These are great if you want an insanely loud robotic voice to announce “BLUETOOTH” or “FM RADIO” before playing your low volume gentle morning alarm playlist.
@goffstock Yeah, I’ve got a similar BT speaker that blasts “POWER OFF” at full volume. You know, like when you are turning everything off to go to sleep, you want this P.O.S. speaker to wake up the whole fucking house.
@goffstock@mike808 My first generation Altec Lansing Mini H2O actually has the audacity to very loudly proclaim “DEVICE IS CHARGING” when you plug it in. Mercifully, this was omitted in the 2nd generation unit, and the voice prompts in general were significantly reduced in volume.
@PooltoyWolf That must mean mine is 2nd generation. Could do without the “POWERING ON. WECOME TO ALTEC LANSING” message. I usually hold it tight to my stomach to help mitigate the annoyance.
@rjquillin the Qi charging would introduce too much interference unless they put in decent shielding and a high quality power supply, which this cheap radio probably doesn’t have. The FM reception can’t be great, either.
@aarond12@rjquillin Yep, most AM radio sucks big time. When i was a kid, WLS 890AM out of Chicago played great rock’n’roll, then they turned into puke-worthy talk. Same for KFYR out of Bismarck. Can’t stand to listen to either of them now.
I do listen to WNAX out of Yankton, SD, because they have live/local DJs from 6am-6pm, the only time i listen. No talk shows during that time. No music, either, but lots of news, weather, etc. And no political bent, which is super-refreshing.
That being said, i’d much rather have a decent AM radio in this thing than a wireless Qi charger. I like the retro, but there is something wrong with “retro without AM”. Not a buyer.
What I don’t understand is how if this speaker has a pair of identical 3" drivers, and nothing else, why are there two very dissimilar ports on the rear panel? One looks like it’s for a subwoofer.
EDIT: This photo from the FCC confirms the speaker driver layout. So weird, those rear ports are…
Somehow, on my first glance at this thing, I got the impression that it was $30. I think I would have pulled the trigger on that. But not $70. (Probably the huge font that said 30W that my brain put it on the price point I preferred.)
@Fodder650 I mean, your fucking phone’s right there on top. Which for a thousand bucks (or even $100, which is btw more than $70) better fucking tell the time, and you can even get a fancy app for that or whatever.
But I actually get tired of having the time shoved in my face. And a radio that’s not a clock is that much more retro.
@rileyper
If it had HD radio it wouldn’t be all that retro, and at the same time, it would be even more short-term retro because HD radios have become damn near impossible to find. The salesdroids at the last three places where I looked for one did not know what HD radio is, despite the fact that it’s been around for two decades.
@CatsAreGods Do you know for sure it’s monaural? It has the 2 speakers and a lot of the better grade of bluetooth speaker “boxes” do take a stereo input and provide some stereo effect, just like they did when it was new in “retro” times. (actually, really retro would be the quadraphonic of the 1970s, though it’s funny that it was a failure then but came back as the “surround sound” 5.1 and 7.1 systems now. Though that was largely due to the digital encoding that supported it, and the way Movie watching at home became common.
@CatsAreGods@pixelated
At this point, the default assumption is generally going to be that a speaker is stereo, in my experience. Certainly the Headphone and Aux In jacks are both stereo. Now, whether it combines the channels and just plays the same thing from both speakers is not addressed, but the hardware to do stereo is certainly evident.
@CatsAreGods
It says “THD < 10%”, not that it is 10%. I’m guessing that they probably don’t actually know the THD for this unit. I have been encountering a hell of a bunch of electronic stuff made in China for which the US brand-holder is ill-informed about what the device really does, and the manufacturer coughs up meaningless technobabble at a level similar to ST:Voyager’s script writers when pressed.
@werehatrack We get it, you work in Monster’s marketing department
I’m from the old school, where publishing specs actually means something, and leaving out important ones means “don’t assume otherwise” in the real world. YMMV.
@CatsAreGods@pixelated I am fairly certain that a device at this price point, and of this size, with two identical, evenly spaced speaker drivers, is going to be a stereo speaker unless explicitly stated otherwise. It wouldn’t make sense for this to be a mono unit anyway. (My earlier quip was mostly a joke.)
Monster signed a deal with Beats Electronics, a startup from Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, to design, make, and distribute the original Beats by Dre headphones from 2009 to 2012.
@hchavers@ShotgunX
When sleep will not come for whatever reason, there are worse places to go on a comment safari than Meh. (Like any news site that doesn’t heavily moderate their forums.)
It’s “Monster”. Is there a reason to think this isn’t just another in their decades-long parade of charging exorbitantly for completely vanilla products, on account of FUD marketing?
Anyone else order this and have it pause what’s playing ever 30 seconds, no matter what app you use?
I reached out to Monster, and their response is “The “Monster” branded item in question is manufactured, marketed and serviced by a different company other than “Monster Products”. Please see below for the correct company to contact. Our apologies for any confusion and inconvenience”
@seraphmonkey
I have run into similar issues with other things that carried a famous name label on an unlikely or unrelated product. It always annoys me, because it shows just how little they actually care about maintaing brand integrity.
The instructions accompanying it are worthless except to reccomend the app - the only way we could set the clock. After a couple of days of the wireless charging station not working with our iphone 11’s we noticed a warning popup on their app.
The Amazon page. Apparently the loud FM RADIO bit wasn’t a joke.
However before the FM Station can be heard a loud FM RADIO is announced, like if I am sleeping why would I need to know that and more importantly it is loud.
@werehatrack Also noted that the front-panel USB jack is 5V 1A – like was OK for 2008 or whenever this was designed. Not having at least 2.1A is a sure sign of a design fail. And of course for this era should really be USB-C.
All that said, if this were offered at about $39, I’d probably buy one.
I do feel on products like this the Mehrkaters (Meh Marketers) try to play a game between sales/profit and e-Waste disposal and we are put in the middle.
Who am I kidding – it’s Texas, whatever toxic stuff that’s not profitable ends up in the dumpster out back…
For $70 it’s unbelievable you can’t set what it automatically turns on to. At the very least you’d think it would save the last used source. Along with the loud announcement when switching sources I definitely regret this purchase.
These are great if you want an insanely loud robotic voice to announce “BLUETOOTH” or “FM RADIO” before playing your low volume gentle morning alarm playlist.
Such a relaxing way to wake up.
/giphy hulk-smash
@goffstock Yeah, I’ve got a similar BT speaker that blasts “POWER OFF” at full volume. You know, like when you are turning everything off to go to sleep, you want this P.O.S. speaker to wake up the whole fucking house.
@goffstock @mike808 My first generation Altec Lansing Mini H2O actually has the audacity to very loudly proclaim “DEVICE IS CHARGING” when you plug it in. Mercifully, this was omitted in the 2nd generation unit, and the voice prompts in general were significantly reduced in volume.
@PooltoyWolf That must mean mine is 2nd generation. Could do without the “POWERING ON. WECOME TO ALTEC LANSING” message. I usually hold it tight to my stomach to help mitigate the annoyance.
@Doooood Yep, all too familiar with that voice…
If you read the comments at the Walmart link, some folks got this for $30 at Sam’s Club. For a deals site $69 seems too steep.
@heathkat13 Yup. I’ll be back when it’s 45 bucks.
Yes! This means that we’re finally getting knives tomorrow!
@ShotgunX one can hope… haven’t seen edc knives here in a long time
@ShotgunX I would buy three Kershaw EMTs so quickly
Damn it!! This actually looks really cool. Perfect for work. You guys are bad for my wallet!
@Num1Zero I was thinking this too! Like wouldn’t this make a great gift for my husband who just got a brand new office?
Where’s the AM, it’s not a radio if it doesn’t do AM.
@rjquillin You have to tune in during the morning.
@rjquillin @ShotgunX Boooooooo!
@rjquillin the Qi charging would introduce too much interference unless they put in decent shielding and a high quality power supply, which this cheap radio probably doesn’t have. The FM reception can’t be great, either.
@rjquillin Have you HEARD what’s on AM radio lately? Yikes!!!
@aarond12 Yeah! That’s why I gotta have it.
@aarond12 @rjquillin Yep, most AM radio sucks big time. When i was a kid, WLS 890AM out of Chicago played great rock’n’roll, then they turned into puke-worthy talk. Same for KFYR out of Bismarck. Can’t stand to listen to either of them now.
I do listen to WNAX out of Yankton, SD, because they have live/local DJs from 6am-6pm, the only time i listen. No talk shows during that time. No music, either, but lots of news, weather, etc. And no political bent, which is super-refreshing.
That being said, i’d much rather have a decent AM radio in this thing than a wireless Qi charger. I like the retro, but there is something wrong with “retro without AM”. Not a buyer.
What I don’t understand is how if this speaker has a pair of identical 3" drivers, and nothing else, why are there two very dissimilar ports on the rear panel? One looks like it’s for a subwoofer.
EDIT: This photo from the FCC confirms the speaker driver layout. So weird, those rear ports are…
No disassemble!
@Raptor_007 Don’t see my comment above, oops…
Somehow, on my first glance at this thing, I got the impression that it was $30. I think I would have pulled the trigger on that. But not $70. (Probably the huge font that said 30W that my brain put it on the price point I preferred.)
All this and it isn’t a clock?
/giphy tell-time
@Fodder650
Ahem. “Clock radio.”
@Fodder650 I mean, your fucking phone’s right there on top. Which for a thousand bucks (or even $100, which is btw more than $70) better fucking tell the time, and you can even get a fancy app for that or whatever.
But I actually get tired of having the time shoved in my face. And a radio that’s not a clock is that much more retro.
@Fodder650 @joelmw
(from the info under the pics…)
Does the thing where it tells you what time it is, and set alarms for weekdays, or weekends, or every day
Sounds very clock-like to me!
@chienfou @joelmw Oh I wasn’t being serious. It’s just another meh bluetooth speaker.
@Fodder650 @joelmw I’m also fairly confident that most modern cell phones now just tell you the time if you just ask it to.
Oh, good, it doesn’t try to make coffee.
@werehatrack Exactly.
If it had HD radio I might consider it.
@rileyper
If it had HD radio it wouldn’t be all that retro, and at the same time, it would be even more short-term retro because HD radios have become damn near impossible to find. The salesdroids at the last three places where I looked for one did not know what HD radio is, despite the fact that it’s been around for two decades.
Nah, Tivoli Model One is fine for me…
THD 10% and monaural? Hard pass.
@CatsAreGods Don’t you know? Stereo audio is too new for the antique angle they’re going for!
@CatsAreGods Do you know for sure it’s monaural? It has the 2 speakers and a lot of the better grade of bluetooth speaker “boxes” do take a stereo input and provide some stereo effect, just like they did when it was new in “retro” times. (actually, really retro would be the quadraphonic of the 1970s, though it’s funny that it was a failure then but came back as the “surround sound” 5.1 and 7.1 systems now. Though that was largely due to the digital encoding that supported it, and the way Movie watching at home became common.
@CatsAreGods where did it say this thing was monaural?
@pixelated When they didn’t state it was stereo?
@CatsAreGods @pixelated
At this point, the default assumption is generally going to be that a speaker is stereo, in my experience. Certainly the Headphone and Aux In jacks are both stereo. Now, whether it combines the channels and just plays the same thing from both speakers is not addressed, but the hardware to do stereo is certainly evident.
@CatsAreGods
It says “THD < 10%”, not that it is 10%. I’m guessing that they probably don’t actually know the THD for this unit. I have been encountering a hell of a bunch of electronic stuff made in China for which the US brand-holder is ill-informed about what the device really does, and the manufacturer coughs up meaningless technobabble at a level similar to ST:Voyager’s script writers when pressed.
@werehatrack We get it, you work in Monster’s marketing department
I’m from the old school, where publishing specs actually means something, and leaving out important ones means “don’t assume otherwise” in the real world. YMMV.
@werehatrack Well said. I guess some people just don’t get it.
@CatsAreGods @pixelated I am fairly certain that a device at this price point, and of this size, with two identical, evenly spaced speaker drivers, is going to be a stereo speaker unless explicitly stated otherwise. It wouldn’t make sense for this to be a mono unit anyway. (My earlier quip was mostly a joke.)
@PooltoyWolf My thoughts exactly.
Is the Monster brand itself retro at this point? I think it’s been at least twenty years since the last time I saw their logo slapped onto something.
@brennyn Seriously??
Monster signed a deal with Beats Electronics, a startup from Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, to design, make, and distribute the original Beats by Dre headphones from 2009 to 2012.
So that’s way less than 20 years.
I could almost go for this. Almost.
Doesn’t do the HD radio thing!
Checked the Google Play page- the app is CRapp. This “deal” just sizzles with disappointment and regret. Truly meh.
Kudos for the bottom view photo. This is an often-neglected thing
@Sardinicus Yeah pictures of bottoms, heh heh.
Oh wait that was supposed to be in my Internet “private” mode…
@pmarin @Sardinicus
You had me at “rear ports”.
@mike808 @Sardinicus “any port in a storm…”
69 sounds fun, but not for this
Specs
USER MANUAL PDF
APP Links:
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$94.99 at Walmart
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Friday, Nov 12 - Wednesday, Nov 17
After a long night of checking for witty comments on Meh, I wouldn’t know if my phone or the speaker dock was sounding the alarm.
@hchavers Now you know. It missed yours.
@hchavers The only thing here sounding the alarm is your set of misplaced life priorities.
@hchavers @ShotgunX
@hchavers @mike808 @ShotgunX
@hchavers @ShotgunX
When sleep will not come for whatever reason, there are worse places to go on a comment safari than Meh. (Like any news site that doesn’t heavily moderate their forums.)
It’s “Monster”. Is there a reason to think this isn’t just another in their decades-long parade of charging exorbitantly for completely vanilla products, on account of FUD marketing?
I have one, I like it.
There’s a taco place down the road that has one to play music.
Meh.
Anyone else order this and have it pause what’s playing ever 30 seconds, no matter what app you use?
I reached out to Monster, and their response is “The “Monster” branded item in question is manufactured, marketed and serviced by a different company other than “Monster Products”. Please see below for the correct company to contact. Our apologies for any confusion and inconvenience”
Umm… what?
@seraphmonkey What did they say was the correct company to contact?
@seraphmonkey
I have run into similar issues with other things that carried a famous name label on an unlikely or unrelated product. It always annoys me, because it shows just how little they actually care about maintaing brand integrity.
@sammydog01 monsteraudio.com.
So still don’t know who actually makes it.
@seraphmonkey When I look up the manual it says to contact mymonsteraudio.com. Everything there is sold out. Maybe it’s where Monster products go when they leave production? Anyway there’s an 800 number and email. Maybe a subsidiary.
https://mymonsteraudio.com/collections/all
Does the thing where it you can even control it with an app
I’m confused
Target has a video of it, for whatever that’s worth. (Probably not $70.)
https://www.target.com/p/monster-retro-decora-speaker/-/A-79317108?
Wait, that’s apparently a smaller model. But similar.
https://mymonsteraudio.com/products/monster-retro
From Lowe’s:
The Amazon page. Apparently the loud FM RADIO bit wasn’t a joke.
@stinks
“BLUETOOTH”
“F-M RADIO”
“AUX IN”
I hear them!
Too bad you can’t connect to the web and play spotify/pandora
@mitchrusso
I suppose you could use your phone to play it on the speaker via Bluetooth, but…
The wireless charging ONLY works with Qi-enabled phones, so it’s useless for probably 75% of the inductive-capable units around.
Sounds like a design driven by buzzwords over functionality.
@werehatrack Also noted that the front-panel USB jack is 5V 1A – like was OK for 2008 or whenever this was designed. Not having at least 2.1A is a sure sign of a design fail. And of course for this era should really be USB-C.
All that said, if this were offered at about $39, I’d probably buy one.
I do feel on products like this the Mehrkaters (Meh Marketers) try to play a game between sales/profit and e-Waste disposal and we are put in the middle.
Who am I kidding – it’s Texas, whatever toxic stuff that’s not profitable ends up in the dumpster out back…
@pmarin @werehatrack
So that’s where IRKs come from!
MEH is the place where all my money goes!
I got it. the Qi decal has been on it so long the glue stuck to the fake wood. Looks good Sound pretty good.
For $70 it’s unbelievable you can’t set what it automatically turns on to. At the very least you’d think it would save the last used source. Along with the loud announcement when switching sources I definitely regret this purchase.