Get Them Here:

Sony ULT 1: https://amzn.to/4dewWxM

JBL Flip 6: https://amzn.to/3WiXyXt

Beats Pill: https://amzn.to/3SorQHh

So this is the Beats Pill, now I really appreciate the great build quality of this speaker, I love that you can use its USB C port to charge your own devices and it has a long battery life. However, for me it is hard to justify this speaker due to its price to performance ratio. So today we’re going to see how the Beats Pill stacks up to the JBL Flip 6 which is a small speaker that I have loved recommending for the past 2 years and the Sony ULT Field 1 which is currently my favorite small speaker for summer 2024.

So first theres price, The Beats pill has a retail price of $150, pretty up there for a speaker of this size. Where as both the Flip 6 and ULT 1 have a retail price of $130 and they like to go on sale. Nonetheless if you want to pick any of these speakers up they’ll be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button.

So first theres the design of these speakers, now all of these speakers are small and easy enough to take on the go with you. All of these speakers can easily fit in your back pack or water bottle holder. However, the Beats pill is a little larger than these other two speakers and its noticeably denser. Now the added density on this speaker also makes it feel a lot more premium. But in general this speaker feels more premium cause of its mostly silicon wrapped body and metal face plate. Where as these other two speakers have a mostly fabric wrapped body. Now both the JBL and Sony also feel premium… but just not as premium as the beats. But all of these speakers are equally as durable, and they are all dust and water resistant.

Now when it comes to battery life, this is an area where the beats pill easily beats these other two speakers and its why this speaker is so dense. The beats pill has an advertised battery life of 24 hours… which is a lot. However this advertised battery life of 24 hours is with this speaker playing at 50% volume which is decent, however this speaker is a little quite for its size and price, so you’ll end up using this speaker at a higher volume on a regular basis. So real world use with this speaker playing at 90% volume, its good for about 9 hours of playback time.

Where as both the Flip 6 and ULT 1 have an advertised battery life of 12 hours. And this is with both of these speakers playing at 50% volume. And in general, both of these speakers get louder than the Beats. But real world use with both of these speakers playing at 80% volume, they are both good for about 8 hours of playback time. However 80% volume on the ULT 1 is louder than 80% volume on the Flip 6. And 80% volume on the flip 6 is louder than 90% volume on the Beats Pill.

Now with all of these speakers, they all charge via a USB C port, which is great. But this USB C port is actually the only port that you’ll find on all of these speakers, which is pretty standard for speakers of this size now. However, with the USB C port on the beats pill, you can also use it to charge your own devices and you can also use it as a wired connection. And I personally really appreciate that you can use the USB C port on the Beats pill to charge your own devices cause this feature is super useful if you plan on taking it to the beach with you.

But when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to multiple devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ, latency is not an issue for any of these speakers so you can use them to watch videos with on your phone, but when it comes to audio codecs, the Flip 6 only has support for SBC which is fine, but both the Beats pill and ULT field 1 have support for SBC and AAC.

But with all of that out of the way lets talk about sound. Regarding speaker set up, all of these speakers have a single frontward firing woofer and a single frontward firing tweeter… and this woofer and tweeter set up is great cause this helps with instrument separation cause the tweeter is going to handle the highs and the woofer is going to handle the mids. Like this

Tweeter test

So like you may have just seen, the woofer handles the highs and the tweeter handles the mids. And this is going to help your speaker sound more open cause its going to have better instrument separation. However, something that is missing on the Beats Pill are passive radiators. So in general this speaker sounds brighter than these other two speakers and it doesn’t have as much bass. And unfwrtunalty, you cant adjust the sound on the beats pill cause you can’t directly adjust its EQ like you can with these other two speakers. But so that you can hear for yourself we’re going to jump into the sound test. Now all of these speakers are playing with their Stock EQ’s. But the Beats pill is playing at 92% volume where as both the Flip 6 and ULT 1 are playing at 68% volume.

Sound test

So, the reason why these volume settings are so off on both the Flip 6 and ULT 1 is cause since these speakers have so much more bass than the Beats Pill… whenever the bass would drop, the bass on both the JBL and Sony would blow out the microphones, where as the bass on the Beats Pill wouldn’t blow out the microphones cause this speaker doesn’t have nearly as much bass and in general, this speaker leans towards a birther sound signature… thats why it was still very easy to hear the vocals compared to the JBL and Sony during the more mellow portions of the song. But in general, the Beats Pill has great instrument separation and it sounds very open… and I feel it sounds more open than the Flip 6 here which is a 2 year old speaker. But I still feel the ULT 1 sounds more open than the Beats and the mids on this speaker sounds a lot fuller. But when it comes to bass and actually being able to feel your music, both the JBL and Sony easily out perform the Beats Pill and when it comes to max volume performance, both the JBL and Sony get noticeably louder as well. Overall from a sound quality standpoint, for me its hard to recommend the Beats pill over these other two speakers cause it is lacking in bass and these other two speakers get noticeably louder. And the Sony ULT Field 1 is still my favorite speaker here for summer 2024.

But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers up with other speakers… and the Beats Pill and the Sony ULT Field 1 a very similar here. With all of these speakers if you have two of the exact same speakers you can pair them up to one another and get them to play in left and right stereo mode. And this type of feature is great cause this way you can cover a large area with music without having to use your speakers at a higher volume and drain their battery life faster.

But with both the Beats Pill and Sony ULT 1, thats it. Unfortunately the Sony ULT Field 1 does not have party connects you can’t pair it up to any of Sony’s other speakers that also has party connect, and the beats speaker eco system is very small for now.

Where as with the JBL Flip 6 this speaker is using party boost, and you can pair it up to other party boost speakers like either a Boombox 3, a boombox 2, Xtreme 3, charge 5, pulse 5, pulse 4, or to a flip 5 or to another flip 6 and you can pair up to 100 speakers together and get them to play in sync. But also, you can connect your Flip 6 to JBL’s newer speakers that are using aura cast like either an Xtreme 4, flip 5, or go 4 cause aura cast is backwards compatible with party boost. Just, in order to pair your speakers together you have to do so through JBL’s app.

But with all of that being said, I really appreciate the Beats Pill impressive build quality, and I really like that you can use its USB C port to charge your own devices. However, for me it is very hard to justify this speaker cause of its price to performance ratio. That speaker lacks in physicality in its bass and it doesn’t get as loud as you’d expect. Peronsally i think you are much better off going with either the JBL FLIp 6 or Sony ULT Field 1 if you need something small and portable. But personally, I still prefer the Sony ULT field 1 here cause it gets louder, it has more bass and it sound fuller.