INTRODUCTION

   I spend the larger part of last Sunday at a beach roughly 90km away and to my surprise after one hour of me being there i noticed several people (not many but way more than last year or the year before) carrying portable Bluetooth speakers with them which they seemed to put to good use later on (not very loud models but enough to sufficiently cover a small area). Weirdly enough however most of those speakers were not rugged so I’m still having a hard time figuring out why one would risk damaging a speaker just by bringing it to the rather "harsh" conditions of the beach. Normally i wouldn't be thinking about something like that for so long since it's not really important but it so happened that at the same time i was also testing the latest flagship rugged portable wireless speaker by Jabra the Solemate Max so i guess that a small comparison was inevitable.

   GN Netcom, led by the Jabra brand, continues to build on its standing as one of the world’s leading and fastest growing suppliers of hands-free communications solutions. With approximately 875 employees and sales offices around the world, GN Netcom develops manufactures and markets a broad range of wireless headsets for mobile users and both wireless and corded headsets for contact center and office-based users. GN Netcom’s business activities also include its original equipment manufacturing (OEM) business to a wide range of global customers including mobile phone, PC and PDA manufacturers.

   As revealed by its name (and size of course) the Solemate Max is the larger brother of the original Solemate and Solemate Mini portable wireless speakers which we've tested in the past so right from that start we knew that Jabra would had probably fitted it with the most features. Well it seems we were right on the spot and so the Solemate Max features Bluetooth version 3.0 (10m/33ft wireless range), supports the usual A2DP (v1.2), hands free (v1.5) and headset (v1.2) profiles, makes use of the SCO/eSCO/Sniff modes, holds data for up to 8 connections with compatible devices (2 simultaneous ones) and thanks to an 1530mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery it can offer up to 14 hours of music playback (depends on the volume levels). Features however is not what separates the Solemate Max from the other two models of the line what does is the things that Jabra has squeezed into its very large body and those are nothing less than two 3inch long-stroke mid-woofers and two 3/4inch silk-dome neo magnet tweeters at the front while the rear is taken by a single (and quite large) 235mm X 92mm passive bass radiator. Are these enough to throw a small party? We'll do our best to try and answer that one for you in the following pages.