Soundfreaq SFQ-01W Sound Platform Bluetooth Wireless Speaker (White)

• Signature sound profile crafted for natural bass response, vocal clarity and full stereo separation.
• Docking Apple 30-Pin Connector supports docking iPhone and iPod devices
• Aux in 3.5mm line in jack accepts input from any device with standard headphone jack
• Custom engineered, Kevlar-reinforced 2x4ohm, 2.75" full range drivers balanced drivers, acoustically tuned dual-port chamber or UQ3 processor.
• Bluetooth Wireless Pair and Play to wirelessly stream audio from any compatible A2DP Bluetooth device including .

I was looking for a dock for my wife's iPhone4 and my Blackberry. I had 2 mandatory requirements other than good sound quality:

1. It should work with an iPhone 4 in a bumper case.

2: I should be able to use it with non-Apple devices using the AUX input.

I first purchased the Philips Fidelio DS8500 Speaker Dock with Remote for iPod/iPhone (White/Silver) (Note: I have posted of review there as well) based on the good reviews on Amazon but returned it because it wouldn't allow the iPhone4 to dock with the bumper case and there was an omnipresent hum when I used the AUX input. The sound quality however was excellent. I then purchased the Soundfreaq and was able able to compare it with the Phillips before I shipped the Phillips. Here are my conclusions:

1. Sound: Phillips wins hands down. The bass is fuller and it can be played at a higher volume. Having said that, the Soundfreaq is no laggard. The bass isn't as deep but the sound over all is excellent. My wife listens mostly to older Indian songs and podcasts, neither of which requires big thumping bass. Both genres are more vocal oriented and the Soundfreaq does a good job. I have a different system for my periodic dose of classic rock/metal and any sound dock in this price range will most likely not do the trick anyways.

2. Connectivity and convenience: The Soundfreaq is the outright winner. The iPhone4 connects without any adapters even with the bumper case. No problems! Even better, I don't even need to actually mount the iPhone on the dock because of Bluetooth connectivity. It took 5 7 minutes from the moment I signed the UPS receipt for the box to having a song from the iPhone 4 playing through this dock via bluetooth. It works like a charm. Setup is a breeze and the convenience of Bluetooth is a HUGE plus. Similarly, I was able to connect my Blackberry via Bluetooth, so I no longer need to use the AUX input for my BB. The device can stay in your pocket or you can do something else on it while the music plays through the dock. Also, the AUX input works perfectly with no background hum like the Phillips.

3. FM radio: Works fine on the Soundfreaq. Not present on the Phillips. This isn't a very big differentiator but since I'm spending more for the Soundfreaq, its nice to get more too.

4. Looks/aesthetics: both systems look pretty good. I liked the Phillips but the retro, vacuum-tube radio like design of the Soundfreaq is very nice.

5. iPhone app: Phillips' app is buggy, clunky and is more of a hindrance. Soundfreq app does what it is supposed to and stays out of the way. Neither app needs to be used but the Soundfreq app doesn't irritate like the Phillips.

Conclusions:

1. If you want deeper bass and all round richer sound, go with the Phillips. I am however very satisfied with the Soundfreaq in this department.

2. The convenience of the Soundfreaq cannot be matched by the Phillips. I really like the fact that I can switch on bluetooth on my phone (I don't have it running all the time to conserve battery), connect and I'm in business from anywhere in the room. No wires. No need to even get close to the actual dock.

3. Soundfreaq is more expensive, and more than what I was planning to spend but I think I'm getting decent value for the extra money.

I'm happy with my purchase of the Soundfreaq and more important, the wife loves it. I'm keeping it and will ship back the Phillips.

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After laboring in the satanic mills of Amazon's customer reviews for some five years, I finally have a product that makes me want to sing with joy. So, this is not the technical type review you have probably already seen about the Sound Freaq bluetooth music player.

A little confession here: I got this beauty on a one day Amazon special for about one hundred and fifty dollars (trying to avoid the Amazon bot that erases prices and URLs gratuitously supplied by customers) and am I ever happy! Unboxing revealed a well designed package with a really big power brick which was at least as big as the one my laptop uses. I think it's three amps at about eighteen volts with a reasonably long cord. I straightened out the wire antenna, and plugged it in the back to see how it got my local FM. It starts off by scanning from low to high. Got my local classical station, turned up the volume to about 20 out of 30, and listened to some of the best FM I've heard for a while. FM scrunches the dynamic range a bit normally but it looks like the engineers at Sound Freaq have its number: the dynamic range was the best I've heard from FM, so it looks like I'll be able to enjoy my local stations much more now.

I didn't test the external sound input feature nor the iPhone input either. But the bluetooth got my attention right away. I bought this unit to use it with my iPad so after reading the handy quick use guide on the top of the box inside I went online and downloaded the Soundfreaq remote app in the iTunes app store. It's fairly basic as a remote. It has a drop down menu of your iTunes songs. But you don't need the app. After you are paired, just go into the ipod music app and make a selection. You should get the sound immediately.

First, though, set the Sound Freaq unit to bluetooth mode, duh!, a little nicety I forgot it won't pair up unless you do. Next go into your iPad/iPhone/iPod system management (you should know where that is) to make sure bluetooth is ON.

Next, if they are now pairing successfully, all you have to do is touch the SOUND DEVICE bar on the same page to tell the iThingee to pair up. Voilà!

As you are pairing devices, an orange bar in the center of the lower part of your Sound Freaq starts blinking every three seconds and keeps doing so until you turn one of the devices off. Keeps you from wondering if your bluetooth connection is up; it's hard not to notice.

If the Sound Freaq wide dispersion mode is on, you will not be able to adjust the bass and treble. Get out of that feature if you want to adjust manually. Don't know why anyone would want to do that, though. The sound dispersion, base down to one hundred cycles (hertz), and fantastic mids and treble amounts to the best you are ever going to get from a unit this size and price.

As a matter of fact, I placed this on top of my two Polk tower speakers side by side: a good use for them since I never was really happy with their performance coupled with my Onkyo 50 watt receiver. Can you imagine being happier with the Sound Freaq than with a dedicated receiver and tower speakers?

And I don't mean to disparage that fine brand of small radios and CD players made in Framingham, Massachusetts either, but frankly this is a much better deal. My advice is don't pass it up. I'm thinking of getting another for the patio ...

UPDATE:

Have to remember that when attempting to link a bluetooth device such as my cell phone music function or my iPad, set your bluetooth enabled device to searching function, then set the Soundreaq to bluetooth and REMEMBER to press the tiny LINK button on the extreme right side. I haven't had any problem since I started remembering to do that!!

Read Best Reviews of Soundfreaq SFQ-01W Sound Platform Bluetooth Wireless Speaker (White) Here

Great sound, huge base. Clear and sharp. The wireless feature makes it even better. in our home we have Bose wave, bose dock, two diff Sony dock, and tivoli. Tivoi sound is the best, this unit is on the level of bose. Very good buy for around 150.

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What a great sounding piece of equipment!

I compared it to a Bose SoundDock and it sounds better than the Bose unit. The Bose unit demo music sounded muddy compared to the SFQ-01 unit playing my own music from my iPhone 4.

The SFQ-1 definitely sounds better than the smaller SFQ-02, with fuller range, richer sound.

In the store I listened to some Dubstep (Swagga by Excision & Datsik) just to see how it would perform and it sounded awesome. The bass reproduction is surprising. I then tried Barbara Hendricks singing Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 and it sounded great too. The vocals were crisp and beautiful. Somehow it wound up in my shopping cart and I brought it home.

I'm listening to Vladimir Horowitz playing Beethoven Piano Sonata #14 "Moonlight" and the sound is amazing.

I also listened to Selena Gomez' Love You Like a Love Song and it sounded great too. Janine Jansen's violin work on "15 Two-part inventions" sounded amazing too.

Incidentally, My MacBook Pro is paired with the SFQ-01 via Bluetooth (i.e. wirelessly). This is going to be so awesome to have the SFQ-01 in my bedroom, the laptop in the living room where it lives, and I have the Apple Remote app on my phone so I can control iTunes on the laptop. Of course I could pair the SFQ-01 with my phone, or just dock the phone in the SFQ-01 and use the SFQ-01 remote to control it. So many great wireless possibilities!

My one complaint: the orange bar blinks on for 3 seconds, then off for 3 seconds and repeats. That's one of my idiosyncrasies, I don't like blinky things. I'm going to contact their tech support to see if there is a way to make it stop doing that.

To summarize:

Great sound.

Great connectivity.

Great styling.

Priced lower than any AirPlay device with many more connectivity options.

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Read numerous favorable reviews of the Soundfreaq Sound Platform and decided to give it a try. I was looking for a speaker that could be used with my iPhone as well as my computer and was intrigued by the Bluetooth connectivity. The FM radio was a nice bonus as well. After listening for a week, however, I decided to return the unit.

The sound quality, while good, was not great. The speaker has more low end than you'd expect given its size but the highs were not clearly distinguishable to my ear. Tweaking EQ settings in iTunes helped some but not enough for me. At this price point, I'd hoped for better sound.

Additionally, when using Bluetooth, the quality suffers even more. Perhaps Bluetooth simply doesn't have the bandwidth to pass hifi audio but I noticed that cymbals and other high-frequency sounds often "sizzled" in an irritating way.

Lastly, the dock will not accept an iPhone 3GS with a case. My phone has the minimalist Incipio Feather case but even this was too bulky to allow the phone to be docked. Though a minor annoyance, it's still an annoyance nonetheless to remove the case each time you want to dock the phone.

While I loved the aesthetics of the Sound Platform and the principle behind some features (Bluetooth wireless, FM radio), the sound quality wasn't good enough for me to justify the price tag.