JBL Boombox 3 Speaker Review

The JBL Boombox 3 has a similar overall design to its predecessor, the JBL Boombox 2, with some small differences. It comes with a built-in handle that has a more solid grip than that of the Boombox 2, is made of aluminum. Its body is mostly wrapped in tight fabric. Like newer JBL speakers, it sports a large JBL logo on its front. Underneath its logo, there's a small LED light that acts as a battery life indicator. You can find the speaker in black and in a camouflage pattern.

The JBL Boombox 3 is very portable. While it's on the larger and heavier side, this battery-powred Bluetooth speaker comes with a built-in handle to help you easily transport it in one hand to your next gathering.

It has excellent build quality. Like the JBL Boombox 2, it has a solid, sturdy feel and is wrapped tightly in fabric. Its rubberized plastic casing is less glossy, making it less prone to attracting fingerprints. Its rubber feet also feel sturdier than those on the Boombox 2. It's rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, meaning it's certified to be dust-tight and immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes. It even floats in water, so you don't need to worry about accidentally knocking it into the pool at your next pool party. That said, its drivers tend to face downwards into the water as it floats, so you can't float the speaker around to listen to music while you swim without holding it upright.

The JBL Boombox 3's controls are straightforward to use. Its power and Bluetooth buttons are backlit, and its other controls are raised, texturized, and differentiated enough that you don't press the wrong one accidentally in the dark. You can double-press the play button to skip tracks, though you can't use its physical controls to backtrack. The speaker also emits an audible chime when you reach its maximum volume level. There's a party mode button JBL calls PartyBoost that you can use to connect it to other PartyBoost-compatible JBL speakers like the JBL Charge 5 and the JBL Xtreme 3. Its Bluetooth button flashes blue when the speaker is in pairing mode and solidifies once it's connected. There's a battery indicator light on its front underneath the JBL logo.

• JBL Boombox 3
• Power Cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Safety Instruction and Warranty Card

The JBL Boombox 3's frequency response accuracy is good. Out-of-the-box, it has a balanced overall sound profile with a bit of extra warmth in the high-bass range, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of music genres. Its balanced mid-range ensures vocals and lead instruments reproduce clearly and accurately in the mix. The overemphasis in the high treble range adds a bit of sparkle to the mix, though it causes higher-pitched voices and sibilants like S and T to sound slightly harsh at times. Overall, its sound profile sounded noticeably fuller and more refined than the older JBL Boombox 2, and its slightly more extended low-bass was noticeable too. If you like having extra control over your speaker's sound, you can customize its sound profile thanks to the graphic EQ featured in its companion app.

Its soundstage performance is decent and similar to that of the JBL Boombox 2. Since it can play stereo content without downmixing it to mono, instruments and sound effects in your audio are localized to a pinpoint location in the soundstage. For example, if a song normally has the guitar on the left and the drums on the right, you can hear the guitar playing from the left side of the speaker and the drums playing from the right. It results in a more immersive-sounding soundstage.

On the other hand, its directivity is unremarkable. Since it mainly projects audio only from one direction, audio doesn't stretch out very far around the speaker and can sound a bit different depending on the angle you're listening from, like when you're standing behind the speaker. As a result, its soundstage is perceived as somewhat narrow, though this isn't incredibly noticeable.

This speaker has a very good dynamics performance. It gets loud enough to fill large spaces with sound, with significantly less compression present at max volume than the JBL Boombox 2, resulting in cleaner and clearer audio quality when you blast your favorite tunes.

Note: The sound tests above were conducted with the speaker operating on battery power.

The JBL Boombox 3 has a great battery performance. While it's advertised to last around 24 hours from a 6.5-hour charge, it outstandingly lasted up to almost 30 hours from a charge of 4.6-hours. That said, battery performance can vary depending on your usage habits, chosen settings, and volume levels, so your experience may vary. There's also a battery life indicator light on its front underneath the JBL logo and a power-saving feature that shuts the speaker off following 20 minutes of inactivity.

The JBL Portable app is great. There's a graphic EQ to customize its sound profile to your liking. You can use it to connect it to other PartyBoost-compatible speakers like the JBL Charge 5 and the JBL Flip 6 to create a stereo pair, and you can select which speakers you want to act as the left and right channels. That said, there's no Multi-Room feature to let you listen to different audio in different rooms of your home simultaneously.

Aside from its charging port, there's an AUX input you can use to wire your devices to the speaker. There's also a USB-A out port to use the speaker as a portable charger to charge devices like your phone or earbuds.

The JBL Boombox 3 has great Bluetooth connectivity. It has an outstanding range, so your devices remain connected to the speaker, even from far away. You can pair two devices to the speaker simultaneously, which is great when you need to frequently and easily switch between audio sources. It also has somewhat low latency with iOS and Android devices, so there aren't any syncing issues between the audio and visuals when you use the speaker to watch videos and movies. Some apps compensate for latency differently, and your real-world experience may differ.