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SoundBot Speaker and PowerBot Cables - Reviewed!
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May 30, 2025
Is good materials engineering enough for a speaker to be terrific, or do they have to pay close attention to the sound quality too? Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ wrestles with this question when he reviews the SoundBot SB520 bluetooth speaker. Sure, it has great battery life, but is that enough? In addition, he has a look at some of the PowerBot cables from the same company, a quick assessment of whether they should be your next cable purchase or not! The SoundBot Speaker: http://amzn.to/2jRpItU PowerBot cables: http://amzn.to/2wJaBbW http://amzn.to/2yzmChw http://amzn.to/2wIfu53
View Video Transcript
0:00
an industrial Bluetooth speaker and
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cables let's talk about it Dave Taylor
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here and we're going to talk about the
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soundbot speaker but before we get there
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let's talk about some of these powerbot
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cables they also sell because they sent
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me a whole box of stuff let's start with
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these little guys these are there's two
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USB 3.0 two USB C and two USB 3.0 two
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micro USB adapters that set of four you
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can get that's known as the PB three-30
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and all four of those are $9.99 they
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were great a few of us b/c you really
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should have a couple of these in your
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bag or in your desk you'll just need
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them trust me on that second thing is to
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count them two USB C two USB 3.0 cables
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and they're really nice construction
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they have a nice feel to them and
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they're strong and they got a thick
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braided cable and these the 2-pack and
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they handle 2.4 amps so they're full
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charging cables this is the PB 3:03
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remember that and that's 1099 for both
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of them pretty cool
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but all those cables are interesting all
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those are adapters are interesting where
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the really cool cable is is this one
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this is their LED lightning charging
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cable and you can't really see very
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clearly but it's glowing red because
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it's charging the phone once the phone
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gets to a hundred percent charge it goes
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green as you can see in this inset shot
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now this is really cool oh it just
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turned green my phone obviously just
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finished charging that's great and again
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or did it it's back and forth again it's
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a really nice cable with a thick braided
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design and it just feels like it's gonna
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hold up which is really nice and who
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doesn't like a little LED indicator to
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tell you whether your device's charged
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or not this is the PB 3:05 and it's
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1999's little more expensive but it's
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also nice and long I have
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plugged into a charger back here and let
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me unplug that so it's a pretty long
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cable so that's really nice gives you a
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lot of flexibility this is one that I
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really like the other one's useful that
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one this is kind of cool but all that
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aside let's talk speaker because this
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let me unplug that this is the soundbot
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and these guys just have these great
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naming conventions this is the SB 521
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and this is actually a pretty
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interesting little speaker it's all made
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out of like industrial metals so the
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it's heavy has a really nice feel to it
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has an LED strip on the front in terms
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of controls that's nice
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supports aux input or of course
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bluetooth and we'll get to the sound in
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a second but there's some things about
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this that are a little weird though so
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for example it only supports bluetooth
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3.0 now blue - it's backwards compatible
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so your devices will work but I don't
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know why they're on such an old version
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of Bluetooth it's a little weird has aux
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input as I said it is a 15 mm
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Wow 1500 milliamp hour battery which
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sounds pretty good but this is a speaker
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it drains power because it's pushing
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it's actually doing physical activity
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and so this only actually runs for about
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four hours on Bluetooth and six hours if
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you're using aux because the bluetooth
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circuitry eats power that's not a lot
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for a charge for a speaker that takes
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three hours for a full charge so sort of
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a mixed bag there with the electrical
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part and there are definitely people on
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Amazon that say that the charge doesn't
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last even there for hours my testing is
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it's gone pretty well but you know
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something to be aware of but all that
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aside let's give it a sound test so I'm
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gonna turn it on
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okay should be coming on I want it to be
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on let's see what happened here hmm
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let's try turning it on again it's a
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little power switch in the back there we
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go now it should pair to my phone let's
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see if that happens and it has the
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ingenious name of the SB 521 I like the
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sounds that it has and let's give it a
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whirl so we're gonna listen to some
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music and I know you're gonna get the
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sound reproduction of my microphone but
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bear with me here and I'm gonna actually
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turn this up all the way and turn it
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towards me now
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what are you not hearing this there's
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not a lot of bass going on here maybe if
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it sound better if I put it on the table
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directly yeah marginally better bass but
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this is maximum volume and not only is
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this maximum bass not that there's any
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controls for that but I actually went
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into my iPhone and actually changed it
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for bass boost and that's one of my
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biggest complaints with this speaker is
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I love the industrial design I really
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think this would look great on an
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executive desk but boy the sound is just
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not there it is so biased towards the
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treble that even when I push really hard
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and try to adjust things aggressively I
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still can't get much in the way a bass
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and there's really almost no mid-range
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at all so they say it's a dual five watt
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speaker with passive radiators on the
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edges and everything I don't know they
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obviously have all of those things but
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all in all this is not giving me much in
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the way of sound reproduction so I gotta
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say not a huge fan unless you want
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design and you want just really quiet
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music in which case this could be
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perfect for an office so before I tell
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you the price however let me ask that
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you click the subscribe button thank you
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awesome
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now having said all
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that let me say it's not very expensive
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so to be fair you know they're not
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competing with two three four or five
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hundred dollar speakers this soundbot SB
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521 with 1500 milliamp hour battery
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which gives you multiple hours and it
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runs when it's plugged in in case you're
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curious about that we'll put you back 35
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bucks on Amazon so not too bad but know
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what you're getting into because there's
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just not a lot of rich base and it
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doesn't get very loud and that was with
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my phone up on maximum volume so you
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might have slightly different
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experiences but I would say the winner
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out of all of this is this really cool
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light-up lightning cable which is
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absolutely like my favorite thing of all
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of this stuff and that's all I got so
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I'll catch you in my next video
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[Music]