I have an iPhone and have the music app, so I can select albums and stuff that I want to hear.
But the sound on my iPhone is not very good.
Are there speakers that can connect somehow to my iPhone to play music, with better quality? Or is the iPhone itself the limiting factor on sound quality?
If such speakers exist, what am I looking for? Should I go to Best Buy?
A couple of things, the quality of the music will depend on the quality of ripping / importing / download from Apple.
Otherwise, tons of Bluetooth speakers in all price ranges, up to the point where you may even here some audio quality loss from the encoding, but doubtful.
You can easily connect your iPhone via Bluetooth to an external speaker, many of which will have both better sound quality and greater volume than the tiny phone speakers.
You can find a range of such speakers at any retailer that sells consumer electronics (Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon, etc.). I have a small Bluetooth speaker from JBL, which I bought at Target a few months ago for about US$30, which provides very nice sound.
There are two ways to play music wirelessly from your iPhone to speakers: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Wi-Fi has more bandwidth and therefore better theoretical sound, but requires both your phone and speaker to be on the same Wi-Fi network, which can be tricky to set up, especially if you’re away from home. Bluetooth will work wherever you are.
As for speakers, I really like the Apple HomePod speakers. They are fairly pricey, but you get what you pay for, IMHO. But they only connect via Wi-Fi, which limits their use such that they aren’t very portable. Good review here:
I also like Sonos products. The Sonos Roam and Move are both very good portable speakers that connect over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
Last but not least, you can connect to many modern stereo systems using Apple AirPlay (which uses Wi-Fi).
Thanks. I read the review and have more questions.
This bit about the Home Pod Mini has me at sea:
Almost everything we like about the HomePod is also available in the HomePod mini: quick Siri responses, HomeKit compatibility, handoff and multiroom audio capabilities, stereo pairing, and a built-in temperature and humidity sensor
I don’t understand any of those features. What do they do?
So I should go looking for Blue tooth speakers? Is that different from wi-fi? If so, how?
I do appreciate the responses, thanks all.
With Bluetooth, your two devices (your phone and your speaker) will have a direct wireless connection to one another.
Most inexpensive speakers won’t even have an option to connect to a wifi network; they only operate via Bluetooth.
With wifi, your two devices would both be connected to a wifi network (e.g., your home wifi network), and communicating with each other via the wifi network’s router/hub.
As already noted, with Bluetooth, you can connect your phone to a speaker without having to have the devices both connected to a separate wifi network.
A HomePod is a smart speaker that uses Siri just like your iPhone does. So you can tell it to play a song or set a timer or alarm.
Handoff allows your iPhone to switch automatically from one speaker to another if you have several in your house.
Stereo pairing allows you to connect turn two HomePods into a matched stereo pair (in which one does the left channel and the other does the right channel).
Finally, HomeKit is Apple’s system for controlling speakers, lights, and other “smart home” features.
I’ll point out that “Bluetooth” is one word, not two. It’s the name of a short-range wireless connection system/protocol. You’ll get better search results if you spell it as one word.
At the risk of stating the obvious, an alternative to speakers is earbuds / earphones.
You’ll get a lot of good quality sound from good earbuds. And they’re highly portable, following you wherever you bring your head. They too connect to your mobile via Bluetooth. Apple makes (of course) their own branded AirPods that are sorta pricy. Beats is another well-regarded brand. And of course Amazon has legions of cheapos.
Bluetooth earphones are similar. Same idea but now with the headband and cups on/over the ears instead of buds wedged into the ears.
Any of these will sound magnificent (and loud if you crank it up) compared to the tinny little speaker in the phone itself.
Yet another way: I recently had a small home office built in my basement. As part of the construction I had them install a pair of Sonos architectural speakers in the walls.
These get wired to a Sonos amplifier that is tucked away near my network gear, plugged into a network cable.
Now all I need to do is open the Sonos app on whatever device I am using, and I can send music to my system from a dozen different sources. This setup runs over Wi-Fi.
This is not a cheap option: the (very nice) amplifier costs $600, and the in-wall or in-ceiling speakers cost about the same, but it is a great sounding system.
But for listening to music from your phone, just buy one of the dozens of excellent inexpensive Bluetooth speakers out there–they work great. Just be careful of your phone suddenly insisting in using the speaker when you are trying to take a call.
A friend of mine is all into Bose products. He gave me a cool speaker that had Bluetooth connectivity. I use it for parties and such.
There are a number of different wireless communication standards out there, each with their own physical range and data rate. NFC, for example, is a group of standards by which you can use your credit/debit card to pay for things just by putting it near the payment device, without actually inserting/swiping it. Very short range and limited data rate. Wi-Fi is another group of standards that feature higher data rate and longer range. For cell phones, there are a bunch of standards that work over even longer ranges.
Somewhere between NFC and Wi-Fi - in terms of range and data rate - there’s Bluetooth. As has been noted, this is a standard that’s commonly used to link two devices directly with each other. Most wireless keyboards and mice these days use Bluetooth to connect to your PC. Your cell phone connects to your car via Bluetooth. My motorcycle helmet is fitted with a Bluetooth comms system that lets me communicate with my fellow riders, provided we’re not too far apart.
There are a few wireless comms standards that get used for audio. Bluetooth is probably the most ubiquitous these days, mostly because damn near everybody wants to play audio from their phones, and Bluetooth is what pretty much every phone has. Audiophiles complained that early Bluetooth audio standards noticeably compromised sound quality, but things have improved since then; audio quality these days isn’t much of an issue unless you’ve got the ears of a healthy 10-year-old.
If you search Amazon (or Best Buy) for wireless portable speakers, pretty much all of them will be Bluetooth. If you want to be certain, look for the word Bluetooth somewhere on the package, or the runic Bluetooth logo.
If you don’t care about wireless, you can use a wire to connect your phone to a sound system. Assuming you’ve got a recent iPhone that doesn’t have a 1/8" phono jack, you can buy a cable that plugs into your phone’s lightning port and has a 1/8" phono plug on the other end. If you’re trying to connect to a living-room sound system, you might need the cord with the 1/4" phono plug instead. Or maybe one with RCA plugs. If you want a wired connection, see what your sound system’s input connection looks like, and just buy the corresponding cord.
I just went through this process for my wife because she was listening to music with the crappy speakers on her iPhone.
The prices range anywhere from a few tens of dollars to thousands of dollars (and the sky is the limit, but I presume you are looking for something more reasonable).
In general, there is a certain correlation between price and sound, but with the caveat that it doesn’t matter for many people.
The first thing to do is to look at your needs and decide your budget.
Are you primarily looking just to enjoy listening to music better?
Do you need portability? Do you listen to music primarily in only one location? Do you want to listen to music in different areas?
Do you need any other functions such as compatibility with any smart home features?
Do you have an idea of a budget? Many people don’t really know what is available so they don’t know how much they want to spend.
There are really cheap inexpensive Bluetooth speakers. I had one when I was teaching in Taiwan because I could take it so different classrooms. Maybe it was $30.
This is a system with an amp, “bookshelf” speakers, Bluetooth compatibility, and built in Spotify compatibly. It also has a CD player but you may not need that. At Amazon it’s $300 in the States.
I would really recommend heading down to someplace where you can listen to an amp and some speakers. Another alternative are active speakers (speakers with a built-in amp).
If you go down to someplace to try out speakers, listen to the music you like and see how well the speakers sound to you.
FWIW, I like my Bose “pebble” - enough heft for a full symphony orchestra to sound good to my ears, despite the fact that it fits into my hand: