Nutek TS20210B Portable Sound System, Black

Description

Review: It makes a big, clean sound, and it has LOTS of options. It IS a big boom box... BIG. - It's complicated. The instructions really suck. The more I play with it, the better it gets, you see... At first I hated it. Then I got it working right and I liked it. Now, after playing with it more I find it is a pretty amazing BIG boom box. It packs plenty of power, dual 10" woofers, a tight, crisp top end, and is feature rich. You'd never know any of this from the instructions, which bark at the moon. Not as good as Japanese stereo instructions. But... It takes inputs from USB, SD card, bluetooth, stereo RCA jacks and a 1/8" stereo jack. It has a 1/4" jack for guitar with its own volume contro. It has a 1/4" jack for a microphone (nice one included) with its own volume control AND a reverb/echo control. It has a built-in FM radio which autotunes and presets stations using the built in telescopic antenna. It works from regular AC or a built-in battery. If you don't have AC it has jacks for 12 VDC and comes with two wires with alligator clips for ease in connecting it to a 12 VDC source. The included remote opens up the possibilities by expanding your options. The display is nearly useles - 4 characters. You can't search a library, but using the remote you can address all of the music on an attached storage device. I paged up to song 1893. I discovered a SECOND equalizer available only via the remote. Pack that on top of the 7 band graphic equalizer and you can achieve some really amazingly good sounding results witht some really chest thumping bass and crystal clear highs and midranges. Pretty amazing sound, but 800 watts it ain't. I'm a lifelong tech, and I say it is 20 watts real power, which is enough. The amount of sound you get out of the box is the only real measure in a case like this. I don't know that it can fill an outdoor space but there is more than enough sound for a large room. I had problems with the bluetooth. I have since gotten the bluetooth paired and connected. My son, for whom I also bought one of these, has had no problems with the bluetooth. Maybe it's just me. You cannot MANUALLY tune the radio -it does an autotune and presets found stations. It needs a pretty strong signal to lock in the station. I live in back road, dirt road appalachia. We don't have strong stations so the radio finds only 2 stations..The LEDs in the equalizer sliders are so bright that I am going to put black paint on those pesky LEDs! They are blinding at night. I own the Tailgater, a product made by the same company. The Tailgater is such a wonderful product that I ASSUMED this product would be equally as great. Well, it isn't. The Tailgater is indestructable, very loud, and is a better unit - except that it does NOT have the modern input methods like bluetooth, USB and SD. I actually prefer my Tailgater. The correct product name is "Ion Audio Tailgater Portable PA System for iPod" on desertcart. It is older, nearly as heavy as this product, and built like a steel vault. It takes being dropped well. Literally. I've dropped it as much as 8 feet. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking! This one? I doubt it will take well to rough treatment... I don't want to put it to the test! It isn't quite as well constructed as the Tailgater, but the looks are identical. The sound is clean, and you can bump up the bass with the equalizer nicely. The volume is lacking on radio and other things, but if you hook up a source with a preamp or a strong signal the sound volume is very nice. Maybe they should have put in a couple more preamps on the alternate inputs? A few other items: It comes with a nice microphone - comfortable in the hand, and produces good sound. It also includes a stereo RCA patch cord AND a 1/8" stereo patch cord. It has what looks to be 2" casters on the bottom, and has a pop-up handle for "trollying" it around. The display is pretty limited, by the way. It displays 4 characters only: LINE (mic), BLUE(tooth), etc. For the radio it displays the frequency. The mode button selects inputs and when held down while playing the radio autosearches for stations and gives the ones it does find a preset so you can skip through the stations it finds with the arrow keys, also used for skipping through tunes on USB/SD. Be your own DJ using only the included microphone and your smartphone for the music source. It works! Overall? I can't give it 5 stars, but I am giving it 4. I'm not fully happy with some parts, but it makes a big, clean sound, and it has LOTS of options. You can have a party with nothing but the Nutek TS20210B Portable Sound System and your smartphone. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watts = amps times volts. For an AC signal like audio this formula gives Peak Wattage. The REAL measure of audio power is RMS, or root mean square power, derived by RMS Watts = 0.707 x (Amps x Volts). They use some standard I've never heard of - and I'm a pro. Don't buy their 800 wats. Buy the fact that it has clean sound at a respectable volume.