Customer Reviews

Sony SRSM50/BLK Compact, Stylish, Transportable Speaker (Black)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased these speakers for $50 at Best Buy; I hadn't discovered Amazon.com at that time. But the money didn't go to waste! These speakers are very portable and have an amazing sound quality. I especially like the bass that these speakers pack. CAN BE PLAYED AT HIGH VOLUMES WITHOUT SOUND DISTORTION!

Pros:
-full, crisp sound quality (including bass!)
-two available power sources (AC or 3 AAA batteries)
-small & portable

Cons:
-wires get tangled & can become confusing

The pros clearly outweigh the cons. I would buy these again if they ever failed me (which they haven't in the 5 months I've had them!). Definitely a good buy.

*UPDATE* 12/16/2010
The speakers are still going strong; they sound just like they did when I purchased them.

I researched and researched different sites for speakers that would work in my office. I did not want a tinny sound and wanted sleek looking and discreet speakers. These are perfect!! The sound is very impressive for their size and produce a good sound and volume for an office. Of course they aren't meant to be your main speakers for your home system but in a kitchen, office, or by the bathtub...great!!!! They aren't tinny and don't distort and I can crank the volume and bass sometimes. So I would highly recommend anyone buy these speakers. In fact, I may get a second set for my office at home.

These are overall good portable speakers, but not excellent.

Pros:
1. Excellent sound quality. Almost too much bass. A very balanced sound, not tinny at all. Not fatiguing at all. Also it NEVER crackles or hisses.
2. Very decent battery life. I would guesstimate 5 hours. Also when the batteries die, instead of the sound quality dimming, it totally cuts out. I prefer it this way, as I'd rather have good sound or no sound. Alot of small speakers have the sound slowwwwwly die down.
3. Very attractive. Built-in, if unintuitive, cord management.

Cons:
1. Sound is very loud, but not BOOMING loud. Or put another way, it can't be turned up to uncomfortably loud. (Sorry if that's vague.)
2. The cords are a pain. It does have a cord-management system to keep things neat, but it's unintuitive at first, and cumbersome always.
3. Batteries last around 5 hours. I would have hoped for 15-20 hours in an ideal world. I guess that's the trade-off for the loud sound.

Product is good. Does what it's supposed to for the price, however the description needs to be more specific. The A/C plug I received is NOT a standard North American plug (It's a Type C Europlug) NOWHERE in description does it mention this and as a matter of fact it says verbatim "only ships within U.S." So one would logically assume that it would be a standard N. American plug. Maybe I was just an unlucky consumer who accidentally was sent the wrong a/c plug so I called customer service and they are sending me an adapter for it but I really would have preferred the right plug instead since this is supposed to be "portable" this will only make it larger. If this company really wanted to stand by their service they would either have taken this one back and shipped me the right one or sent me the proper plug. This also makes me wonder if they already knew that all these models have the wrong plug as they were quick to just send me an adapter instead of proper product to begin with. This was purchased through Amazon but was distributed by "Worldwide Distributors". You have been warned if you have read this and then purchased it.

First off, these speakers, offered as new by Amazon have the correct USA type plug on them- if you buy them from anyone else on the marketplace (or in another color than black), you might get stuck with the European round prong type that do not fit our wall sockets. As for the speakers themselves, they are AMAZING in how much sound you will get out of these little things- the loudest travel-size speakers I have EVER heard. They have a volume control on them and can run on batteries (don't know how loud they sound just on the batteries.) Only other issue with them is the cord that joins the two speakers is only 4' apart, so you really can't do much by way of stereo sound with setting them further apart and don't try to cut them and use speaker wire to extend them- they do not have wires inside (which I found out by sad experience!) to connect to normal speaker extension wires as they have some kind of filament inside instead. Really, a nice Sony quality product!

These speakers will be a vast improvement over those installed on my laptop. The sound is great -- not tinny sounding in the least. My only complaint is that the volume is not quite as loud as I had hoped.

I had ordered the X-Mini Maxi II (or something on that order) to use with my ASUS Transformer tablet. The design is very clever and they appeared to be fairly well made. However, they suffer from some real quality control issues. When I received them the Right channel unit was dead. Plugged it into the other plug on the cord--Nope! Not the cord--the speaker itself. I will note that when I was unpacking them, the speaker switch was already in the On position, whereas the one on the Left channel unit was in the Off position. Seems like someone had tried this and might have been aware of the issue.

I did plug the mini-earphone plug into the earphone jack just to see how it sounded. Not too terrible for the size. With one defective channel they are being returned. They are suffering obvious quality control issues and they need to sort them out.

As I was poking around, I found the Sony SRS-M50's at BestBuy. They price matched Amazon and I bought them. They appear to be very well made. For the size the sound quality is amazing--there is some actual bass content (depends upon how you are counting, I guess--I would say at least down to 60 Hz). They are NOT blue tooth, but will work with anything with an earphone jack. They will run off of 3 AAA batteries and are more than worth it at $32. Actually, I think that they would be worth it at the $53 that BestBuy had them for.

I know that some people criticized the lack of volume on those units, but I have to wonder if they had batteries loaded or were simply trying to run them as non-powered speakers off of the audio source. They can be made obnoxiously loud and still play quite clearly.

Works for me...

Added 6/7/2011...

So, now that I have these little jewels, exactly how do I carry them? I fumbled around with several different cases, but finally found the Case Logic Compact Camcorder EVA case, MSEC-4 (available on Amazon and elsewhere...). BUY THIS CASE! It is an exact fit for the 2 speakers docked into one another. The case has a little fold-out tray and the two speakers fit into it exactly. I am running mine off of AAA batteries so that is all that I need to fit into the case. Good thing--the AC power cord will not fit. But, if you want an exact fit for the speakers themselves for full protection, get this one!

I am exremely picky when it comes to buying something. You know the type, the person who spends hours, days, and weeks researching things before making a purchase to make sure they are getting the absoulte best item and the best price. I followed normal protocol when making this purchase and have not been disappointed. As other reviews have said, this set will not, and should not, replace a home stereo system. However, for a portable speaker set that you could use in your office, nursery, or other small/mid-sized room, these should work well. I bought them to use in my child's room to play music at night, but plan to travel with them as well. Great set, great price, great Sony quality.

II've been looking over hill and dale to find some decent speakers that are small enough to travel with yet have a sound quality that at least tries to approximate what the artists are trying to yield in their music. These speakers are almost there. They only need some bass to round them out. Maybe if there were a third speaker similar in size- totally dedicated to the sub- woofer role, they would be there. The mids and the hi's are pretty good for close- in listening. Very clear and distinct tones work even for a discerning ear. And the separation is great for this size speaker. But, without a decent bass, they don't live up to my expectation. I guess I should have read the lukewarm comments on these speaker's bass resonance as "don't expect much".

As for as portability, these speakers are great, very very light, yet they don't feel cheep. And are reasonably attractive looking. The wires are a mess to deal with, but that's to be expected and not an issue for me.

I understand that, size is almost everything with a sub- woofer, but there aught to be a way to get a reasonable bottom from mini- speakers. This set is small enough to add a 3rd speaker that could act as a sub. I'm not looking for earthquake sound here, just enough to add some thump to popular music and support for orchestral and a cappella singing which is fundamental.

Overall, these speakers are marginally better than the other speakers at this price point. And that's because of the crystal clear clarity of the mids and hi's. The bass is no better than any clock radio I've heard.

I bought these speakers to use in my tent camper -- needed something small but good quality. I got both features in this set. Sound and volume were great. I used them with ac power, so not sure how long the batteries will last. My only issue was with the cords - at first they seemed awkward to use and store. But I soon got the hang of it. One additional thing would make this product a 6-star winner -- it needs a case for transport.