Full
metal speaker.
Finding
the right balance when making a Bluetooth speaker is tricky; make it
too heavy and you lose portability, but make it too light and it
won't be able to support decent drivers. From all the small speakers
we've reviewed over the years, we've found that, regardless of size,
weight is a good indicator of quality, so here's a speaker that
doesn't try to conceal the fact that it is heavy. We test the Jam
Heavy Metal.
The
Jam Heavy Metal Bluetooth Speaker is just eight inches long, but
because of a gloriously tactile anodized aluminium body, it weighs
slightly more than your average Bluetooth boom box of this size. But
before you dismiss it as a pain to lug around (if indeed portability
is what you look for in a Bluetooth speaker), wait – because it
sounds hot-damn fine.
First up, it looks great, with the metal casing wrapping all the way around the top, sides, and bottom. On the front and rear faces there is a grill, because the speaker can blast out tunes in 360 degrees, while on top there is also a fairly conspicuous array of control buttons. It charges via the included USB cable, has an aux-in port for wired connections, and also boasts a mic so it can be used as a speaker phone when connected to your phone. Also, the Jam logo is as subtle as logos get, which means if you hate your tech plastered with names and symbols, this is great.
The
built-in battery lasts for eight hours of continuous playback,
something we can confirm to be spot on. Also, the publicised charge
time of about three hours is pretty conservative, as we found, after
the first full drain, that it was charged up in just over two. When
you first switch it on a clear and very realistic voice will tell you
it is in pairing mode, and again when the speaker has paired to a
device. We thought the voice was pretty sexy, but then again we
always fall for computers we female voices.
Right,
the sounds. The speaker has a total output of 20 Watts which, again,
is pretty good for a speaker of this size. The dual drivers and dual
passive bass radiators work well to produce awesome room-filling
sounds. The bass particularly is very impressive, resonating well
through every surface we placed the Jam Heavy Metal upon. All genres
of music sounded very good, as did podcasts, audio books and the few
calls we took via it.
The
Jam Heavy Metal Bluetooth Speaker performed like it was a much
larger, far more expensive bit of kit, so for that alone we can
excuse a little extra weight in our bags as we carry it.
£119