This is solely my opinion so YMMV. But I like to think I have good opinions so trust me.

After a lot of buying, comparing and returning, I’ve concluded that the Flex is the best BT speaker in its class. The sound is very crisp and detailed with a slight bump in bass and prominent vocals. Gets loud enough but not too loud. This isn’t an audiophile speaker but man it’s nice to listen to, it just engages you.

However, I found the real magic happens when you pair 2 Flex’s in stereo mode. Holy shit. These bad boys produce the best stereo image I’ve ever heard out of BT speakers and can easily fill a decent sized room with rich, high quality sound at around 75% volume. Most BT speakers I’ve had tend to sound muffled, distorted, or harsh at higher volumes but not the Flex. The fact that these have a long battery life, IP67 rating and are shock resistant is just the icing on the cake.

The app kinda sucks tbh but I do everything with the physical buttons on the speaker and have had no issues.

I found mine open box at Best Buy and paid just over $220 for both after taxes but they’re worth their full price imo.

tldr: One is great but two is the best $300 you can spend on BT speakers right now. Better yet if you can find them on sale.

Hi all,

I needed a compact bluetooth speaker, and had little time to study my options. After speaking to a few people, I chose the BOSE Soundlink Flex Bluetooh - in part because I trusted the Bose brand.

I am a bit disappointed by the sound, and wanted to see if I'm being too harsh, or if other people had the same experience.

Main issues:

- bass is boomy. Way too loud, and not terribly precise. A bit messy.

- treble is not very well defined either

I listen mostly prog rock / metal, so very guitar and saturation heavy, so that is a hard benchmark. But still, it's a bit of a mess. It's good but not great.

In comparison, my iLoud Micro Monitor fare much better (granted, they are twice the budget, and not portable. Also they're supposed to be studio monitor, not really portable speakers).

Is it :

- that my ears are bad ?

- that I should use some equalizer ?

- that Bose invests a lot in marketing and not much in products and that I should have kept to a lesser-known brand with a better reputation (such as Focal) ?

Thanks

I have both. I got the Flex for $109 and the much larger Max for $380. Sure the Max is louder, has more bass, better Bluetooth and an AUX input. But the Flex has it's own features and less annoyances that it's hard to accept the much higher price of the Max.

Here is why the Flex is better:

1. The Soundlink Flex has a microphone. The Soundlink Max does not.

2. The Soundlink Flex can be turned on from your phone! When I'm in bed, I can turn on the speaker from a distance using just my phone. For the Flex, I go to the Bose Connect app and slide down the icon to turn the speaker on. However the regular Bose app of the Soundlink Max does not allow this. I must manually press the power button on the Soundlink Max to turn it on.

3. The Soundlink Flex has no white noise. On the Flex, there is white noise after pausing music but it disappears after 5 seconds and the speaker is completely silent. But for the Soundlink Max, after you pause music, white noise remains indefinitely, and it is noticeably loud when your room is super quiet and your ears are near the speaker. For those who don't know, white noise is the background noise the speaker makes when the speaker is on but not playing sound. It can be annoying for some people.

4. The Soundlink Flex has accurate battery readings. The Flex has an accurate battery update at all times. But for some reason, the Soundlink Max has a delayed battery reading. I can play music for hours and the battery level on the Max remains at 100% from day to night, giving me a false impression that the battery is that good. But the next day, when I turn the Soundlink Max back on, that is when the battery reading adjusts itself and the 100% battery from the previous night suddenly drops down to like 60% in the morning.

Why aren't people who own both speakers pointing these things out?

Gen 1 is available for $119 right now in India, which is the lowest it has been.

Gen 2 is available for $200.

Should I go with the Gen 1? I don't need EQ support. The only thing I am worried about is the Bluetooth version 4.2 used in Gen 1.

Thanks.

I've read a few things online but not sure if real. I've read it's called 2nd generation.

Refreshing colors, smaller logo, new multifunction button and pairing to the soundlink MAX are pretty nice editions, along with the aptx adaptive codec support. But is there a sound difference? As far as i can hear, yes.A slight one. The speaker got more clarity, sounds more open, more vocal friendly and has a little deeper bass with less upperbass (most people didn't hear a difference but i did a little) The EQ is the biggest upgrade in my opinion, it really fixes the highs and mids especially in the standing position where the old flex lacks crisp. One thing i would change, is add an option to turn off the positioning eq change, because ONE - it now has a delay when switching positions compared to the old flex, and TWO - i personally rather having one eq for all positions. The motion 300 has the same delay problem but you can turn that off completely. In terms of price and value, the gen 2 is currently 150$ which is the original retail price of gen 1 (which can be found for around 120$ or so) But i think that the 2nd gen is future proof and is a better experience overall. Would be nice to hear yall opinions if you agree or disagree.

Hi everyone,

As the title asks. My partner suggested this as a birthday gift but just wondering if there's an even better unit similar in price range (and size/portability)? Thanks!

Sorry about the title gore.

The sound is clear but it doesn't handle highs and lows good, it bottoms out. I tried playing with the equalizer but I don't like it still.

I usually listen around MAX volume, it's very quiet in my opinion. It can't handle the high and low at max volume or even 3/4 volume.

Can anyone make a recommendation of one around similar price that can handle louder sounds?

If anyone had both and could let me know I would greatly appreciate it!

I have one already but wondering if it would be much of an upgrade getting a second one.

I received a Bose SoundLink Flex 2nd Gen as a gift. Being fairly invested in the JBL ecosystem already, I thought it would be fun to compare. Perhaps this will be useful to people cross shopping the brands.

Sound comparisons were made before I looked at the price of the Bose. I kept the Bose at 75% volume and adjusted the others to compare. I liked the Bose 3-band EQ (in the app) at +8/-4/+2, so that's what I used (the EQ effect is pretty subtle on this speaker overall). Note, I can only compare to the last-gen Flip 5 that I have. Supposedly the newer Flip 6 is significantly improved.

In terms of physical size, the Bose (20.7 oz) comes in just slightly larger than the Flip 5 (19.6 oz), and much smaller than the Charge 5 (34.3 oz). The Xtreme3 dwarfs them all at 74.4 oz (including carry strap).

Bose SoundLink Flex 2nd Gen vs. JBL Flip 5

The Bose is just better. It gets louder, stays clearer at high volume, produces more and clearer bass, and sounds more detailed and refined across the board. If you can afford the extra cost of the Bose ($119 at time of writing) over the JBL ($100 for the Flip 6 at time of writing), I think it is well worth the cost. I can't imagine the extra 1 oz weight would ever really make a meaningful difference. Frankly, before looking at the price of the Bose, I thought the price difference would be significantly more.

Bose SoundLink Flex 2nd Gen vs. JBL Charge 5

The Bose punches above its weight here. It produces a similar quantity of bass to the JBL, while staying tighter and less boomy. The Bose produces rich, warm mids and highs, and the JBL shows a noticable "tinny-ness" when compared side by side. I distinctly prefer the sound quality of the Bose ($119 at time of writing) over the JBL ($140 at time of writing). That said, the JBL does get significantly louder overall, so if you plan to use it primarily in large spaces like gymnasiums or outside, then the JBL would probably be worth the extra cost.

Bose SoundLink Flex 2nd Gen vs. JBL Xtreme 3

The Bose just gets outclassed here. In some sense, you could still say the Bose is a bit more detailed and refined... but that argument kind of falls apart when the JBL can comfortably fill your living room with deep bass notes that the Bose can't really reproduce at all. Perhaps if you were planning to exclusively listen to technical classical music at modest volumes you'd still prefer the Bose. But for the rest of us, if the size and cost ($250 at time of writing) of the JBL are not a problem for you, then it's a clear choice.

Conclusion

The Bose impressed me in a big way. I have traditionally considered Bose products to be a bit overpiced, but in this case I think it's highly competetive. I think the Bose will replace the Charge 5 as my dedicated bathroom/shower speaker.

As much as I love the sound signature, I just can’t justify the size of this thing to be a portable speaker. It is much larger than my JBL Flip 4 and Soundlink Revolve II as pictured, which surprised me; even though I didn’t review the dimensions before ordering it. I’m also not a fan on how you can’t stand it upright on its own and that it can only support itself orientated in a horizontal position.

I had my hopes up for a waterproof speaker from Bose, but I feel like this thing would be a little too much of an inconvenience due to it’s size. Which is a shame because I LOVE buying Bose products. I just can’t justify $150 for a mono speaker this size from Bose just because it’s waterproof/durable. I hope the next iteration can fix this issue.

EDIT: I ended up keeping it, I can't get over how great it sounds. When paired with the Revolve II, it's like a match made in heaven. Both speakers compliment each other VERY well in party mode

I recently got a SoundLink flex, and while I think it sounds great, it either doesn't get loud enough, or the bass gets weaker, so I'm wondering how to optimise it for the following use cases (which orientation to use and where to position the speaker) for the best balance of sound quality and loudness:

• outdoors in my backyard

• inside my room

• when using it for movies or connected media like tiktok and YouTube

• at a party

• at a school event where you're sitting in rows of chairs outside

I recently got the Soundlink Flex speaker and wanted to connect it to my Pixel 7 (Android 14) but I can't get it to work. It shows up in the app and I can see the "Drag to Connect" option. Once I do it, I get the default "Pair & Connect" popup from Android, I tap on Pair and then it just gets stuck. It keeps repeating this.I can connect to the speaker as a regular bluetooth device but I thought connecting via the app would unlock some options like stereo mode if I ever want to use it with a second speaker.

I restarted my phone, removed the speaker from my device list, cleared the bluetooth device list on my speaker but nothing works.

The lineup is Bose SoundLink flex, new beats pill 2024, and the Charge 5.

I am testing these out, all connected to a dap to get the cleanest sound, without any interruptions from my phone.

This is all of the opinion of my ears.

Bass: So far I've found that you can hear a deeper bass from the SoundLink flex, although not hearing enough higher bass noises. The charge 5 has strong bass, but not anything out of the 3 that would make it stand out. The beats pill has a great bass signature from my ears. It can be felt through a table and is not overpowering to the rest of the sound signature has. The bass on the SoundLink flex is a bit weaker then the rest, not really having anything from the higher end of the bass spectrum that I hear from the other 2 speakers.

Treble: Bose SoundLink flex has the weaker of the treble responses, although it does sound great but it's just not something I would choose when comparing. It just doesn't come off as weak, just more blended in to the bass (not a muddy sound, just something that can be potentially annoying to some). It does sound very well tuned there but I would like a bit more treble response. Beats Pill sounds very good with a higher treble response. It could get annoying to some people but it does mean that I can hear more of the background instruments a bit more clearly, along with the vocals. The Charge 5 being the biggest speaker in this comparison, the treble is super clear with it not being overwhelming at all. I would consider it to be tuned between the Bose and the Beats, in terms of how much treble to bass you get.

Volume: To start this off, the Charge 5 of course is going to sound the loudest and can get the loudest at the top volumes. 37% volume and it's louder than the other 2 speakers. The beats pill is in second, and at 44% it's loud, still quieter than the JBL, where I'd want to turn it up to hear some songs. The Bose SoundLink Flex is set to 64%-68% before it gets to a comparable sound level between the other two.

Portability: If you want the smallest of the 3 speakers, the SoundLink Flex is the smallest, being slim and easier to throw into a bag. The beats is second, JBL third. Throwing this into a bag to bring to your friends house or to travel, I'd personally grab the beats as it doesn't seem to feel too much bigger than the Bose. If you want something to bring to the beach with you, or just bring on a camping trip, it would be a pick between what has the best rated battery, Beats Pill 2024, or the more rugged JBL Charge 5.

Conclusion: All-in-all they are all great speakers. From my ears, they sound decent. Nothing wrong with choosing any one of these. The bass to treble on the Beats Pill is blowing me away, seeing how they used to all be just pure bass with "passable" treble. I may actually choose to carry around the Beats Pill with me if I need to go out somewhere that asks me to bring a speaker (I have too many for them to default to asking me every time lol!). If I go to the beach I will still take the JBL just because the amount of times I brought it and just put it in the shower to wash it off made it worth it. Esp since it just sits in sand and can take it.

I wanna know what one you would choose.

On Costco and Sam’s club website it shows up as “Bose Soundlink Flex SE” as opposed to just “Bose Soundlink Flex” on Best Buy and targets website. All the reviews I watched don’t say “SE” and there aren’t really reviews on it. Does anyone know the difference or are these the same exact speaker?

Just purchased my first bose product! Love these speakers, the sound is richer and more comfortable than JBL’s.

I just bought a monitor (Gigabyte m27q) to play my PS5 on, but I realised that the monitor doesn't have speakers. It does have a headphone jack, but I have a Bose Soundlink Flex, which doesn't have a 3.5mm input. Is the type c port on the speaker power only, or data and power both? Would I be able to play the ps5 audio by getting a 3.5mm to type c cable and connecting the speaker and the monitor? Would it even work that way? Considering it'd be digital to analog conversion (i think???)? I'm sorry im a bit dumb, Im new to audio tech. I just wanna know If it'd work in theory before actually spending the money to get a cable like that.