JBL GO 4 Ultra-Portable Bluetooth Speaker with Big Pro Sound

Very Impressive
We needed a new Bluetooth speaker to take on holiday to take with us on days out and for music in our hotel room. I was initially looking at the JBL Clip 5 and the Go 4. I liked the Clip 5 for its in-built carabiner, but several reviewers commented that due to the design the Clip 5 can only be laid down on a surface or attached to something with its carabiner. I liked the Go 4 because it can be be laid down or stood up on its own. The built-in loop can only really be used if you supply your own carabiner, which is what I did. So I decided to purchase the Go 4. I also purchased the more expensive Soundcore Motion 300. That is undoubtedly a better speaker. It has a far better overall sound quality, but it is also bigger and surprisingly heavy, and to be honest I did notice it in my rucksack. So it got a little tiresome, so that ended up staying in our hotel room. But more and more we just used the Go 4 for everything, and stopped using the Soundcore.
The Go 4 has a really balanced sound. There isn’t the depth of bass that you would get from a larger speaker, but it does definitely have a nice amount of bass and ‘warmth’ to its sound. It’s very light, so you can put it in or attach to a rucksack and you will not notice the extra weight. The “JBL Portable” app is definitely worth getting if you want to adjust the EQ settings. I found the default “JBL Signature” EQ setting to be the best. The app also provides firmware updates for the device which are definitely worth applying. This speaker was supplied with firmware 0.4. When I installed the app it updated the speaker to 0.5.3. I also created a stereo pair using a friends Go 4, and that also had a really nice sound and gave good stereo separation, but I’m not sure I would purchase two of these to get that feature. I’ve found the sound quality has improved now that the speaker has been used for a few weeks, so I think the firmware upgrade and a period of ‘running in’ is required to get the best out of it. So, overall a really great speaker that has surprised me far more than I expected it to.