Inateck BP2001 Bluetooth speaker: The metalhead sysadmin's choice? Not exactly

The Inateck BP2001 is a 2 x 5W Bluetooth enabled portable stereo speaker. It's reasonably stylish in design, easy to use, has a slot on top where your mobile device sits and charges via standard micro-USB. It's a reasonably good catch at £50, although the Inateck website will direct you to Amazon where you can buy it for under £ …

[Anonymous Coward]

my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

it's small, very powerful and clear audio, sounds great via BT (not tried the NFC)the battery last for ages!

the rrp for my red one is around £90, but I found it a Luton Airport Dixons for £70

caution: there are some BT speakers around that only work when you securely d/l an app from a weird website, spend 24hours trying to match your speaker with your device, then give-up! (that was another Sony!)

but the SRS-X2 is foolproof - has memory for a handful of devices - just needs a BT pairing.

(Has been tested with the likes of "Washington Bullets" from Sandinista!, "E Lucevan le Stelle" from Kaufmann/Tosca and even works with Steve Allen/LBC at the breakfast table, delivering a smooth patois of the misdeeds of 'clebs, you feel like you're in Leicester Square)

[dogged]

Re: my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

I know Sony are hard up at the moment but is this new quality of their advertising?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

An opinion is not an advert! most of my mates worked at Philips where they had a big "SONY IS OUR ENEMY" poster in their factory. I have been looking for a BT speaker for 6 months, after a detailed analysis of the mostly shit & overpriced products (including the Sony SRS BT M8 avoid!) I was surprised to find the (my) perfect speaker SRS-X2, not made in Eindhoven. I've never yet found the Inateck BP2001 on my travels, but I'll check it out when it surfaces.

[dogged]

Re: my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

> An opinion is not an advert!

Yeah, it is. Trevor's reviewed a product. Rather than comment on the product you give us a sales spiel about an entirely different product and never once mention the review.

[Alan Brown]

Re: my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

"...most of my mates worked at Philips where they had a big "SONY IS OUR ENEMY" poster in their factory"

My experience a lot of the time is that Philips can produce good products but often choose not to (by design, not by build quality) especially in the consumer ranges(*). That said, they do tend to be reliable.

That poster explains a lot of the apparent philips mentality.

(*) Just about every item Philips sell has some form of "crippled" in one area or another. It's as if Philips don't want to produce a good "allrounder" most of the time. Often you'll find that regional variants of the same product have the "crippled" part enabled, but another section is dutifully nobbled instead.

[BasicChimpTheory]

Re: my favourite is the Sony SRS-X2

@AC (OP)

"sounds great via BT (not tried the NFC)"

The NFC is typically just used for pairing/connecting, the data transfer still occurs via BT. Just bonk and play (as they say in the classics) - no need to pfaff about in menus.

[jelaft]

"My music tastes run more towards jazz, classic rock, and neoclassical music"

Taste? It doesn't mean what you think it means :-)

[dogged]

Yes it does. de gustibus non est disputandum.

Or in English - "criticizing the taste of others only means you're a dick".

[David Given]

No, that's 'si reprehendis, deinde Ricardum es'.

[Michael Dunn]

@dogged

The "est" is superfluous - perhaps you haven't read much Tacitus?

[dogged]

Re: @dogged

The "est" is for emphasis and I've been trying to forget Tacitus for nearly thirty years.

[Plastic Trog]

Is this the same as the TECEVO S100 also on Amazon? They look identical although the TECEVO is 9 quid cheaper.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is art!

"If you present me with Josh's music, it sounds like someone has passed the output of the Arecibo radio telescope through a MIDI synthesizer at high speed and overlaid it with the vocal stylings of a very angry man simultaneously gargling and being strangled."

Brilliantly prosed.

BTW, your mention of rails cars reminds me of the album by Loscil 'Sketches from New Brighton' where recordings of rail cars do feature IIRC. It is a very good album if you like various forms of esoteric electronica. Which I do.

Btw - I assume the Apple gear being Josh's? I can't see you, Mr Pott, using an iPhone or an iPad. Or are these stock images?

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: This is art!

I do, in fact, own an iPad Mini Retina. I even used it on the plane during last week's trip to Austin for Spiceworld to watch some Primeval New World, if you would believe it.

Like it or not, iOS is a major operating system and I am called upon to review iOS-based applications more and more. Thus I need to have one. I even - $deity help me - am beginning to appreciate certain aspects of it. It's a hell of a better design, physically, than any Android or Windows tablet I've ever used.

Even is the OS is pants.

[Bruce Hockin]

AKA Tecevo S100

And can be had on Amazon for less than £20!

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Re: AKA Tecevo S100

Or one badged "Aukey" for £17.

Interestingly, the Tecevo S100 claims NFC connectivity, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: AKA Tecevo S100

I guess they're all using the CSR BC5 chipset http://www.csr.com/products/16/bluecore5-multimedia

just need someone to start pulling the various boxen apart and see who are using real speakers and who are using "Bose" 'special quality' type...don't sue me!

[Alan Brown]

Re: AKA Tecevo S100

Don't knock Bose too much. The original designs were based around psychoacoustic modelling and being able to produce high transients without excess power wastage.

They sound good for particular environments and particular music, which happens to cover about 80% of the scenarios. In that respect they work better than 95% of the items which masquerade as "speakers" or "sound systems" out there (anything which advertises output as "PMPO" is best avoided in my experience)

Mines the one with B&W801Ms in the pockets.

[Fr. Ted Crilly]

Re: AKA Tecevo S100

No no no. Mine has an Intertrode BlueCore® 8630 chipset, dunno what you've been digging into.

Ah theres me swingline....

[Frenchie Lad]

Help!

You shouldn't be even looking at this if you value your ears! Anything BT that's not got apt-x is just a waste of money. You should be playing cymbals music and then listen how it sounds. Cheap; so is lighting up a fag with a £10 note.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Help!

Agreed. Without APT-x it's like going back to 96kbps MP3's again.

Mind you at the prices mentioned above I'd be tempted to use it and skip the bluetooth bit and use a cable...

[Martin]

Re: Help!

"You should be playing cymbals music and then listen how it sounds..."

So, for a hi-hat solo (as I once saw performed by Max Roach), it might be a bit naff - but for most normal music it'll be pretty OK, right?

Look - ff we were talking about a box that costs over a ton, your argument might hold some weight. But this thing is fifty quid.

[thomas k.]

Why bother with the BT?

If you're wandering around your space with your device in your pocket, then, sure.

But as this product, specifically, has that 'groove' to hold your device, why not just connect through the 3.5mm Aux jack? That should save battery use on both by not using the BT radio on either and provide better audio fidelity.

I say that as owner of a similar (if much more diminutive and less expensive) item.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why bother with the BT?

I upgraded to the BT wireless speaker when my trusty XMI X-Mini vacuum-capsule speaker - with 3.5mm jack plug - recently completely refused to do anything. Doesn't charge, doesn't light, doesn't emit sound. It is just outside the 1 year refund window. On Amazon the mini wired-amps get 4K positive reviews and several hundred "it just stopped working" with XMI not interested in the seeming 5% failure rate.

I'm sure I could shame my BT wireless speaker manufacturer into some sort of repair, should it also fail, and the cost/quality ratio impresses me more than the XMI.

[stucs201]

Portable speakers?

Old Panasonic radio cassette player. Couple of quid for a headphone to twin phono cable to connect to iPod. Tape deck makes a reasonable 'docking space'. Runs forever on a set of D-cells when it doesn't have the tape motors to run.

I'll replace it when it breaks - that might be never given how long its lasted so far.

[Morten_T]

Symphony of complexity

So, what are some of the bands that Josh listens to? Sounds like I might like them :)

[prodiG]

Re: Symphony of complexity

For my tests, I immediately set out to see how it handled low tones and bass lines. I suspected that a device that small with that little amount of juice wouldn't be the best at it, but I also know that consumer-level stuff like this sometimes likes to crank up the bass so stuff like RnB/modern pop artificially sounds better (looking at you, Beats by Dre).

I started with some Fleshgod Apocalypse and Vader which mostly confirmed that suspicion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAyR_wS1kxY & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT5_NrPbRYA

I wanted to see how it handled more of a mix of sounds, so I threw Sons of Winter and Stars by Wintersun at it. The track includes a lot of traditional melodic death metal - screams and growls, power chords and double bass but mixes it in and progresses through several orchestral sections as well as some choir and clean vocals. It handled all but the lows reasonably nicely, but with the bass player of metal band and the kick drum almost constantly going, a decent chunk of the mids and highs are drowned out. You can listen to the track here (it's 17 minutes but I promise it's worth it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG7_fOuM5vE

Lastly, I wanted to hear how it performed with something that isn't centered around low tones. I played Acid Rain by Liquid Tension Experiment - they're a four-man show (3/4 members from Dream Theater with Tony Levin playing a 10-string 'Chapman Stick' bass guitar) playing really awesome and fun instrumental jams. This track showed me that that the mids and highs are actually quite clean, the treble is great but again, the bass leaves something to be desired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edqH0ofRQrM

I got the impression that this device was designed to play your regular top-40's radio music and netflix videos. I queued some random music videos from YouTube and everything seemed to sound alright, the video media I watched (all speech-based content) came through very well. I confirmed this with some of the more rock-and-roll style Dream Theater tracks (because I know what these sound like under relatively optimal conditions) and I was a bit surprised to hear how well that came out.

As for what I listen to on a regular basis, I like almost anything progressive (regardless of genre, contrary to popular belief - they just don't make prog country or 9 minute rap songs with constantly changing beats to keep my ADD ears interested). Decapitated just released their latest album Blood Mantra and I've been enjoying the hell out of that, Wintersun and Dream Theater are some of my all-time favorites, and I'm headed to Amon Amarth's (VIKINGS!!!) show this Friday with every intent to push my neck to as close to whiplash as humanly possible. Meshuggah and Decapitated are my go-tos for getting shit done, and sometimes when I'm feeling like I want to change things up I'll listen to psy trance or drum and bass (check out The Algorithm if you're into both metal and dnb) or even some jazz (Exivious and Thank You Scientist will blow your mind!)

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Symphony of complexity

"blah blah blah, I listen to the output of the radio telescopes overlaid with downshifted BDSM sessions"

:P

Now, the Boston Pops Orchestra, there's music. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b7bnWEP1vw as an example.)

[Steven Raith]

Re: Symphony of complexity

But how does Nyan Cat sound through it?

Or the title theme from Super Metroid?

Steven R

[Andrew Denton 1]

Re: Symphony of complexity

Can't go wrong with a bit of Amon Amarth! \m/

My go to album for audio quality is Be'lakor's Of Breath And Bone, specifically the utterly sublime Remnants https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPHJycgRLN8

I listen to metal almost exclusively not through some slavish loyalty to a genre, but because it's the only genre that consistently delivers the listening pleasure I seek. I have been known to listen to classical, soundtrack and the very occasional trance track

[Steven Raith]

Re: Symphony of complexity

Delphi? Are you intertard stalking me?

Steven R (Beany)