There was a time when having the biggest and best stereo meant a great deal. Not just from the sheer bragging rights, but because bigger literally meant better, or at least more by sheer volume of the hardware. Playing your preferred music on a great stereo meant creating your own music world.
The boombox came and its portability changed the world. The personal radio changed into the cassette Walkman, then it changed into the CD Walkman, and then the iPod. The problem, though, came when speakers were desirable for enjoyment beyond just yourself. That was the beauty of the boombox, as cumbersome and heavy and inconvenient they could be to carry.
Music has since been made downloadable — no tapes, no CDs, just air and hardware. But say you want to have boombox quality without having to lug around any actual album artifacts? Something ready for indoors and outdoors? Something sleek, some unusually attractive, and most importantly, something digital and powerful? Meet The Blazar.
Literally a block of music speakers and a subwoofer encased in silver aluminum, Beacon Audio’s The Blazar — seen above and in finer detail here — is the new wave of portable stereo music. The specs are impressive and upfront to the piece. It has left and right speakers on its lateral sides with an internal subwoofer at its base; it’s Bluetooth-enabled to play from anything that can read with the technology, making phones and tablets with music the new DJ sets (it’s also NFC-enabled for pairing with devices through touch); there’s a rechargeable battery within up to 10 hours of active powered play (but you don’t have any juice, it can easily be plugged in and used just as well); a microphone equips the Blazar for speakerphone capability as well (which is excellent for meetings and the like); and if you really want to do it big, if you have two Blazars available, they can be paired together for whole left/right dual Blazar speaker functionality, with double the bass by proxy.
In short, the Blazar is amazing. It’s visually very attractive and the power is something to witness. It can fill a house full of sound with ease and doesn’t cheap out on sound. I’ve listened to the Blazar inside, outside, in a house, outside in the wilderness, with an Android phone, with an iPhone, wireless with Bluetooth, plugged up and attached to an iPod, loud, quiet, with speakerphone, working and relaxing, you name it. It’s convenient and handy in creating atmosphere.
One thing about it is that it transfers all sounds from your connected device — in my case, my Samsung Galaxy S III — so if you’re planning on playing music without interruption, be sure to put your phone on airplane mode to keep email and message notifications out of the playing experience. The good thing is that even with interruptions, the song resumes without difficulty.
Bottom line: If you want to make any venue a potential party or create your mini-listening studio (or make a great impression with friends and family in the respective settings), the Blazar by Beacon Audio is a winner.