Review on 🔊 JBL Charge 4 Gray Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker Bundle with Portable Hard Case for Enhanced Portability by John Thawngzauk

Don't be told that stereo is important in a product this size. Stereo is only important when your left and right ears hear slightly different sounds to create a more realistic listening experience in your brain. If two tiny speakers are side by side within 5 feet of your head and playing in stereo, both ears will hear the same sound anyway, reducing any stereo effect to about nil. I suspect that a small speaker with the right and left speakers aligned sideways could create some stereo image by reflecting the left and right channel sounds from the environment. But then you'd have to have a bass module in the middle, and if you're playing outdoors without the L/R channels reflecting anything, you'd have fuzzy, heavy bass chaos. JBL made a good choice here and installed a higher-quality treadmill speaker at the ends instead of two smaller "stereo" speakers and two bass modules. If you're obsessed with stereos, buy one and then a cheap second hand a few years later. With two Charge 4 headphones and the JBL app, you can place two speakers a few feet apart and play music on them as a left and right stereo pair. If the speakers are slightly apart, you will hear a stereo effect. Pretty badass. Two things I want to improve in the next version: you can charge your phone via USB-A output but not USB-C output. Both would be good. A common feature of Bluetooth products is that you can skip to the next song with a double-click on the play button, while going back a song with a triple-click. Double-clicking works on the Charge 4, but there's no way to go back and restart a song or skip to a previous song without doing it from your phone or using Siri. Otherwise, I think the build quality is great and the sound quality is excellent. It's about as good as you'd get in a device of this size and price. It's heavy and durable and the quality of the material makes it feel like it is.