Get Them Here
Soundcore Motion X600: https://amzn.to/3S8zwMP
JBL Xtreme 3: https://amzn.to/3U9ITP9
JBL Charge 5: https://amzn.to/47M9tB0
So this is the Soundcore Motion X600, Now personally I feel that this is a fairly impressive speaker, its fairly affordable, its a plus sized medium speaker, I think it looks elegant, but more importantly, I think it sounds good and I think the upwards firing driver does wonders. Nonetheless, today we’re going to see how to motion X600 stacks up to the JBL Charge 5 and the JBL Xtreme 3.
Regarding pricing, the Charge 5 has a retail price of $180, but this thing like to go on sale on a regular basis for around $150. Then there’s the Motion X600 which has a retail price of $200, but likes to go on sale for $180. And finally there’s the JBL Xtreme 3 which has a retail price of $380. Nonetheless, 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. The Charge 5 is a medium sized where as the Xtreme 3 is a large sized portable speaker. But then there’s the Motion X600 which sits between the Charge 5 and Xtreme 3. That’s why I refer to this speaker as a plus sized medium sized speaker. Nonetheless, all there of these speakers are great for both at home use and to constantly take them on the go with you… but JBL’s speakers are better options if you’re looking for something portable and durable. Specifically, the Xtreme 3 has that built in shoulder strap, which just makes like a lot easier, and there’s a built in bottle opener. Where as the Charge 5 is simply just smaller. But then there’s also the martial choice. The X600 has a mostly metal body, which I feel looks and feels very premium. But personally, I would hate to get this metal body scratched. Where as JBL’s speakers have fabric wrapped bodies, so these are just going to do a much better job of standing up to constant abuse. Regardless, all of these speakers aren’t afraid of a little bit of water.
Next up there’s the battery life on these speakers. Now, personally I feel that that battery life on the Motion X600 is decent, especially when compared to the Xtreme 3 and its size. Now the motion X600 has an advertised battery life of 12 hours… but real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, with its spatial audio turned and with its bass up feature turned on, its good for about 8 hours of playback time.
Because then there’s the JBL Xtreme 3 which has an advertised battery of 15 hours, but real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume its also good for about 8 hours of playback time. And finally there’s the Charge 5 which has an advertised battery life of 20 hours… but with it playing at 80% volume, which isn’t as loud as 80% volume on these other two speakers… it good for about 10 hours of playback time. Nonetheless, the Charge 5 gets plenty loud.
Now when it comes to charging all of these speakers, they all charge via a USB C port, as they should. But the really cool thing about the USB port on the Xtreme 3 is that you can use its USB C port to charge your own devices, and you can also use it as a wired connection. And this is something that is still fairly rare these days.
But also, both the Xtreme 3 and Charge 5 have USB A out ports so that you can charge your won devices, which is something the X600 doesn’t have… but something the X600 does have is an audio jack, so you can use it with a wired connection. And this is a big deal now, cause a lot of medium sized speakers like the Charge 5 no longer have an audio jack… audio jacks are being reserved for larger speakers like the Xtreme 3 and up.
Now when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to 2 devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ, none of them have an latency issues so you can use them to watch videos with on your phone, but when it comes to audio codecs, JBL’s speakers only have support for SBC, which is fine, but the X600 has support for SBC, AAC, and LDAC, which is Sony’s own high res audio codec. Just keep in mind that if you want to take advantage of LDAC you have to be an android user cause iPhone’s top out at AAC… and if you do decide to use LDAC, that is going to take an additional toll on the battery life.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these speakers. Regarding speaker set up, the Charge 5 has a frontward firing woofer, a frontward firing tweeter and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. And the fact that the Charge 5 has a woofer and tweeter setup is impressive for a medium size speaker. But then there’s the Xtreme 3 which has dual frontward firing woofers, dual frontward firing tweeters and dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. And finally there’s the X600 which has dual frontward firing woofers and dual frontward firing tweeters like the Xtreme 3, but it also has an upwards firing driver which really helps this speaker sound very open. Now the fact that all of these speakers have a woofer and tweeter set up is good cause this helps these speakers have better instrument separation, cause the woofers handles the mids and the tweeters handle the highs. But so that you can see for yourself let me just show you.
So like you may have just seen, the tweeter handles the highs and the woofers handles the mids. And this helps these speakers have better instrument separation. But now we’re going to jump into the sound test. Now all of these speaker are playing while at 75% volume… both JBL speakers are playing with their stock EQs, and the Motion X600 is playing with its stock soundcore EQ, but with its bass up and spatial audio feature turned on, which is how you should use this speaker all of the time.
Now first I think we need to address max volume performance on these speakers. Now the larger the speaker here the louder its going to get. So here the Xtreme 3 is noticeably louder than the X600 but the X600 is only a little louder than the Charge 5. But when it comes to the actual sound quality of these speakers… personally I really like how the charge 5 sounds with its stock EQ. I feel that it sounds balanced. But then there’s the Xtreme 3, now the Xtreme 3 sounds very similar to the Charge 5, as in it has similar instrument separation… but it does have more bass and it gets louder and fuller. But with the Xtreme 3, this speaker likes to put more of an emphasis on the highs, making it sound brighter. So that’s why with this speaker I like to use it with its bass raised 2 clicks and its treble lowered by one click. But then there’s the Soundcore Motion X600. Now this speaker sounds a lot more balanced than the Xtreme 3 cause the highs aren’t as emphasized. And I feel that this speaker sounds more open than the Xtreme 3 as well thanks in part to that upwards firing driver. However, what this speaker doesn’t have is the same type of bass as the Xtreme 3. The bass on the X600 is more in line with the bass that you’ll find on the Charge 5. Now you can always go in and raise the bass on this speaker… but if you do that, the bass on this speaker starts to sound very muddy. Overall when it comes to the sound quality of the Motion X600, the Motion X600 gets a little louder than the Charge 5 but more importantly it sounds more open than the Charge 5, But the Xtreme 3 still gets noticeably louder than the X600 and it has noticeably more bass. But nonetheless, the X600 is an impressive sounding speaker, and personally, I would really like to see more portable bluetooth speakers to add upwards firing drivers.
But finally lets talk about paring these speakers with other speaker. With the motion X600, you can wirelessly pair it up with one other motion X600 and you can get them to play in left and right stereo mode.
Where as with both the JBL Charge 5 and JBL Xtreme 3, both of these speakers are using JBL’s partyboost. Now if you have two of the same speakers, you can pair them up and get them to play in left and right stereo mode, or you can pair either of these two speakers to other JBL Partyboost speakers like either a boombox 3, a boombox 2, Xtreme 3, Charge 5, Pulse 5, Pulse 4, flip 5 or a flip 6 and you can get them to play in sync and you can have up to 100 speakers playing together.
So personally, I feel that if you plan on buying multiple speakers and if you plan on pairing them together on regular basis, I feel JBL is the way to go here cause Partyboost is super easy to use, and you have a large eco system of speakers to choose from to grow out your collection… or if your friend wants to get a speaker, they don’t have to get the exact same speaker as you.
So with all of that being said, both the JBL Charge 5 and JBL Xtreme 3 have been one of my favorite speakers to recommend cause they’re super portable, durable, and they sound great. Especially the Charge 5 for its size. However, the Soundcore Motion X600 is also an impressive sounding speaker, and now I want to see more portable speakers with upwards firing drivers cause it truly does make a difference. Plus, with the X600, you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck, sound quality wise. Now even though the Motion X600 is a portable bluetooth speaker and you can certainly take it on the go with you… personally I would hate to get its metal body scratched, cause I feel it looks so good.