Customer Reviews

Sony SRS-BTM30 Bluetooth Wireless Speaker

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased these speakers after much reading on Amazon and other places. The average rating here on Amazon for these was among the highest.

I received them and was very excited to start listening to "better sounding" music than what I was getting out of my 5-year old, $25 "no name" (non Bluetooth) speakers.

I can live with the size, though they are bulkier than I would prefer. First time pairing my Blackberry Tour worked as described in the manual.

Unfortunately subsequent pairing is a manual process. Every other Bluetooth device I have is immediately detected by my Blackberry for pairing when I turn the Bluetooth device on. Not so with the Sony speakers. I have to turn the speakers on, then manually go into my Bluetooth settings on the Blackberry and select the Sony speakers to manually connect. Since a large part of why I bought these speakers was convenience, this is definitely an issue for me. I was anticipating turning the Sony speakers on and having automatic pairing with my Blackberry.

And then the music started playing. The proprietary Bass Boost these speakers have is horrible. It's way too much and what's worse is there is no way to turn it off on the speakers. The suggestion for compensating for the lousy Bass Boost in the manual is to alter the settings of your player on your MP3 device. I don't think this is an acceptable "fix". On my Blackberry, in order to get anything remotely pleasing to the ear, I have to choose a setting of "reduced bass". But when I pair my Blackberry with any other music streaming device the sound quality is lousy because of the setting and I have to go in and change it. Additionally, for programs like Slacker Radio, there isn't even an option for changing the settings on the Blackberry so I'm stuck with full-throttle, lousy, proprietary Bass Boost.

If there had been an option built into the speakers to turn this off I would be giving this product 4 stars. And if the speakers automatically paired when in proximity and turned on, I would have given them 5 stars.

The volume isn't anything to write home about but then again I wasn't expecting that from speakers this size. They are adequate for in house use (my kitchen) or sitting on the back deck. I don't know that they would fit the bill for a decent sized cookout but haven't tried so don't know for sure.

If I didn't already have another set of portable speakers to compare with, I probably would have been pleased with these. But my no-name, $25 speakers actually sound better, are more portable and have a "3D" sound effect that can be turned on and off on the speakers themselves, and the "3D" sound effect actually greatly improves the quality of the music without me having to change settings on my Blackberry.

I'll be returning these and trying another product...most likely the Altec Lansing. They were the first speakers that caught my eye so hopefully they'll be more in line with my expectations.

As one last note, I am not an audiophile by any stretch...I don't consider myself to be overly picky with the quality of my music. I do think I have a "sensitive" ear when it comes to bass, however. I don't mind "natural" bass in my music, but enhanced bass is not for me.

Paired this with my Dell M1530 laptop and Sony Ericsson K850i.

Very easy to setup. 30 seconds, and I was streaming music. Subsequent uses yielded instantaneous pairing upon powering the speakers up.

Like the modern styling, with its curved front as well as the coned rear of the enclosure. Designed to be set both forward-firing and stood up on its rear firing upwards. Also like the "neutral" silver and black coloring to match the majority of electronics in the house.

Sound is terrific for what it is designed for. Since they are full range drivers, don't expect crisp separation in sound. You won't be able to play music up to its maximum volume. Speakers will distort. Nevertheless, they provide a full, clear, "loud enough" sound to easily and pleasantly fill a room. If you intend on using this at a fairly high volume, I recommend playing music with a higher bitrate, as it really does make a difference in sound quality.

Dual power source capability that it's designed with is a must for all portable Bluetooth speakers, in my opinion. Being able to take it anywhere and using it with its batteries is invaluable. Of course, rechargables are an economic must. Not griping at all, but it would be fabulous if the unit had the ability to charge its batteries as well.

Size-wise, these aren't the most portable speakers in the world, yet its performance is much more valuable.

For my personal use, this comes in handy when giving classes using a projector and video. Place this by the screen and pair it with my laptop across the room, and it's good to go. No audio cable, no outlet needed.

Also use this when I want to listen to music while doing work on my laptop. And yes, especially when I occasionally have the time to game on it. Far and away better sound than the built-in speakers.

Very happy with this purchase.

Next one I have my eye on is the Sony Ericsson MBS-100 Bluetooth speaker to leave in the living room or bedroom.

Good quality speakers, I use with my Motorola Q at work almost everyday. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is because it doesn't come with a remote to control the volume.

Very easy to set up and use with any Bluetooth cell phone. Now you can listen to your stored music almost any where that you please. Tone quality is pleasant for such a small unit. I enjoy the portabality and design of the Sony unit. Does just what it is supposed to do and no more..great BUY.......

This is exactly everything I had hoped for! I asked for it for Christmas and got it. It is slightly bigger than I had imagined. The speakers are each about 3.5 inches in diameter, and he unit itself is about 1 ft long and about 4 inches deep. However, it sounds much bigger than that! With only 3 AA batteries, it can be heard over 100yds away! I know this because I took it golfing with me, and no matter where I was with my SonySRBTM30, the other half of my foursome could also hear it (when I had it at full volume). Best part is, I don't have to take any additional tapes or CD's with me, just my cell phone w/4GB of storage in it. Considering I always have my cell on me anyways, I can use it to stream music to the stereo. It is important to note, for all of you non-techies, that these speakers are useless without a bluetooth transmitter sending it music (mp3, wma, etc). My only complaint is that there are no next/previous buttons on the set. There are only 3 buttons: power and volume +/-. I don't know how long batteries last with these speakers. I only used them once for 4 hours non-stop and they didn't die.

This item was bought of Amazon. Good price and delivery was in excellent time.

Product was actually bigger than I expected. I would say it's the size of a "six pack" It's a little off balance front to back so is definitely funny to hold but the shape makes it sit on a shelf well.

I bought this as a blue-tooth speaker system for my cell phone (music)and it does it's job well. battery life is short though. I would say about 6 hours play time. If you buy this make sure you have rechargable batteries already, or buy them.

Only real negative I can give it is the way that blue tooth cuts out when batteries are getting low. It will actually play for about 30 minutes when the batteries are low but you miss peaks or bass in the track as the blue tooth drops from trying to drive the speakers for that note.

How would I improve it?
Battery indicator. Not knowing when you are going to need to replace them on a portable player is just poor design.

I looked around a while for this speaker and knew some of the pitfalls. I bought it to use for audio books that are generally MP3 files or in WMA format (I run VMWare on my Mac) and listen to them on my MAC or my Ipod or in my car.

Some observations: the speaker should come with a connecting cable for non-blue tooth devices. For instance, you may want to use the speaker for PCs, CD players, cassettes etc. FYI- often you can pick these cables up at dollar stores, 5Below or funny as it sounds on clearance as parts of other devices at Ross Dress for Less in the Men's section!). The thing is libraries, where I withdraw a number of audio books, still offer these formats.

The sound is fine with me, although there are no controls for bass etc. so those into music may not care for it. I wish it had a remote control but I have attached a XMAS remote control adapter to the end of the electrical plug to turn it off and on. Unfortunately, the device does not remember the volume level so you still have to adjust it (I turn it to the highest setting then control the volume from my Mac, IPod or phone). As far as recognition of blue tooth enabled devices - it's easy, but although you can have multiple devices recognized you can't have two of the same. I have two of these speakers in my home so it's a pain to have to go through the recognition process. I wish I could rename it to fool my Mac. Instead, however, usually I bypass the blue tooth and use a cable (if you don't buy it as suggested above a computer supply store sells them for about $3.00 some places are ridiculous and want in excess of $10.00.

Batteries as a power source work OK but I notice that I get more static or the sound breaks up, I'm not sure which it is. I have checked the batteries when I experience static/breaking up, however when I plugged the device in to the electrical outlet it went away. Also I don't see the benefit in linking my phone (although it does work) to it since it doesn't have a microphone . . .

All in all I like it better than headphones at home and better than my Mac's speakers. And as I shared, I have worked around the remote issue.

First I would like to say that any problems people are having with reception on this speaker are probably from the device that is broadcasting the sound to it. I too have noticed that my Sprint HTC Hero will sometimes cut in and out when using this speaker in bluetooth mode, but not when connected with a cable. IT TAKES MORE RESOURCES FROM YOUR PHONE TO USE BLUETOOTH. Unless you have a newer android phone with a faster processor, you will run into this while the phone runs it's background processes (download email, sync, gps, etc..) As soon as I turn these processes off, the sound issues go away.

This unit is very portable and works as advertised. It is easy to pair your bluetooth device with it, and the blue LED on the front of the speaker makes it easy to tell that your devices are paired. I can use it across the room. It is pretty sweet to have your phone in your hand and the speaker across the room. You can change MP3s, listen to podcasts, and streaming audio - all in the palm of my hand. It makes my phone feel like an expensive remote :)

When playing my MP3s I do notice that the sound is a little heavy on the bass and light on the treble. I guess it could use tweeters to compliment that big bass sound. However, when I play music from Slacker internet radio, the sound is terrific. Since this is streaming music over a data connection, it usually sounds a bit tinny with ear buds, but the sound is good with this speaker.

Overall I would recommend this device to anybody looking for a bluetooth stereo speaker under $100.

I have been using Bluetooth for awhile and have had some success with the motorola eq5. In fact I got mine for around $30. Well I wanted to dedicate these small speakers to my iPad and felt the need to get a set of Bluetooth speakers for my pc running pandora. I chose the Sony because several reviewers thought the sound was superior. Well the small motorola eq5 speakers sound 100% better to me. So I just got done ordering another eq5 for my pc and pandora. These more expensive Sony Bluetooth speakers will go into spare status. Let me explain...

First I am a Sony kind of guy and have everything Sony. These Sony speakers are base base basey and more base. I am a music purist. I want the speaker to give a clean crisp sound. If it gives tons of base the speaker is interfering with the original intent in composition. I have never understood why people love base... Well not this guy!

I guess I will hang on to these new Sony speakers and give them as a gift and use them as a secondary backup.

I would also mention that if you crank it all up where it beeps at you it definitely sounds distorted. My motorola eq5 sounds clean when cranked up to the three beep a. It seems that these Bluetooth speakers all seem use beeps at the top of the volume control. Well if you crank it all up it is distorted.

I even went so far to run the sound through the iTunes equalizer but it really didn't help. And besides I am a purists...

Don't buy these speakers if you want clean sounds. Then again if you drive around in one of these cars with boom boxes that rattle the window you will probably think these are the greatest speakers in the world! Hope this info helps.

Btw pairing is a snap with the iPad and the Motorola pc USB dongle...

I wanted this product for use on the golf course and it works wonderfully. My iPhone connects easily and the sound quality is just what I was looking for. The bass is great and the sound carries well outside the golf cart. It works so well that I also use it at home with my iPhone as the sound quality is perfect for listening to music outside on the patio or in the kitchen making dinner. I recommend this product wholeheartedly.