Review on Aiwa Exos-9 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker by Rob Kerr

Cliché time.I've never written a review on here before but I've read and benefited from so many reviews through the years that I felt I should step up. I may have a portable speaker fetish based on the picture I've posted but in my defense it spans 8 years and there are so many different portables out there all with different strengths/weaknesses and niches from size, sound, 360 sound, battery life, type of battery, waterproof, durability, etc. I use an Oontz Angle for the shower that's splashproof. It fits on the ledge in the shower next to my ear. It's $30.00 and is perfect for that with surprisingly decent sound. Update: I now have a UE Roll 2 for the shower and I love it. In fact I'm getting another one to link for true 360 stereo in my shower. I use my waterproof FUGOO XL for when I take magnesium soak baths right on the edge of the bathtub or just me and gf out on the patio. The sound is excellent and it's easily portable, durable and of course waterproof. I love it. For my outdoor parties or basement gym I've used my Harmon Kardon Go+play with 360 sound and it's excellent with great bass. It takes D batteries as well as plug in. It's no longer being manufactured and It goes on eBay for around $350.00. A few years later I acquired a Dr. Dre Monster Beatbox. It has great sound too with colorful bass but no battery so it needs to be plugged in. I now have a Bluetooth adapter for it that works well. I also have an Ion block rocker. It's durable but with very average sound, especially for its size. After a year it stopped holding a charge so I had to replace the battery which was simple and only $13.00. I also love my very first Bluetooth waterproof Braven that I use at the breakfast table. Again, decent sound for its size and after 2 years it still holds a charge.Now, on to the main event.My first stereo was an Aiwa compact stereo way back in the late 70's as a teen and I loved it. Move up 25 years and I bought an Aiwa cassette/cd player with remote for my kid that we still have although we don't use because it's outdated. I'm now two for two on the Aiwa brand. On Revain I kept seeing the "you may also like" adds and then all the glowing reviews for the Exos 9. I think I read most of the 800 plus reviews on Revain and knew I had to get one even though I didn't "need" it. I also swore I'd never buy a speaker with a rechargeable battery as when they stop taking a charge you're kind of limited on the portability factor. Both my Logitechs and Ion Rock Blocker did that. That being said I saw you can buy replacement cartridge batteries for these (or to have fresh batteries to interchange after 8-10 hours of play) if that happens so after some investigation I went for it.I can now say it's easily my favorite speaker sound wise. The best feature for most of us is sound on a big portable like this. It's why we buy these big boys.The Pros; The bass is rich, powerful and clear, never muddy. The middle and highs are present, crisp and never shrill. The music separation is fantastic. I don't use any lossy music formats so I can't comment on the sound of mp3's but I hope most of you aren't using that outdated format any more. I use lossless ALAC (Apple) & FLAC files and this speaker simply-sounds-great. I listen to classic rock, classic country, old and new pop from Motown to Taylor Swift, new country, film music like Ennio Morricone & progressive rock like Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, ELO, Pink Floyd & the Moody Blues. The new 2017 Sgt. Pepper stereo remix sounds absolutely wonderful on here as does the latest by Keith Urban. I have old & new test songs that I use to try out new speakers like Fever by Peggy Lee and it bounced off like it was recorded yesterday. The bass was isolated with those crisp finger snaps above that and her vocal riding over it all. Same with kd Lang's beautiful nuanced phrasing on songs like Western Stars & Pullin' back the reins. It picked up beautifully Suzanne Vega's inhale/exhale nine seconds in on her song Headshots like I was sitting in the front row. I played the entire album Fragile by YES and was blown away by Chris Squire's rubbery bass and Steve Howe's delicate classical guitar picking and strumming. George Jones' voice is warm and nuanced as ever on his 70's output as is Waylon Jennings bass heavy sound on his stellar album Honky Tonk Heroes. Zeppelin's sparse to dense production sounds intimate & then urgent when they rock out. Same with the multi-layered production of The Moody Blues on To our Children's Children's Children. It handles the explosion on Higher and Higher that segued into the gentle and quiet Eyes of a child effortlessly. The Beach Boy's Mono version of Pet Sounds needs to be heard from this speaker. The atmospheric instrumentals are lonely and eerie as are the sound effects at the end of Caroline,No. I use ABBA GOLD to test speakers as well as they are impeccably produced with thumpy bass on the bottom and countered with stellar layered female vocals on top and again, this speaker handled all their frequencies with natural ease. An opera singer named Hayley Westenra has a disc out called Paradiso of Ennio Morricone songs with lots of vocal only passages interspersed with orchestration and to hear that outside on my deck felt like I was at an outdoor venue. It passed every music test I threw at it with flying colors even with high expectations from all the positive reviews. I don't listen to Hip-Hop/Rap or disco so I don't want speakers that "color" my music. That means giving a song extra bass as it can muddy up the mids and highs of older recordings. Beats and to some extent Bose headphones and speakers do that. I was concerned this speaker might sound that way a little too much but here's the thing, if you are using a portable speaker outside or for loud gatherings indoors you'll need a bit of extra boom to carry the sound even on those older, non rap recordings. This speaker manages to balance that perfectly. The reason this all works is each of the 6 internal speakers have their own drivers which balance the sound and keeps the mids and highs present and no bleed from the thumping bass. When I do play a very thumping song like Maroon 5's One More Night it jumps right out of the speaker like it's busting out of jail. 200 watts people. That's huge.All my initial testing was done with only one speaker and Bluetooth only. The auxiliary port is better audio quality than Bluetooth. After about an hour of testing my EXOS 9 I knew I was ordering a second one and five days later I splurged and bought another one to link them (I was also afraid that a product this good would go up in price very soon) and I even used them for the music portion on a trivia night and it worked Wonderfully in a very noisy environment. There's also no distortion at high volume.The cons or negatives; It's not as rugged or stylish like my Harmon Kardon Go+Play with it's stainless steel handle but no other speaker is. It may be a little heavy or awkward for some to carry with one arm/hand grip but you can now buy a carrying case for it on the Aiwa website as of July 3rd 2017. The cases are perfect and designed specifically for this speaker. A speaker needs to have some weight and a good size footprint to carry a powerful bass sound anyway so I can't fault it for being 13 pounds especially since it sounds this good. It isn't waterproof like my smaller but cherished FUGOO XL or my UE Roll 2 but that isn't the niche this speaker was designed for so I can't fault it for that either. Waterproof sacrifices the sound somewhat and again, I bought this for it's sound.With Aiwa I'm now 4 for 4. I just splurged on their wireless ARC -1 headphones 🎧 and absolutely love them too. This company is making wonderful affordable high end sound products.Buy with confidence.Life is short, treat your ears with great music and sound.and stop listening to your favorite songs in lossy mp3 format. 😉Moondoggy61Update: the back casing that houses the aux port and usb port has come loose and is bouncing around inside the speaker. I've hardly used that portion of the speaker so I'm disappointed that it came loose. The sound is still fantastic for bluetooth but if was using the aux port I'd be out of luck I'm afraid.