Valco's New Bluetooth Speaker

Hey there, it's Jasse again! Last summer, I was already grumbling about how there just aren't any good travel speakers on the market. They're either flimsy plastic junk or sound like a tricked-out go-kart with a sound system tuned by Yngwie Malmsteen's philosophy: More is more! Resulting in a bass that drowns everything else out.

Okay, I might have exaggerated a bit. There are good speakers out there, but they're usually ridiculously expensive. We can't afford those.

So, we decided to test various speakers from different manufacturers to see if we could bring a good and affordable speaker to the market that would beat those basic ones, which are a dime a dozen, in terms of price-quality ratio.

And what makes this speaker so great?

First of all, a balanced frequency response and low distortion, ensuring clear playback of music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

We're not getting into the competition of which speaker plays louder or has the most booming bass. We're all about the sound quality.

Secondly, the device needs to be easy to carry. So, it should be no bigger or heavier than a half-liter water bottle.

Additionally, it needs to withstand Valco's midsummer party. So, it should be bombproof and waterproof.

And guess what? We did it! Besides all the aforementioned features, this gadget has many more tricks: With the stereo expansion button, the little speaker sounds much bigger, creating an amazingly good stereo image without sounding plasticky, which usually happens with such effects.

And if the sound field and power aren't enough for pool parties, you can pair two of them together to work as a real stereo system.

Music can be played not only via Bluetooth 5.0 but also with a traditional cable, because not many cassette players have other outputs, and of course, semi-retro enthusiasts can play their music files from a memory card as well.

And to clarify for the naysayers: Yes, this thing has bass. It actually goes impressively low for such a small device. It just doesn't overwhelm everything.

And yes, it can get loud enough that the neighbor's grandma will come from a block away to ask who's singing so beautifully. But that's not the default setting.

Check out the video for a closer look. These will be on sale as soon as we get them stocked from the factory. With the headphones, our entrepreneurs had high blood pressure because customers had to wait due to the pandemic, so we're not doing pre-sales anymore.

We were close to having customers storm our office with pitchforks and torches.