ION Audio Block Rocker Plus - Portable Bluetooth Speaker 100W W/Battery, Karaoke Microphone, AM FM Radio
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This is my second Ion Block Rocker. My first one lasted about 10 years. We had years of enjoyment with it and decided it was time for an upgrade. I have to add that I had to reach out to ION customer service regarding my first Block Rocker, they we’re fantastic and helped me to become a repeat customer. Just got this Block Rocker Plus today. Blue Tooth connected easily to my IPhone. It came almost fully charged out of the box. I’ve tried it for a few hours in the House and it Rocks! We’ll use this outside around our fire pit, in the garage and for parties. The sound is clear and crisp. I didn’t crank it up past 1/4 volume, but at 100 watts, I know it will blast! The radio works well without an antenna indoors. I expect it to work even better when I set it up outdoors. ION has exceeded my expectations once again.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This block rocker plus kicks ass. We got to use this for the first time at my daughters wedding rehearsal dinner. It was the hit of the party. We didn’t only use the microphone that came with it, we blasted the music all night long. I recommend this for all occasions. Can’t wait to do some karaoke night.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "Sound is good and plenty loud for a party. Can hear a block away. Big speaker but not too heavy to lift. Rolls nicely on wheels. I measured top volume to be 73 decibels but I didn't add bass boost to that. Bluetooth connects easily and from some distance. I also tried similar EcoXGear speaker. That one is heavy to lift into car, but more rugged. It got to 83 decibels. Didn't have a microphone but could take one. Ion includes a mic. About equal sound quality between the two speakers. I recommend either, depending on your needs."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I purchased this to use at work. I have many speakers, so I did not need this one.\n\nI clean at a school and wanted to have one just to leave at work that is loud. I have others that are very loud, but don't want to leave them behind.\n\nI charge this every three days, and use this about six hours each night. I use an iPod connected to this and play my Amazon music. I have this on the loud side, so most of us can hear the music. We use radios for communication, and sometimes I miss a call, oops the music is loud.\n\nI play sixties and seventies rock music and it sound great. If we ever drop it down the stairs and break it I will purchase again. I think of this as ours at work, not just mine. I share what I have and some want to buy one.\n\nI like how it has wheels and a telescoping handle, great for moving it around. I usually have this on my cleaning cart ( an old metal thing I turned into a cleaning cart)."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This is the newer model of the block rocker and it sounds great with simple features. Bluetooth connects easily and the mic is plug and play and has an on and off switch on it for easy operation. Sound quality is great even at high levels without distorting and it is very loud! Never had the volume knob above half way and its plenty of sound for me. Great bang for your buck.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "So far so good. I received it before my husband's annual Halloween birthday party. I told our friend who is DJ not to lug all his equipment because I have a speaker. He fell in love with it! It was charged right out the box, but I charged it to full capacity. Even if the built in battery dies, .you can plug it in. I had no problems connecting Bluetooth with my phone. It is extremely loud especially if you turn the volume up on your phone. The mic is nice, used it a few times. No static. It's not heavy but it has wheels for easy transportation and handles on both sides to pick it up. It also has aux to charge your phone. What's not to love about this speaker. I just hope it last."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-3 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I have used many of these Ion products. The Block Rocker Plus has a lot of boom and bass. I do not care for the bass so much however if you are looking to bring the party this can be a great choice as it packs a great punch, especially using Bluetooth. I returned this product because the battery died within 24 hours after fully charging the product multiple times. The life is supposed to be 50 hours. Another reason and another star off of the review was the FM radio reception. It is horrible. I live in the middle of the city and could not get any stations in clearly. I work outdoors therefore there is no interference from being inside of buildings. Ion needs to put an external antenna back on the outside of their units. I purchased a new battery for my old block rocker, and will replace the old dead battery (Which lasted about two years).'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "This review is from a blindness prospective. I can not speak on the units look, but I can speak on usage, sound quality, and accessibility for a totally blind person.\nIntroduction: I am happy with this unit. The sound is mostly clean and it does have a nice bit of volume, please keep that in mind when reading technical thoughts below.\nuse case Scenarios? Who may want to seriously think about purchasing?\nCollege students in Dorm rooms. Those working outdoors or in a large warehouse style building. Campers/outdoors men. Guitarists looking for a very clean sounding battery powered amp for acoustic guitars. DJ's looking for a small rig that won't brake the bank. Small groups/ small churches, toastmasters etc.\nExterior features:\nUnits outer casing is plastic which seams strong.\nI love that this unit has wheals and a telescoping suitcase like handle that pops up from the back. The unit is very easy to roll and control.\nThe speaker grill is metal, much like on a PA standalone speaker.\nI feel a nice edition to a future version of this unit would be to ad a standard speaker stand tripod mount on the bottom so that it could be lifted up off the ground.\nAs someone who can not see, I am unable to tell the battery status of the unit, as unlike some BT devices it's charge does not show up on a smartphone.\nVolume controls are easy to turn and have more play than I would like.\nI do appreciate the tactile mark on each volume to understand how loud the unit is without looking at it.\nAudio quality/sound:\nThe Microphone included with the unit is a joke. If you want something intelligible, may I suggest the Shure SM-58.\nAudio output from this single speaker unit is obviously mono which is fine for events. The audio from the source is mixed from both channels into Mono so you aren't going to lose any single channel.\nThe cab is totally sealed, no ports for bass kick which is a good thing for something that will be outside to not get dirt in the cab.\nPreamps are quieter than I expected.\nInputs, jacks and Bluetooth seam to be quite hot, this is before audio hits the amp/volume nobs so nothing you can do about it.\nUsing an iOS device, you need to have your device volume three clicks down from the top to eliminate audible clipping/distortion.\nTheir is a ground loop/static when charging a tablet/device from the USB jack, and also running this same device into either the Line/aux or Mic jack\nVolume of the unit:\nThe unit does get quite loud and is clear. The volume does cover a block depending on buildings in it's way.\nRemember that this is only one speaker, such as, one side of a PA system and runs off of battery, so it is quite awesome what you get.\nWhen you start turning the master up, you get a lot of volume right away.\nWhen you get past half with the tactile mark past 12 o'clock the amp is being pushed close to it's max for clean audio, towards clipping/distortion. Their is more play in the volume, meaning that you can turn the nob and not a lot of actual volume increase, but audio starts to distort.'\nOverall tone of the unit:\nsub bass/lows: Don't exist: 0-45HZ. though You will still hear mid range bass which accounts for sub bass in headphones or systems with no subs because of how a lot of today's music is produced. The G Sharp 50 HZ in a number of today's hip-hop songs though is present.\nmid range Lows: their is a boost between 80-150 HZ (especially when the bass boost is on) which is heard more in close proximity which seams to color the sound.\nAt times, kick drums (acoustic/synth) are not always tight, quarter second delay and you hear a bit of an extra thump.\nMids: Seam to nicely fit in the mix.\nHighs: It seams between 10-16KHZ drop off a bit which makes this unit seam a bit more mid range and bass heavy.\nBass boost button, helps to tighten up the sound, is a must.\nNo onboard EQ to customize things. If your using Spotify as your main music source, may I suggest the following EQ settings for cleaner less muddy audio.\n60H/z=5\n150HZ=-10\n400HZ=-1\n1KHZ=-1\n2.4KHZ=-1\n15KHZ=2\nGuitarists: Sounds great with an acoustic with an active pickup running into the Quarter Inch mic jack. Honestly much cleaner than I would have expected. Depending on your pickup system, you may have to have your guitars volume at less than 100%/all the way up to keep from clipping. The boost in the mid range bass actually brings out nice tone in an acoustic guitar. This alone with it's battery power, at it's price point is a steal for an acoustic amp!\n\nButton/nob/socket layout.\nFace/front of unit top left side of panel: quarter inch Microphone input, to the right eighth inch line/aux input. Top Right side of panel: USB charging port.\nlower left side of panel: Microphone input volume nob, Same spot on the right side of panel Master output nob.\nButtons: To the right of the microphone nob: top to bottom: On/Off, Bluetooth, FM, AM\nBottom row of buttons are radio presets.\nOn the right side very bottom button on row of presets is bass boost toggle.\nBack of unit: Power socket.\n\nThanks for reading. I do hope this was useful for some. If I am able I am also going to upload videos with stereo audio examples of the units sound recorded through a pair of in-ear Binaural Microphones. (Hoping Amazon videos are stereo not mixed to mono) The audio is very lifelike. Please listen with headphones."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'The features are great. The speakers weren\'t. For normal use I\'d say the stock speakers included are more than sufficient.\n\nAlas.... I work in a factory. The average decibel rating of the machines are 75db.\n\nThe high end of the stock speakers where loud but they weren\'t clear and crisp. So I upgraded the tweeter and the subwoofer. 600w rms 8" dual voice coil sub by Planet Audio (also sold on amazon). The sub fit right in with some longer screws. The tweeter required some minor alterations to the speaker itself but fit afterwards. All of the wired connections (not on the speakers) where secured with an epoxy which seemed neat so they don\'t vibrate apart. Upon re sealing the box I replaced the epoxy with General silicone.\n\nThe telescoping handle and wheels are awesome. No issues there.\n\nBy a different owner of the same style unit it was brought to my attention the rubber feet parallel to the wheels where poorly adhered so I removed them and gobbed in some more general purpose silicone =) now they will stay forever!\n\nThe radio feature seems pretty weak on the antenna. Local strong channels have a hard time being received.\n\nThe < > buttons for song select (radio tuning) work with song apps (Spotify user).\n\nThe Bluetooth range is definitely nice. About 100 feet without losing Bluetooth connection (not through walls)\n\nI ended up getting it through amazon warehouse after a customer bought and returned it for $120. Came in perfect condition.\n\nYes I painted it.\n\nThat\'s all folks hope this helps =)'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-4 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Here\'s the DEAL... I got a "used" one for 135 instead of $179 BUT it\'s Brand NEW with stickers still in it so I want to believe more are like this, it\'s only last one whole day and is now dead....it\'s said "50 hours!!!" ...granted I doubted that it would be near that but I thought 2 half days at work would hold the charge right??\nSo less then 3 hours A day for two days and it\'s dead... I will try the 50 watt (because the sound was good enough ) and the Am radio did NOT work to listen to my favorite football talk show... huge bummer because it looks so cool and is a really\nGOOD SPeaker!!\nI can\'t recommend it UNLESS you plan to plug this in all the time and don\'t need AM radio.... then it would be 4 stars!!!\nSo I will try the Tailgator original\nFor the antenna and hoping the sound is as good and battery last as advertised!\nI will be buying the NEW old model of the tailgator.'}]