JBL Xtreme 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker

This is my opinion about this speaker and there is no right or wrong but hopefully information that helps other people figure out if they are wiling to pay the price for what they will get (I think it is pricy three-fifty at the time of this review). Either this speaker is over-hyped or there was something wrong with mine. It had a good amount of bass (not low, but mid bass) and very poor mids. The highs were somewhat tinny sounding and a little hissy at much over 50 percent volume. Most vocals sounded like the singer was singing into a cup or soup can and there were many mid range sounds (keyboard, guitar, etc.) that you could barely hear ...they were very muffled. It sounded meh at best with club music, but rock, country, acoustic or any other music with emphasis on vocals, strings and keybaord instruments wasn't great. Ever listen to Van Halen and barely hear Eddie's guitar? How about Kenny Chesney sounding like he has a coffee cup in front of his mouth? Or, what about a very dull sounding ukulele with Iz singing Beautiful World? That isn't good my ears. I will admit that I am into sound and have had quality equipment (I played nice electric guitars through Marshall half stacks with tube heads and a lot of effects like Rockman-Scholz, Alesis, and listening to music with B&O H9i headphones, Focals in my HD, etc). That isn't meant to act like I'm better or have better audio abilities than anyone but is meant to give examples of fairly good quality audio products that I've used and like (yet no where near top of the line obviously). I prefer a warmer or richer sound and that's just what I like. It doesn't mean I'm right if it isn't what you like and prefer so my point is that it is fairly subjective. I like deep clean bass, warm vocals and clean realistic highs that aren't tinny or hissy sounding. The sound that I heard from the Xtreme 3 was a decent mid level bass punch for a portable speaker, but not low bass (as the specs say so it is to be expected), a very dull or muffled mid range and then a tinny sounding high with piercing and hissy extreme highs (at higher volume levels). Because of that, I couldn't recommend this speaker for many types of music. Maybe some club songs would be ok. I believe youtubers can easily mislead (or lie) even if they don't mean to. I watched many reviews and speaker comparisons but the problem with doing that is that it isn't known how the speakers were recorded and how the sound was processed for the video. I never saw the microphones used and they aren't in the videos when the speaker comparisons were played so where were they placed in relationship to the speaker(s) to record the sound ...what distance, what angle to the speakers, etc. After recording the sound, how much was the recorded sound processed (like people using photoshop and lightroom to process photos and make a photo look nothing like the real life view did). I'm not saying they did, but I could take a set of 5 thousand dollar speakers and a single portable speaker (like the Xtreme) and record both, use Audacity to modify the sounds recorded from each and make a video claiming that the Xtreme sounds better by using the modified sounds to 'prove' it. To add to that, what speakers are being used to listen to the comparisons (I used both my Bang & Olufsen H9i headphones and my computer's Logitech Z623 (nice affordable 2.1 computer speakers)? They'd have to be better audio quality than the speakers being tested in order to be able to reproduce the sound (example: you can't listen to a 35Hz sound that a video is making if your speaker can't go below 60Hz). How would you know that the speaker sounds warm if your speaker playing the video isn't capable of reproducing that warm sound? If you are looking for a speaker that is fairly portable this may serve you fine and you may love this speaker but honestly, I'd take my cheap little Bose Mini II SoundLink (4 years old) out to the pool before carrying this one since I don't need it too loud and the overall sound quality is richer sounding (less bass but better mids for general music) ...but if you were wanting loud, the Xtreme 3 blows it out of the water (no waterproof pun intended). It really comes down to your expectations and what you are willing to pay. If I had a max of three fifty to spend and wanted something this size or smaller I would probably get the first or second gen instead ..put the saved money towards more music or whatever (or a second speaker to pair together). I think that if the sound produced by either of those is great to you then it probably isn't enough better sound quality to justify getting the Xtreme 3 for the price difference. Without playing them side to side (like may videos), you probably wouldn't hear enough difference to justify the cost. Maybe there was an issue with the Xtreme 3 I received so take this all as my opinion and possibly a defective product (all manufacturers have occasional bad ones). If you already have an Xtreme 3 and love it, that's great and all that really matters. But for people trying to figure out which Xtreme generation to spend their hard earned money on, I would get one (or a pair) of the older ones over this 3rd gen. I will return this and try the Aiwa Exos-9 which is bigger but less money (of course, it sounds a lot better in youtube video comparisons, but I only take that for what it's worth ..wink, wink).