Customer Ratings & Reviews

I'm old enough to remember when Bose was new to the mainstream commercial market and a home that had their Wave system was 'high-falutin'. I cut my teeth on Bose products when I finally had money of my own and was stepping into the audiophile world. I quickly moved past Bose into the ethereal realms of speakers and headphones, but always had a soft spot for Bose, even though it seemed like they were consistently getting beat at their own game. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear Bose come out swinging with the SoundLink Max. TL:DR - It deserves to be on the shortlist for anyone looking for an outstanding portable bluetooth speaker. It's the first portable BT speaker to even come close to acing my audiophile test playlist. Here is what I like about the SoundLink Max: Sound Quality: I kinda feel like this has taken a back seat for a lot of portable BT speakers as of late. Many people prioritize the portability or battery life of a system over pure sound quality. Understandable since if you can't take it with you, or if it doesn't play long enough, the quality really doesn't matter. You don't have to compromise on sound with the SoundLink Max. Even though I stopped chasing the holy grail of audiophile sound (it got WAY too expensive), I do still utilize my test playlist with all my new sound gear, and the Max is the first portable bluetooth speaker I've owned that could even come close to nailing each test. Everything from depth, impact, focus, transients, and resonance were spectacular. Of course it can't get proper separation due to the closeness of the speakers (but a paired set might just do it), but no single point system can do that. The only test that it even tripped over was part of the bass response, and I'm having trouble isolating whether that is an actual issue with the speaker or if it is something else. On some dance/R&B tracks with certain bass segments, there is a 'stutter' in one frequency set. It's weird, and it only pops up in certain songs. It could very well be an artifact from processing or the original production. Other than that, the SoundLink Max has an impressively controlled bass response which has usually been a weak point for BT speakers and Bose in particular. Looks: My wife loves the Blue Dusk color and the SoundLink Max design itself is simple and clean. I don't need disco lights nor do I need it to look like some alien spaceship. I also dig the rope handle, which I guess can be swapped out for a longer shoulder rope strap but that's not for me. Battery Life: Bose says you get 20 hours at moderate volume, but I spent six hours with the audiophile test and just regular music yesterday and a good three hours so far this morning just working in my office and the speaker is still reporting 100%! Now I hope that's not an error with the software but the weight of this speaker makes me think that it has some solid battery capacity built into it. Charge Capability: Unlike a few portable speakers I've utilized lately, the SoundLink Max will charge your phone if you plug it into the USB-C port. Always a nice feature. Durability/IP Rating: The Bose SoundLink Max feels solid and sturdy, plus the rubberized coating all lead you to feel that it can take some abuse and still keep rocking. That, and the fact that you can replace the handle if needed, all give me a good feeling that I'll be using this speaker for years to come. The solid IP67 (and weirdly secondary IP64) rating also mean that this is a great speaker to take out and about, whether it is to the pool, beach, desert, or wherever you may roam. Phone App: Simple and clean. Always appreciate that. What I don't like as much (but none are very big issues): Weight: Despite being a relatively compact speaker, you could probably do some serious damage to someone if you were to swing this at them. Perhaps Bose should consider marketing it as a self-defense item or perhaps a stylish exercise weight. It's nothing egregious, but it has some heft to it. Equalizer: While I appreciate that the app is clean and simple, and that the equalizer is easy to adjust, I would appreciate some better presets, or better yet, the ability to save my own. Hopefully this will come out in a future app update. I am VERY happy with the Soundlink Max and I look forward to years of great sounding music no matter where I may be.

This is the perfect gift I ever got myself, perfect quality surround sound.

This Bose speaker is extremely loud and amazing, it brings attention to many people out there. It echoes and loud base.

I love it, I have the Bose sound link 3 which is nice but this new generation is the best, the sub buffer is pretty deep and the sound is amazing…

Excellent portable speaker with punchy bass. The Bose app is useful for customizing the equalizer and connectivity is also butter smooth. I bought an open box item in excellent condition from best buy and that was a great deal.

I am happy to purchase it . Best buy is amazing! Product was frees and no damage issues! There volunteers was very helpful!

The best of the best The sound is incredible the bass sounds excellent

Omg good sounds easy to travel anywhere I love it Bose it’s the best i always use Bose thank you

Great product super sound quality a little pricey but so is Bose but worth it.

Excellent sound quality and quickly become part of my everyday routine

I’ve liked every Bose device I’ve ever had. The Soundlink Max is my favorite so far. Between it’s size, feature set, battery life, and sound quality, I don’t think you could do better than this speaker. The first impression as soon as you pick this speaker up is how dense it is. It’s not heavy, just heavier than you would ever expect when you pick it up. The soft-touch main body is pleasant to hold and is well matched to the metal grille and handle. That soft touch covering does pick up fuzz and stuff, but it’s easily wiped off. It has a 3.5mm aux jack for analog sources and a USB-C charging in/out port on the back. The handle is big enough for me to grab with my bear mitts, but small enough to not get in the way. It’s removeable as well, and can be swapped with a longer color-matched rope handle for shoulder carry. The controls are easy to see and use, feeling quite soft from the silicone shell, but have a nice click to let you know when the button has been pressed. My favorite note about the controls is the power button, you just press it and it turns on, press it and it turns off! No holding the button and counting every time I want to power cycle the speaker. Though I was a little worried about carrying around and handling this speaker with kid gloves, it has proven weatherproof and pretty resistant to drops. I’ve dropped it twice now, once onto concrete, and it just keeps ticking. I am glad I did not drop it on the front grill, that might have scratched it, but I can barely even feel a little scuff on the corner and no visible damage. I also tested in the rain over the last few days and it’s completely unfazed. I will not be voluntarily submerging my speaker, so I didn’t try that. I ran the speaker for 6 straight hours outside and it still said (literally) there was 40% battery left. I have not run the battery all the way down to see how long a full charge takes, Bose says it will take 5 hours with the 15W charger and I have no reason to doubt that. You can charge your phone or Walkman with the same port, and it offers a good 15W of output. Sound quality here is spot on what I expected. It’s clean and full, with strong bass and nice kick drum thumps. There isn’t any sub-bass you’ll be hearing outdoors, perhaps a little more indoors. The highs and mids are very strong, well-articulated if a little harsh when the speaker is at ear level. When the speaker is on the ground or floor, it sounds great. It covers my back patio area of about 40sq feet with clean sound. It manages to have a wide audible area and works well in a corner facing in. Stereo imaging isn’t this guys forte, but outside or listening next to the campfire, that’s not this speaker’s role. It can get very loud as well, sound output is clean and distortion free all the way up the volume scale. The app is simple, straightforward without a bunch of fiddly controls. It offers battery level and volume at a glance. There is also access to a very simple EQ, which is easy to use and very effective with small adjustments. I like the button to directly access Bluetooth connections and edit them, removing and enabling/disabling devices as needed rather than wiping out all paired devices with a hardware reset. The shortcut (circle) button is factory mapped to switch the speaker to the 3.5mm rear aux jack, this can be changed in the app to resume Spotify and I understand with a second press, it will prompt Spotify to play your discovery queue. This is very nice for someone who uses Spotify, but it did seem to be missing some options for other services… what do I know. The last function of the app is the Tips section, which has instructions and pointers for using the speaker, quite handy. Perhaps the best feature in the app is that Bose is not hiding arbitrary functions behind a forced account creation. Everything works just fine without signing in to Bose, a pleasant surprise. Overall, this is all the portable speaker I could want, great sound, good looks, good battery life, easy operation, weatherproof, and physically tough. I would recommend it to friends and family without reservation.

Surprised by the bass as minimum distortion to the music played

Speaker with an extraordinary sound, I got surprised because I was expecting something moderate as per the size but it was amazing.

VERY GOOD SOUND,VERY GOOD QUALITY, BOSE LIVE UP TO THIER NAME. THANKS !!!

Great sound! Awesome looking speaker! Super excited to take it out and about

Excellent sounds!!! Easy to operate. Better with the app because it has an equalizer. Got the sounds of a much bigger equipment!!!

This speaker is very good quality and sounds. I am satisfied with this new purchase.

The Bose SoundLink Max is the latest iteration to the SoundLink family, a well respected line up of portable Bluetooth speakers. Does this one live up the name, and as its own name suggests, provide the Maximum experience? Lets take a listen and find out. The packaging is clean and straightforward, with an emphasis on minimal use of plastic or Styrofoam. Refreshingly, the speaker comes with both a USB-C cable and a high wattage charger, bucking a recent trend of not including chargers with products. Other than those two items, some basic documentation, and the speaker, there is nothing else in the box. The speaker itself looks like a grown up version of the SoundLink Flex. It has side grilles for the passive radiators, a set of buttons on the top, and the carrying handle. It’s an understated design with no flashing lights or other gimmicks, which is what a speaker should be, in my opinion. The Blue Dusk color is very on trend and looks great. Inside, the speaker features two woofers and a tweeter, and does support stereo sound, which is nice to not have to link two smaller speakers together. It also supports Bluetooth 5.4, finally moving the line away from the older Bluetooth 4 standards. Another nice include is an analog audio input, letting you connect it to any number of devices, like a turntable if you are hopping on the vintage audio trend of late. You can also use the battery in the speaker to reverse charge your phone or other device by plugging it into the USB-C port. I do wish there were dust covers on the ports to keep sand and liquids out of them, especially the aux input port. If you are going to take it outside you might want to get a couple of dust plugs for the ports to keep stuff out of there. After charging the speaker the recommendation is to connect it and use the Bose app to configure things like the EQ, apply any product updates, and customize the shortcut button. Weirdly, the shortcut button right now has just two options – configure it to switch to the line in input, or be kind of an oddly hacked up interface only for Spotify. I left it at input switching. You don’t have to use the Bose app if you don’t want to, but a few controls do require connecting it to the app from time to time. After connecting, it’s time for a listen. It’s immediate that this by far has the most bass of any SoundLink speaker to date. It’s not room shaking, as there are limits to the size and power of a portable speaker, but it is present for sure. It also has a very wide stereo sound stage, remarkably so for a smaller speaker, especially at the sweet spot of about 4-5 feet away. Bose is claiming they are using some of their virtual surround enhancements normally reserved for a soundbar in here, and there is kind of an uncanny depth to some audio tracks that does sound more like a surround sound setup than just stereo. It may also lead to kind of an overprocessed sound on occasion, with Charle Puth’s “Left and Right” (which I used to test the stereo separation) having an oddly distorted sound at some moments in the drums. This could either be an issue with the track’s encoding or how the speaker is processing it, and Bose may still be working the kinks out of how their sound processing works with this specific speaker. I found the speaker with the default EQ to be a little bright and actually a little lacking in bass when used outside. I tuned the EQ to +5 bass and -2 treble to find what I found to be a more balanced sound. It can get SUPER loud at full volume. Overall, it sounds good, which at this premium price point, it should. As anyone with other SoundLink speakers know, one feature of the SoundLink family is the ability to link SoundLink speakers together in a “party mode” to spread sound around a space. Sadly, this speaker, despite the name SoundLink, does not actually link to any of its SoundLink cousins. In fact, it uses the Bose app, not the Bose Connect app, so it sits outside of the SoundLink line and only seems to share the name and the look. That said, this speaker is quite capable of filling a space with sound on its own, and having stereo means you don’t need two speakers linked together for stereo sound. You can link it to some other Bose smart speakers as well, but it's still a little odd that the SoundLink Max can’t link to the other SoundLink speakers. Overall, this is an expensive, premium portable speaker that punches well above its size. Showing up at a party with it or using it when you have guests over will almost certainly get comments about how much sound is coming out of this still relatively compact package. Portable, modern Bluetooth and charging capabilities, and still having an analog input make for a well rounded speaker that will keep your party rocking for hours.

I’m very satisfied with this purchase. It is small with a HUGE sound.

Amazing sound with clear base. Good for indoor and outdoor.