Review: Parrot Sound System Bluetooth speakers

Despite over five years of constantly being refined, Bluetooth compatible hardware still causes frustration amongst consumers and few products can claim unblemished wireless operation.

Parrot has achieved some success in the field recently with, amongst other things, the Bluetooth photo viewer, and has now followed this up with Bluetooth wireless hi-fi audio. These twin digital high-powered speakers are finished in, for want of a better term, iPod white, and as well as Bluetooth support include RCA line-in for other audio sources.

While the manual does a great job of convincing you how easy it is to set them up; expect to encounter a problem or two along the way. You’ll need Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP profile support on your source device, so those who have a notebook or mobile phone that’s over a year old might have some problems.

To counter this Parrot supplies a Bluetooth USB dongle, currently available to buy separately for just under £20. Provided you have this, or a compatible mobile phone or other device (check the Parrot website for the latest compatibility lists) you should be fine, but expect to spend a bit of time coaxing Windows into setting up a connection.

Parrot provides you with a basic software application to control the orientation of the speakers and search for and pair source devices, but the Windows Bluetooth wizard can (eventually) set everything up for you so the Parrot software isn’t strictly necessary.

When you are set up and running you’ll find that any sound played through your PC or other device automatically plays through the Parrot speakers. At 60W RMS output they’re certainly powerful enough, and with dedicated RCA con nections available they offer a more than suitable replacement for your existing hi-fi speakers.

A digital graphic equalizer and a digital crossover for separating the mid-bass and treble frequencies means that results in terms of the speaker’s capabilities are extremely good, all that’s left then is to see how they handle a wireless audio stream.

During testing, we found sound quality via Bluetooth wasn't consistent. When the source device is reasonably close (less than 3m away) streaming was flawless and aside from a faint crackle behind the audio, sound quality was very good.

If you’re looking to use the speakers from distance of say, more than 5m and through a wall or two, things to start to degrade - the crackling gets louder and occasional pauses start to ruin the experience. Parrot also states that use of additional Bluetooth devices at the same time can cause further disruptions to audio quality, so bear this in mind before you buy.

Indicator lights on the front of the speakers inform you of the condition of the Bluetooth connection, along with individual volume controls. You’ll also notice that each speaker requires its own power connection, but on the up side this means it’s easier to position them individually in a room for optimum sound.

The fact that Parrot has produced a pair of Bluetooth speakers as powerful as these that work well under optimum conditions is worth a pat on the back, but with an RRP of £250 you’re paying a lot of money for the technology.

To be satisfied with your purchase you’ll need to be convinced you’ll get a good deal of use out of the Bluetooth connectivity and not require your source device to be too far away.

We’re not convinced that Bluetooth in its current form, despite recent improvements, is good enough to justify the inflated price tag of products that carry it. Unfortunately Parrot doesn’t do a lot to disprove this theory, and while the speakers themselves are high-quality units, they suffer from the inherent problems of the technology they employ.

Also consider:
Saitek i-Phonic A-100 speakers
Small, sleek and loud travel speakers

Intempo iDS-02 iPod speaker system
Shaped like a bowling ball, this iPod speaker system strikes a chord with us

Philips SPA9300 multimedia speakers
A 2.1 set capable of decent audio, but it's hampered by poor controls

All speaker reviews

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!