JBL Charge 4 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker - Black

They sound good. Pretty amazing bass for such small speakers. (Not a patch on my vintage L150s, of course. 😄 ) However, they have a really weird gap in the volume. You can have medium loud to as high as they'll go, or pretty soft to very soft, but you cannot have medium. I will turn these down from a little too loud and hear it go to the volume that I want, and then hear it tick down to even softer. I can't believe this couldn't be fixed with a firmware update, and I sure hope it is. I'm a little tired of listening to them just a little louder than I really want. Getting them to stay in stereo mode is a little iffy, and it's really annoying that you have to do it with their app, which really isn't good for much except that. In the first place, you'd think that for two of them stereo mode would be the default, or that it would stay there when you set it, at the very least. And besides that why the heck do I have to use an app?? My little Oontz Angle Pros that cost a third of what these cost, and sound nearly as good, frankly, go into stereo mode and stay in stereo mode all by themselves. I really fail to see why these can't do the same. Again, I bet this could be fixed with a firmware update and I hope it is. Uh-oh. Just found something that might be a deal killer. I was running the pair on batteries to see how long they lasted, and one of them cut off because it's battery had run down. Okay fine. So I plugged in the USB cable and it blinked to show it was charging, but it wouldn't play. Let me repeat that, it wouldn't play. What kind of device won't run off the input power while the battery is charging?? I'm going to see just how long it takes it to condescend to play again, but this issue may cause me to send back yet another pair of speakers. Who designs these things?? This issue is telling me that when the batteries go the speakers are also toast even if they are plugged in. Batteries don't last forever, so I am on the verge of considering that unacceptable, much as I want to keep these.