XMI X-Mini Max 2 Portable Speakers – Black
Posted by Notcot on May 20, 2010 in Portable Sound & Vision |
5 CommentsReply |
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These are superb mini speakers. They produce an excellent sound, and not only for their tiny size. They are well constructed, the battery lasts long, and they come with a nice carry pouch, and have a tidy single cable which doubles up both for charging the units as well as connecting to portable media players.
A major piece of advice I would pass on to fellow Amazonians:
Because the speakers are actually quite good, they ruthlessly expose poor quality music files. I found that with many of my low bit rate music files (say 55kbps to 100kbps), the speakers “distort” at anything above 70% of my mp3 player’s volume. (In fact this is not really the case; the speakers are simply exposing the weaknesses in the music files).
On the other hand, with all of my downloaded music from iTunes (nicely encoded higher bit rate files) and ripped music from CDs (excellent quality 320kbps mp3 files) I encounter zero distortion. With quality files, the speakers happily pump out very loud, well articulated music all the way up to the maximum volume of my mp3 player(s).
In short then, if you think these speakers are “distorting”, do check your music files.
Very satisfied with my purchase, overall. I can’t say that these compare to larger sound docks because that would just be fanciful, but the fact remains that these are superb mini speakers (emphasis on mini), are more portable than all the sound docks I’ve encountered, and sound pretty good to boot. Good stuff.
A last word: make sure you “run” them in. Like all speakers, they improve with use.
Rating: 4 / 5
I bought these for my better half as I have my own set of original X-Mini speakers.
The main point to note is that the X-Mini Max 2 are a good 30% larger than the original X-Mini Max. I can’t comment on the sound quality as one of the speakers didn’t work when first used!
I bought my original X-Minis for taking backpacking, and they performed tremedously given the size. Aside from a couple of design details they were the best portable travel speakers I came across on 10 months on the road. The X-Mini 2 are so much larger that, although they are clearly portable speakers, I would not recommend them for extended travel where size and weight are at a premium.
Rating: 3 / 5
Recently purchased a set of XMI X-Mini Max 2 Portable Speakers, based on the positive reviews. Normally, I’m negative until I hear or see the device, but based on the reviews I set-up the speakers and listened and a little disappointed. Why, because of expectation, these are good speakers and size and value great, but remember you are not purchasing £[] plus speakers. Having said that really pleased with purchase and would recommend for people who want a much better sound than internal laptop speakers on the move. Recharging very good also.
Rating: 3 / 5
Great little pair of speakers…..The design is fab and feels good to touch. The audio quality is good for what they are.
Exactly what I expected and perfect for holidays, picnics, garden etc…
I did have to return the first pair i bought after only 24 hours but these were quickly replaced and now fine.
I found that having the hip hop equalizer setting on my ipod produced the optimum sound for my liking .
Go buy………you won’t be disappointed
Rating: 5 / 5
Disappointed with these to say the least.
I like the compact design, long battery life and the fact it charges via USB.. but that is where my positives end.
The past 3 years I have been taking JBL On Tour portable speakers with me on my holidays for some background music in the hotel room. They sound great and are loud but I was becoming annoyed with the fact the battery life isn’t amazing on them as they use rather limited capacity AAA batteries. So I was hunting around for an upgrade and choose these X-Mini Max 2 speakers.
The packaging on the X-Mini Max 2 speakers claims of serious loudness which I already know is a false claim considering their size. I hooked them up to my Sansa Fuze and straight away was disappointed. The volume is adequate but the sound quality is quite poor.. muddled and with a serious lack of treble. There is a slight hint of bass but mostly the output is just muddled mid range noise. Extending the speakers out increases the bass range a tad but nothing to really write home about.
They are listen-able but comparing them to my JBL On Tour speakers which were roughly the same price there is no comparison. Funny thing is the JBL On Tour speakers have SMALLER drivers than the X-Mini Max 2 yet they are louder and more importantly deliver much clearer sound with quite a high detail of treble of which the Mini Max 2 can only wish to have.
It seems like the Mini Max 2 has been designed with bass too much in mind (something which is impossible to have with speakers of this size to start with!) with the gimmicky extension casing to ‘add more bass’ perhaps XMI have over looked what seem like low quality drivers.
Looks like I will be sticking with my JBL On Tour speakers for this years holiday yet again.. a shame as I love the concept and design of the Mini Max 2 speakers but they fail to deliver a decent quality sound.
Rating: 2 / 5