Customer Reviews

Olympia SoundBug Ultra-Portable Sound System (1-Speaker, Silver)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Couple Notes
1. It's a pretty neat device, if you are interested in new and slightly nerdy technologies I would highly recommend it. Especially at the current amazon price which is the cheapest out there.
2. The device gives out a small amount of sound even before you attach it to something, this might be disappointing to some. The amplification effect when you do attach to a hard surface is definitely noticeable however.
3. You can push the volume pretty high with the device, the problem is I dont think it was made to handle loud output, you can get good sound at a nice volume level but if you start to blast the music the output from the device gets really distorted.
4. The sound quality is decent, not much in terms of bass though.
5. It's small, the size of a pager or small cell phone.
6. From what I understand the battery life is very good.
7. If you attach it to a piece of glass on something like a door the sound is about the same volume on both sides of the door, I thought that was neat.
8. Be carefull with it, if you attach it to a wall attach it near the floor or keep a close eye on it, the suction cup holds quite well but the device is heavy. I let it fall hard on the floor within my 1st hour of using it. The device survived but I don't know how much punishment it can take. Windows are your best bet for sure, anything that holds well with a normal suction cup will do fine.

Overall its a cool little gadget, if they improve the sound quality and volume threshold it will be a great product!

I got this in the hopes that it would substitute external speakers for my laptop; the ones in the laptop don't get loud enough for my tastes. The Soundbug *does* make sound loud enough, but only for some frequences, and it's so tinny and distorted, the sound is too unclear to be of any use!

Long and short of it is, it's a neat concept and yay to the engineers at Olympia who thought of it, but it's not terribly effective.

When I ordered this I knew not to expect much considering the price and the newness of the technology. When I received it, I was still very excited because it's such a cool concept, so I ran around (as I'm sure everyone has done) sticking it onto everything I could get my hands on. After that thrill wore off I sat back down at my computer and stuck it to the top of my desk and connected it to my Ipod. I had the volume pretty low so the sound was alright but what I soon found to be extremely annoying was the power saver feature. If I was playing a song that had very low tones or sound gaps the damn thing would power down and then come back on when the higher tones returned -not very cool at all for such a cool gadget. However, I did find that the powering down annoyance occured much more on my MDF desktop than on glass.

I find that it plays best on a piece of glass or on my Corian counter in my bathroom. The sound is never great but I still think it's a cool gadget as far as gadgets go. Right now I have it stuck to the glass on a painting hanging over my mantel and it actually doesn't sound half bad.

My final thoughts:
If you're an audio snob, skip it.
If you're a gadget freak, it's worth 30 bucks (unless you need that 30 bucks for your next meal or heating bill) -in that case, skip it.

As with the other reviewer, I had high hopes. Alas, they remain unrealized. I was hoping to have a way to listen to my MP3's on my laptop while on the road/in the hotel. My laptop speakers still do a better job than the soundbug. The best sound was gained from placing it on a large wall mirror. The bass in particular is lacking, and at louder volume levels there is signifigant distortion. If you have no other way to listen to your mp3's this is ok, but they overpromise and underdeliver on the quality and sound volume.

I had high hopes, as this would be exactly what I was looking for, for the sculptural work that I do, but alas, these are not a good product. The sound reproduction is pretty bad.

The sound is distorted, has little volume, and is generally poor even with AM radio speech there is a wicked dead zone where the fancy new transducer is incabable of reproducing sound. Sadly this dead zone runs from about 2000hz to 8000 hz at which point it drops off to about zero reproduction.

I am returning them, I hope the company keeps researching, this is a good idea, poorly implemented.

Sure, at high volume you get some distortion, but you get what you pay for and at this price ... the sound isn't bad. Sound quality is comparable to compact stereo speakers. It's smaller than I was expecting, also heavier.

As we all know, computer speakers leave a lot to be desired. I didn't want to lug around external speakers to presentations. This little device works just okay but leaves a lot to be desired. You've really got to find the right surface to stick them to in order to get a good sound, and a good surface is often hard to find. I've used desks, windows, a blackboard, and the sound you get, while better than a built-in computer speaker, is often distorted, or simply just not loud enough. They're better than laptop speakers, but I'm still looking for a better solution to this problem.

There are generally two things to consider when purchasing this little gadget. The first thing to consider is how it sounds. Unfortunately, it isn't very hot. Sure, at standard volumes with no heavy bass being fed into it you will find that the SoundBug performs well enough, but once it starts to get very loud the quality degrades... FAST. Best comparison I can make is to that of a stock set of headphones that comes with a portable CD player.

Of course, the reason I was looking at this wasn't really for the sound qualiy, I wanted yet another little gadget to add to my collection. Yes, this makes a great conversation piece, it's fun to mess with and overall I think it has been worth the money.

Good for business presentations where there isn't a lot of music or need for clear sound. Listening to Mp3s on this thing isn't recommended.

The sound quality is pretty terrible and only has semi-clear sound in a narrow mid-range level.

What you have to consider is whether you want to pay [$$$] for a neat gadget.

The SoundBug is neat in concept, but fails in practical execution. There's not much to it function wise. You plug it into a line-out of your audio source and attach it to a smooth surface with the suction cup. The point of the device is to turn that surface into a speaker. Some surfaces work better than others, but overall the effect is very underwhelming.

It just feels very under-powered. Conciderring the price and size I'm not very surprised. It does have a novelty that makes it fun trying to find better results from different materials, but at the end of the day the sound quality is so poor, and low that you would never consider actually using it as a speaker, making it just another trinket that sits to throw into the junk drawer.