GOgroove SonaVERSE BX Wired Portable Speaker with USB Music Player - Cube Speaker with USB Flash Drive MP3 Input, 3.5mm AUX Port, Playback Buttons, Rechargeable 5 Hour Battery (Wired AUX Only)

I got this for my mom for Christmas last year and she's been using it regularly all year. It's a great fit for what she wants to do, I was looking for something that sounded decent, was portable, had decent battery life, and the ability to play directly off storage media was a huge plus. It's generally used with one of several different smaller SD cards that each have an album on them, but she occasionally uses it with her laptop when listening to a teleseminar/podcast around the house, and it's easy to move around and take with her in the car somewhere else. It seems to last longer than 3 - 5 hour battery estimate playing from an SD card. It sounds awesome for something in the $20 - $35 bracket, I don't know that I would still recommend it at the "full retail" that Amazon shows, but it has good volume, a bit of bass, sounds quite good, and on paper, includes a lengthy 3 year warranty if you register the product with them. I haven't had any issues with it requiring contact with the manufacturer, so I can't personally comment on their responsiveness, but it sounds like others have had some good experiences with them. I'd love it if there was some way to check the battery level, and it'd be nice to have more control over media played through the USB or SD slot, but playing straight through an album works for our purposes fine. Bluetooth compatibility would substantially add to their potential audience, but wasn't something that my mom would ever use. This time last year, I think the portable speaker market was different, now there are lots of Bluetooth speakers that cost a bit more than you can get this for with decent reviews, but I'm not sure they'd sound any better. I think the charger it came with died on us after a few months of use, but being USB there are plenty of other chargers and cables we can use instead. I jumped on this near when it was first released, taking a flier on a company I hadn't heard of before, but this has exceeded my expectations in every way. After being carted around and used for more than a year, there's a bit of black paint worn off one of the corners, and I think we're out a charger, but it's held up well and everyone has been impressed by it when they hear it. I'll be keeping an eye on their other products in the future, I'm curious what their larger budget speakers sound like... One thing this has that my own more expensive Bluetooth speaker doesn't is a volume knob! I've come to realize this is an awesome thing after always having to bump the volume on my speaker up a few presses every time I pair my phone to it. Having a real volume knob means you can set it to whatever you want, and it will be that same volume next time you turn it on, sounds silly but I wish my speaker did that.

Compose songs and its portablity enables me to have friends listen to the new and best in an Irish Pub. Well designed. Excellent sound. Affordable.

Almost all portable speakers on the market today either dock with an iPhone or require bluetooth streaming to function. But I don't want to walk around with a $600 boom box (cost of phone + cost of speaker) and also don't want to rely on two devices having a full charge (phone battery + speaker battery) to stream via bluetooth. So what is a consumer to do, but a portable CD player? Enter this GOgroove self-powered speaker. Why Sony, Panasonic, et al, do not have a product like this is beyond me, it's perfect for portable music and there are 1,200 Amazon reviews for this product in the past year alone, showing very strong consumer interest. The GOgroove speaker is fantastic for portable music. The use of a standard-sized removable battery is fantastic, and it can use a Nokia BL-5C battery (which is smarter than Apple's planned obsolescence permanent battery approach). The battery charges via the included USB adapter, and you can also bring along extra batteries to the beach for music all day long -- try that with a bluetooth streaming device + phone. Extra batteries are fairly cheap. Music plays off an SD card, or a USB memory stick. It plays MP3 files only, and the files must be located in the root folder (files in subdirectories are not read by the player). I believe the SD card limit is 32GB, but have used a 16GB without a problem. The construction is very good, with an MDF (wood particle board) exterior on 5 sides and a 6th side with a volume knob and LED-lighted controls. When the unit is turned off, it will resume playing at the song at the same spot when you turn it on later; this is a great feature. The prior volume setting also resumes when the unit is switched back on. As for sound quality, it meets my expectations for a battery-powered speaker. I have a home stereo system costing many thousands, and also high-end headphones, but this is a portable speaker system, and a portable speaker system at this price will not sound like a concert hall. But it does sound pretty good! There is no high frequency speaker (tweeter), just two small speakers (one on each side of the cube) so the high frequencies are a bit flat. The bass can sound a bit muddy, but overall, for what it is, the sound is very good, and it plays fairly loud. This is perfect for a picnic lunch, in the kitchen, or a day at the beach. Note that the sound is greatly affected by where the unit is placed. If you place it near a wall, it will sound louder with more bass. In a corner, yet more bass (too much for my taste). The point is, experiment with placement, and also where you aim the speakers (face the wall, or at an angle to the wall, or parallel to the wall, etc). Experiment. Overall, after one week of use, I'm very happy with the product and would purchase again. Will update this review if anything breaks.

Volume does not works and there is not sd card slot. In regards to the above product which I have purchased , I could not able to increase or decrease the volume in the speaker, Secondly there is no sd card slot in the speaker. Please feedback and give the positive reply in this regard. regards, a.krishnaswamy

Works well but does not come with a charger for the rechargeable battery. My intended use is in my garage via Bluetooth or a USB memory stick. I had to borrow the charger for my phone to put it into use.