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Jul 15, 2023

Prime Day Discounts on 9 Bluetooth Speakers You Shouldn't Miss

Our expert deal-hunting staff showcases the best price drops and discounts from reputable sellers daily. If you make a purchase using our links, CNET may earn a commission. Looking for a good deal on

Our expert deal-hunting staff showcases the best price drops and discounts from reputable sellers daily. If you make a purchase using our links, CNET may earn a commission.

Looking for a good deal on a Bluetooth speaker? Here are some top deals for Prime Day 2023.

With people out and about for summer, this is prime season for buying portable Bluetooth speakers -- and it's also Amazon Prime Day, which means we're seeing some good deals on certain highly rated wireless speakers. Here's a look at nine of the best deals we've spotted on Bluetooth speakers (all of which we've tested). You'll need an Amazon Prime membership to get the best deal on most of these picks.

Read more: Best Bluetooth Speakers of 2023

When the SoundLink Flex speaker launched, Bose made some bold claims about its new Bluetooth speaker, particularly its bass performance. But it mostly lives up to the hype and is arguably the best-sounding wireless speaker for its compact size.

Available in three colors -- black, white smoke and stone blue (pictured) -- it's equipped with Bose's PositionIQ technology to automatically detect the speaker's orientation and deliver optimized sound based on whether it's upright, hanging or flat on its back. Note that all the colors are on sale but the best prices are on every color except black.

Read our Bose SoundLink Flex review.

JBL's Charge 5 offers a good balance of size, performance and durability. It's bigger than your typical mini Bluetooth speaker, like the JBL Flip 5, but is still compact and packs more bass punch and overall volume. Featuring a built-in USB charging port for juicing up your mobile devices, it offers improved audio and a dust-and waterproof design that's elevated from the previous Charge. According to JBL, the speaker is equipped with a "racetrack-shaped driver," with a separate tweeter and dual passive radiators, to improve both clarity and bass performance over the Charge 4. (In my tests, this indeed proved to be the case.)

Battery life is rated at 20 hours at moderate volume levels. This model is also equipped with JBL's PartyBoost feature that allows you to connect it to other compatible JBL portable speakers to augment their sound. The Charge 5 comes in six color options: black, blue, gray, red, teal and "squad" (which looks like a kind of camo).

Back in 2020, Tribit released the StormBox Micro, a budget version of Bose's excellent SoundLink Micro speaker that delivered surprisingly good sound for its size and modest price. The second-gen StormBox Micro 2 offers improved sound and battery life, along with a charge-out feature that turns the speaker into a power bank for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. An integrated strap allows you to clip it to your backpack or your bike's handlebars. Note that the blue color is only available at this price.

Read our Tribit StormBox Micro review.

The Anker Soundcore Rave Party 2 can be stood up vertically or laid down horizontally and features a built-in light show and handle. Like other larger speakers that boast higher power ratings (in this case, 120 watts), this speaker needs to be charged with its own AC adapter rather than a USB-cable and has a USB-A out port on the back for charging your smartphone or any other devices that need some juice.

Though it costs more than Tribit's Stormbox Blast, the 11.7-pound Rave Party 2 is a more attractively designed speaker and arguably sounds slightly better. Its two 4-inch woofers and two 2-inch tweeters deliver aggressive, punchy sound with enough volume to fill larger rooms (the Tribit's bass goes a little deeper, but I was pretty satisfied with this speaker's low-end capabilities). For even bigger sound, you can wirelessly link multiple Rave Party 2 and other Soundcore speakers that support the company's PartyCast 2.0 feature.

While this speaker isn't fully waterproof and can't float like some speakers can, it's splash-proof, with an IPX4 rating, and has a microphone input with discrete gain and reverb controls (no microphone is included). In the companion app for iOS and Android, you can customize the sound profile and light show. Battery life is rated at up to 16 hours, but that number will drop if you crank the volume.

I did think the sound held together pretty well at higher volumes -- it mostly avoided distorting -- and the speaker is designed to play loudly outdoors. That said, indoors the speaker sounds best below 75% volume, unless you're having a party, in which case all critical listening goes out the door.

With JBL releasing the newer Boombox 3 last year ($500), the Boombox 2 often sells at a healthy discount. However, $250 is the lowest price we've seen for it. While the Boombox 3 offers improved sound (it has more clarity and slightly better bass definition), the Boombox 2 is still an impressive sounding portable speaker that plays loud and delivers plenty of bass. It's also quite rugged.

While Anker's Motion Plus speaker came out a few years ago (we gave it an CNET Editors' Choice Award in 2020), it remains one of best-sounding speakers for around $100. It's larger than many mini Bluetooth speakers, but it's still compact. It manages to sound quite a bit fuller than much of the competition in its price range, with bigger bass, more volume and better clarity. It's also fully waterproof (IPX7-rated) and has support for the aptX streaming codec for devices like Samsung's Galaxy phones that support it. $75 matches its lowest price to date.

Read our Anker Soundcore Motion Plus review.

Anker's new Soundcore Motion X600 mini boombox not only has a premium look and feel with a metal grille and carrying handle, but includes some interesting features like spatial audio and support for Sony's LDAC audio codec. It sounds impressive for its relatively compact size and is a good value.

Weighing 4.2 pounds (1.9 kg), it's got some heft to it, but it's light enough to carry around without feeling like you're getting a workout. The speaker is available in gray, green and blue color options and is equipped with five drivers, including two woofers, two tweeters and one full-range, upward-firing driver "in a unique speaker array that combined with Soundcore's audio algorithm and DSP helps create a wide (and tall) soundstage for listening to any type of music," according to Anker. It's rated for 50 watts of total power, with two 20-watt amps devoted to the woofers and tweeters and a third 10-watt amp powering the upward-firing driver.

At the default sound setting without bass boost or spatial audio engaged, I wasn't exactly wowed with sound quality (the bass is a bit underwhelming, the mids are recessed and there's a bit too much treble push). But as soon as you engage the bass boost and spatial audio, everything sounds more balanced and full. You can also tweak the sound profile further in the Soundcore companion app for iOS and Android.

If you don't want to spend the extra dough on Anker's newer Soundcore Motion Boom Plus, which is superior, the original Motion Boom remains a good option for a lot less money. It's a little lighter than the Motion Boom Plus and its sound isn't as detailed or the speaker doesn't play as loud, but for its price (particularly when on sale for $70), it delivers very good sound, particularly compared to more compact speakers like the JBL Charge 5 that cost more.

Read our Soundcore Motion Boom review.

Sony has both its boombox speakers -- the SRS-XG300 and SRS-XG500 -- on sale for $198 and $298 respectively for Prime Day. While they're a bit too pricey normally, they're both good deals at these prices. The SRS-XG500 is a pretty large speaker that delivers big bass but doesn't quite measure up to JBL's Boombox 2, which offers a bit more clarity and is on sale for $250 (there's a newer JBL Boombox 3 that's even better but costs more). But the SRS-XG300 offers good sound for its size and is easier to carry around.