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Turns out that physics gets in the way of tiny little speakers pushing out lots of bass, whatever magic is involved. That's why any time you have a small speaker, it's going to be treble rich and bass poor. The slick Monster SuperStar HotShot speaker fits exactly into that profile, as tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ explains in this review.
Stick around to the end and you'll learn how weird the pricing is based on your color preference. Tip: Black is a lot less expensive than white, though there's no logical explanation!
Learn more: http://amzn.to/2elIDal
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0:00
is this your next ultra portable speaker
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let's find out Dave Taylor here and this
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time I'm looking at portable Bluetooth
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speakers more specifically we're looking
0:16
at this little guy this is the monster
0:19
superstar hotshot portable Bluetooth
0:22
speaker and it's pretty nice as you can
0:25
see it's nice and small portable comes
0:28
with a carabiner how cool is that
0:30
they've done a lot of nice things with
0:31
the engineering and design but let's
0:33
start right out with some music shall we
0:35
so I'm gonna put it down here and let's
0:39
give it some music pointed towards my
0:43
microphone so you can hear a little
0:45
better and let's give it some volume now
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what you can hear is a lot of highs
0:54
what you can't hear is a lot of lows
0:56
because they're not there and this is
0:59
pretty typical of this size speaker
1:01
there's only so much you can do to
1:03
produce mid and lower range music when
1:06
you have a little tiny speaker so the
1:08
biggest downside with this guy is
1:11
exactly what we just heard which is it
1:13
doesn't have much in the way a bass so
1:15
if you're looking for that discotheque
1:17
on the road this is not your solution
1:19
but if you're looking for something
1:21
maybe for phone calls this actually is a
1:25
speaker phone and even has built an echo
1:27
cancellation and noise improvement so it
1:30
sounds actually pretty good for a
1:32
speaker phone and there's a teeny tiny
1:33
hole on the top for the microphone but
1:36
if you want to have this be something
1:38
where you put it on a picnic table or
1:40
you connect it to your backpack and you
1:42
listen to music maybe talking books
1:44
whatever something like that this is
1:46
gonna work pretty nicely just don't
1:48
expect that you're gonna be able to put
1:50
this in a big room and have this like
1:52
huge disco sound disco nightclub sound
1:57
let's call it that it just doesn't have
2:00
that but on the other hand it's also
2:02
very very affordable so it's not exactly
2:05
something where you're dropping hundreds
2:07
of dollars just to say dude where is the
2:09
bass so let me tell you about this it
2:11
has NFC with touch to pay
2:13
if you have a phone with near-field
2:15
communication kind of cool this actually
2:18
makes it super easy to pair but it's
2:19
really easy to pair anyway there's a
2:22
little slider switch on the bottom and I
2:24
really like it's a nice if you turn this
2:26
thing off it's off and it's often on and
2:29
Bluetooth now what you'll notice isn't
2:32
in this device is there's no volume
2:34
control there's no pause play there's no
2:38
next track none of that I like that this
2:41
is just a nice simple speaker and all of
2:43
those controls happen from the device
2:46
you're playing music from so in this
2:48
case on my phone I just did the volume
2:50
up and down and pause and play that
2:52
works just fine and a lot of controls a
2:55
lot of speakers I feel like they try to
2:57
make them so fancy they end up being
2:59
complicated so this has the virtue of
3:01
simplicity which is nice runs about 5.5
3:04
hours on a charge and it does have an
3:07
aux in but if you actually look at the
3:09
design it's kind of dumb where they put
3:11
it because if I actually have something
3:13
plugged in I can't stand up my speaker
3:16
my speakers inevitably gonna be like
3:18
that and quite frankly I don't think
3:20
that's gonna give you the same sound as
3:22
this does because you really want it
3:24
pointing roughly toward your head or
3:26
maybe even at your level or something
3:28
right so you can use it with an aux in
3:31
whether that's an optimal usage pattern
3:33
you might decide for yourself
3:36
it also has smart enough to if it loses
3:39
a Bluetooth connection and nothing
3:41
happens for 15 minutes it'll power
3:43
itself down which is really nice because
3:45
I actually left it on all night last
3:47
night so was smart enough to say
3:49
nothing's happening I'm gonna just shut
3:52
down so really nice monster makes a lot
3:55
of really nice design systems and
3:57
speakers and headphones and such thing
4:00
is is that this is really a real
4:02
entry-level unit so it just doesn't have
4:05
all of the nice features and all of the
4:07
rich sound of their more sophisticated
4:09
products but I will say let's talk about
4:13
the price for a second because it's
4:14
actually super affordable but hey before
4:17
we do that can I ask that you click on
4:19
the subscribe button thank you now this
4:22
is the most expensive configuration of
4:25
the superstar hotshot
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and in white it's $29 at amazon.com but
4:32
here's what's weird if you actually want
4:34
this to be in black instead the black
4:36
model at amazon.com is 17 dollars and 82
4:41
cents 17 dollars and 82 cents who knows
4:45
and then there's one where it's black
4:48
and then the inner ring is gold and that
4:51
one's 18 dollars and 89 cents so I have
4:54
no idea why different colors cost so
4:56
much different but 17 bucks in black 29
5:00
bucks and white even more than that if
5:02
you go to the monster website so go to
5:04
amazon.com these are the superstar
5:07
hotshot little speakers and they're not
5:10
bad for what they are but go in with
5:12
your eyes open and these could be great
5:15
for like a young teenager so this is
5:17
Dave Taylor and I'll catch you in my
5:19
next video
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[Music]