So the JBL Pulse 5 has an amazing looking light feature that’s really going to liven up your room or its just going to look very cool on your porch at night. However, with the Pulse 5 you’re mainly paying for the light feature. Now yes, the Pulse 5 has a new speaker set up which has improved its instrument separation… but if sound quality is very important to you, then you’ll still might want to go with either the JBL Charge 5 or the JBL Flip 6. Nonetheless, lets see how the Pulse 5 stacks up to its older brothers.

Regarding pricing, the Pulse 5 has a retail price of $250… and im going to be honest, that is a little steep and you’re mainly paying for looks. Where as with the Flip 6 this speaker retails for $130 but can be found on sale from time to time and the Charge 5 has a retail price of $180 and it also likes to go on sale from time to time. Nonetheless, I like and recommend all of these speakers, and if you want to pick any of these speakers up they’ll be linked down below.

Now first lets talk about the design of these speakers. Now the flip 6 is a small portable bluetooth speaker and its very easy to carry this speaker in your back pack. Where as the Charge 5 is a medium sized speaker. Now taking this speaker on the go with you is easy enough… but its not as conveninete as the Flip 6. But then there’s the Pulse 5. Now the Pulse 5 is also medium sized speaker but its a vertical speaker. Now taking the Pulse 5 on the go with you is also easy enough and you can now hang it from places thanks to its new built in loop… but just keep in ming that this speaker is noticeably denser than these other two speakers weighing in at 3.2 pounds. Where as the charge 5 weighs in at 2.1 pounds and the flip 6 weighs in at 1.2 pounds.

Now durability wise, all of these speakers are rocking an IP67 rating meaning that they’re all water proof up to 30 minutes in 1 meeter in water. Basically, if any of these speakers get wet, rained on, or dropped in a pool, they’ll be fine. Now with both the the flip 6 and charge 5, both of these speakers have subtle designs to them and they have a mostly fabric wrapped body which do a great job of standing up to constant abuse from bumps or scrapes. Where as with the Pulse 5, this speaker has an acrylic body. Now after conducting a few stress tests, I found that this acrylic body is fairly durable. Now yes, you are going to get some deep scratches if you were to drop this speaker from two off of the ground… but more importantly, this acrylic body doesn’t shatter very easily. So this acrylic body also does a good job of standing up to constant abuse… but I would still be gentle with it.

However, this now leads us to the light feature on the pulse 5. Now the pulse 5 has a very dynamic looking feature thats going to look amazing either indoors… or outdoors at night. However during the day time, it can be hard to see this light feature. But nonetheless, this light feature is very impressive, and you have a lot of different styles to choose from.  However just keep in mind, if you do decide to use this light feature, its going to take its toll on the battery life.

But now lets talk about battery life. Now the Pulse 5 has an advertised battery life of 12 hours. However, this advertised battery life of 12 hours is with this speaker playing at 50% volume and with the light feature dimmed down a bit. But real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume which is a really good listening volume for indoor use, the Pulse 5 is good for about 6 to 7 hours of playback time. However, just keep in mind that battery life on this speaker really varies depending on how you use it. If you use it at a higher volume that going to drain its battery life or depending on the light feature, that also going to drain you battery life.

Where as with the Flip 6, this speaker also has an advertised battery life of 12 hours… but real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume… its good for about 8 hours of playback time which is not bad at all.

And finally there’s the Charge 5. Now the Charge 5 has the same 75 hundred milliimap hour battery found in the Pulse 5. However, since the Charge 5 doesn’t have a light feature to power, it has an advertised battery life of 20 hours. And real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume… which is a little louder than 80% volume on the Pulse 5… the Charge 5 is good for about 10 hours of playback time. So battery life wise, the Charge 5 is the way to go, cause with the Pulse 5, that light feature does take its toll on the battery life.

Now when it comes to charging these speakers, they all charge via a USB C port, which is good. But this is the only port that you’ll find on both the Pulse 5 and flip 6. Unfortunately, none of these speakers have an audio jack, and you can use any of these USB C ports as a wired connection with your phone, or use them to charge your own devices like you can with the USB C port found on the Xtreme 3. However, the Charge 5 does have a USB A port so you can charge your own devices. Now I think this is cool and all but I would much rather have a USB C port that I can use to charge my own devices, cause a lot of phones these days now come included with USB C cables.

But when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to two devices at the same time so that you and a friend can both be DJ. They all have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone. But when it comes to audio codecs, all of these speakers only have support for SBC.

But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these speakers. Now with both the Flip 6 and Charge 5, we have a frontward firing woofer, a frontward firing tweeter, and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. The main difference is, the Charge 5 is just bigger. Now the Pulse 5 also has a woofer and tweeter set up. Expect its woofer and tweeter shoot upwards and the woofer and tweeter at staked on top of each other. And instead of have dual passive radiators, the Pulse 5 only has one passive radiator that shoots downwards. Now the good thing about having a woofer and a tweeter on all of these speakers is that it helps with insutmenet separation cause the woofers handles the mids and the tweeters handles the highs. But so that you can see what im talking about, let me just show you with the Charge 5.

So like you just saw, the woofers handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs which helps these speakers sound more open and detailed. However, I do have to point out that since the Pulse 5 is an upwards firing speaker… its going to sound best while indoors cause you’re going to want to have a ceiling to bounce off of. Where as with both the Charge 5 and Flip 6… since these are frontward firing speakers… you’re going to be able to more easily aim the sound at you… which is something that you’re really going to want for out door use. Nonetheless, we’re going to jump into the soundtest. All of these speakers are playing with their stock EQ’s and they’re all playing at 75% volume.

So like you may have just heard, all of these speakers sound good. However, the Pulse 5 is the brightest sounding speaker here and I feel that it sounds the most narrow. Now the bright EQ on the Pulse 5 isn’t a problem cause you can easily go in and adjust its EQ through its app… personally I like to raise the bass by two clicks and I like to lower the treble by one click. And I like to do that same thing with the Flip 6 cause I also feel that it sounds a little bright… but with the Charge 5 I like to use it with its stock EQ… but you can always go in and adjust its EQ to its liking… But sound signature aside, the Pulse 5 just doesn’t sound as open as these other two speakers. With the Flip 6 there just more detail in the mids and the highs aren’t as sharp… and with the Charge 5, its just sounds fuller cause it has more bass. But from a performance standpoint, the Pulse 5 gets decently loud at max volume… however, the flip 6 gets just as loud as the Pulse 5… if not a little louder at times. And then there’s the Charge 5 which easily just noticeably louder than both the Pulse 5 and flip 6 and simply has more bass. So overall, sound quality wise, the Pulse 5 sounds good… however the flip 6 still manages to slightly out preform the Pulse 5 and when compared to the Charge 5, the Pulse 5 just can’t keep up cause the Charge 5 sound more open, it sounds fuller cause it has more bass and it gets louder.

But also, since we’re talking about listening to music with these speakers… I also have to point out that with the Pulse 5, there are no longer an onboard media controls on it. So if you want to adjust the volume of your music or if you want to skip through your music… you’re going to have to do that from your phone… which I feel is very inconvinente. Where as these other two speakers do have media controls on them.

But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers with other speakers. Now all of these speakers are using Partyboost, meaning that you can pair any of these speakers to other Partyboost speaker like either a Boombox 3, Boombox 2, Xtreme 3, Charge 5, Pulse 5, Pulse 4, a Flip 5 or to a flip 6 and you can pair up to 100 speakers together which is just overkill.

Now if you’re going to be mixing and matching your speakers, they’re going to play in sync. However, if you want to get left and right stereo sound going you’re going to need two of the exact same speakers. So if you want to get stereo sound going with your pulse 5 you’re going to need 2 pulse 5’s, or if you want to get stereo sound going with the Charge 5, you’re going to need two charge 5’s or if you want to get stereo sound going with the flip 6 you’re going to need two flip 6’s.

Unfortunately, if you were to pair a Pulse 5 to a pulse 4, they are only going to play in sync, And if you pair of flip 6 to a flip 5, they’re going to play in sync as well. And also keep in mind, you can’t pair any of JBL’s smaller PartyBoost speakers to any of JBL’s larger Partybox speakers.

Now even though there is some fragmentation to look out for, if you plan on buying multiple speakers and if you plan on constantly pairing them together… than I do think JBL is the way to go, cause PartyBoost just works. You just press one button on each speaker, they automatically sync up very quickly, and skipping is never an issue like with some other speaker pairing protocols out there.

So with all of that being said, the JBL pulse 5 is an amazing looking speaker. Its light feature is very dynamic and its very impressive. Now even though the Pulse 5 has an upgraded speaker set up which does help it sound more open than its predecessor… with the Pulse 5 you’re mainly paying for the light feature. Both the Flip 6 and Charge 5 continue to sound better than the Pulse 5 and also due to the Pulse 5’s light feature, its battery life isn’t as good as these other two speakers. Now the Flip 6 is a solid little speaker that’s great for constantly taking it on the go with you. However, the Charge 5 continues to be one of met favorite mid sized speakers to recommend simply cause of its impressive insutmenet separation and impressive real world battery life.