JBL Xtreme 4 Speaker Review

Firmware Tested: 0.4.6.0 The JBL Xtreme 4 portable bluetooth speaker arrives three and a half years after the JBL Xtreme 3. Given that JBL are the biggest sellers of bluetooth speakers in volume then you might be expecting some huge advances and you would be alone. The JBL Xtreme series has always been a standout speaker in its extreme price given its size, capabilities and competition. At least back in the day of the Xtreme 1 it was a bit groundbreaking for its size in the amount of bass it could produce, albeit mostly upper bass. However today in March 2024 it sits at £330 UK pounds and 350 US dollars. With the likes of the Go + Play 3 being found for less than 200 dollars and the the Tribit Stormbox Blast offering great value at around £200/$200 the Xtreme 4 would need to eb a bit special to justify its high price.

The new features we get with the JBL Xtreme 4 include a replaceable battery pack. However as I write this no battery packs are offered for sale from JBL and the enclosure is proprietary JBL so without hacking it open you won’t be able to use standard batteries. However at 68 Wh this is a huge battery. AI Sound Boost will process the sound in realtime and adjust to get the most out of the drivers, not new tech by any means but new for the Xtreme range of bluetooth speakers. The marketing talks about “Playtime optimiser”, however in the JBL app this is called Playtimeboost. It simply cuts the abss and boosts the mids and highs a little to give extended playtime and a bit more volume. Again new features are welcome but this is nothing you couldn’t do yourself with EQ. Speaking of EQ we now have a 5 band graphic equaliser but you cannot save presets and they do not work anyways when pairing with other speakers. for pairing we now have Auracast which is an open standard to broadcast a signal to unlimited other devices. This should work therefore with all other auracast receivers but in this implementation JBL have locked it down to just their own speakers. They used to have JBL partyboost on the Xtreme 3 and this will still pauir with the Xtreme 4 when you do so via the JBL app.

Power delivery is now supported so you get a power delivery USB-C charger with the speaker and PD devices can be charged from the Xtreme 4 at up to 22 watts of power. The Xtreme 4 itself charges at 60 watts. Xtreme 4 now sports bluetooth 5.3 (Xtreme 3 was 5.1). The power output is advertised as 2 x 30 W RMS woofer + 2 x 20 W RMS tweeter (AC power mode) 2 x 20 W RMS woofer + 2 x 15W RMS tweeter (Battery mode) So they are suggesting this is now a 100 watt speaker. But the way the specs are written is open to interpretation. My own feeling is this remains a 50 watt speaker on AC power just as the Xtreme 3 is. My problem with the Xtreme series (not the Xtreme 1) is that it looks like hand holdable speaker but in the real world unless you have large hands you cannot pick it up with one hand and this is even more the case with the bulkier Xtreme 4. You do get a strap but a foldable handle would be very welcome.