55 both lasted for about 8-8.5 hours of continuous music playback, in our tests. However, as noted in our review, the X55 sacrifices volume for battery life, while the Roar roars on.

The best of the rest, in order:

Sony SRS X55: 8-8.5 hours
Bose Soundlink Mini: 7 hours
JBL Voyager: 5 hours

Best Home Speakers 

JBL Voyager is a great speaker to have for the home as well.

It’s tough to choose between the Soundlink Mini and the JBL Voyager here, but we would still give it to the Soundlink Mini. Honestly, that’s not anything against the Voyager. In fact, its ability to act as a speakerphone goes in its favour. But the Soundlink Mini’s audio quality is not to be messed with.

The best of the rest, in order:

JBL Voyager: Really, this is a great set of speakers and there are plenty of reasons to choose it over the Soundlink Mini. For starters, the fact that you can detach the Bluetooth speaker from the main unit, and carry around this lighter speaker from room to room, is a huge benefit. And then there’s the speakerphone too. Buy it, you won’t regret it.

Roar / X55: These are both more travel speakers than home speakers, so we wouldn’t recommend either when you have the Voyager or Soundlink Mini in the same range.

Best Travel Speakers

The Sound Blaster Roar is compact and the lightest of the lot. Plus, the Roar comes with a microUSB port, which can be used to charge the device. It won’t be as fast as the regular DC input, but when you’re moving around, that obviously matters a great deal.

Its ability to connect to multiple devices makes it wonderful to use at an outdoor party, and its long battery life seals the deal as the best travel speakers in this lot.

And as a bonus, it can charge other phones and tablets too!

The best of the rest, in order:

Sony SRS X55: Sony’s speakers come very close to the Roar and it’s really the microUSB charger that wins it for the Roar. No one wants to carry around one more travel charger, right?

Bose Soundlink Mini: The Mini is actually light, compact and has great battery life, which makes it fantastic to carry around.

JBL Voyager: Don’t even think of this one for a travel speaker. That subwoofer dock needs to sit in one place, not be lugged around.