Once I had settled on each detail in the design, I pushed send and I waited. (Porsche fan Jerry Seinfeld is always annoyed about how people use the phrase "water cooled" to describe newer Porsches because, after all, you wouldn’t drink what’s in a 911’s radiator.) So my speaker also wears the phrase flüssigkeitsgekühlt (aka liquid-cooled) in bright yellow on the back. I even printed an inside joke in German on the speaker. But a hue that resembled Porsche’s sea blue leather proved to be the winner. I then played with different color combinations for the plastic. While you can do this on a phone, I found it much easier to adjust and view the results on my laptop. ![]() So I started with a photo detailing that pattern and spent an hour scaling it, enlarging it, shifting it, tilting it, and un-tilting it until the pattern wrapped the speaker just so. I’m a car geek and vIntage Porsches have this great houndstooth-like upholstery pattern called Pepita. Or simply tweak a design supplied by JBL or a fellow customer.īut I preferred to create a more personal statement and, for that, JBL offers a plethora of options, including stock patterns like stars and plaids and cute graphics that bend toward cool or cheesy, depending on your personal aesthetic. If I wanted to go basic, I could just pick a color for the plastic and another for the grill cloth and call it a day. ![]() When I went to the company’s online configurator, I was delighted and maybe even a bit overwhelmed by the range of options, given the device’s modest price. And there’s a cottage industry that personalizes inexpensive speakers, earbuds, and other no-name devices for the corporate swag market, but those items often require a minimum order. Apple offers some devices, including AirPods customized with text or an emoji, and a company in Europe makes cool custom-printed fabric "grills" for the Ikea Frame speaker. In the world of clothing and home goods, there are myriad options, from socks with your dog’s face to monogrammed coffee mugs to an heirloom volume of your recipes or even a quilt featuring your family photos.īut personalized electronics are still in the nascent stage. You can buy $80 personalized Chuck Taylors from Converse (which I did) and $595 kicks from Dolce & Gabbana (I passed). If you’re willing to pass up the photos, you can tweak the color and text on a pair of JBL headphones, as well.Ĭustomization like this is one of the wonders of modern manufacturing. The company offers this feature on other speakers as well, including the smaller Flip 5 ($100) and Go 2 ($35) and the larger Xtreme 3 ($400), as well as earbuds starting at $49. Even better, the Charge 4 has an aux input and a speakerphone mic that the Charge 5 lacks.įor $120-the same price as an off-the-shelf model on the manufacturer’s website-JBL lets you order a Charge 4 and pick everything from the color scheme to the images and text printed on the fabric speaker grill. And if you’re curious about the newer Charge 5 (which doesn’t have JBL’s personalization option yet), our testers find that the two speakers perform almost identically. It’s a compact bundle of music you can toss like a football. But the model is the kind of do-it-all portable device you can toss into a bag and, say, use as an impromptu soundbar for a portable projector or even plop down on the front seat of a car without Bluetooth (more on that in just a moment). The Charge 4 is a little boomy in the bass and the all-important midrange is a bit congested, lacking the fine detail you get with the very best wireless speakers. No, it’s not perfect, but no speaker just north of $100 is. All attributes that make it an attractive option when shopping for a new wireless speaker for yourself or a certain someone on your holiday shopping list. And it holds a charge for a good long time. According to our expert testers, it sounds good. ![]() From a performance point of view, the Charge 4 is a Swiss Army Knife.
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