THE BUILT-IN PREAMP MEANS YOU CAN HOOK UP A TURNTABLE OR A GUITAR
£449 / tivoli.audio
Is that some sort of prop from Saving Private Ryan?
Bluetooth was still over 50 years away during World War 2, so this wireless speaker would’ve stuck out like Tom Hanks toking on a Prime-flavour vape if he’d been filmed using one on a Normandy beach. But there’s no denying the handle, knobs, dials and switches give it a retro ‘field radio’ vibe – and the camo green colour helps too. Still, it’s also available in a cream and brown finish if you’re more of a Lawrence of Arabia fan… although it’d be even more anachronistic hanging off Peter O’Toole’s camel.
So what do all those buttons do? The three sliders at the bottom allow you to tweak the EQ, the switch above them selects either Bluetooth 5.3 or the quarter-inch aux input, and the dial at the top controls the volume. In the bottom corner there are two toggles, one for power and the other to activate the built-in preamp, which means you can also hook up a turntable or even a guitar. The 40W power amp feeds two 3.5in drivers, with a 10hr battery to keep it playing long after the credits of Spielberg’s epic have rolled.
Presumably it’s as tough as a US Army Ranger too?
Not quite. The SongBook is rated to IPX4, so you can splash it with water but you wouldn’t want to expose it to too much flak. It’s only about the same size as a shoebox but it weighs 3kg, so it’s probably not the kind of Bluetooth speaker you’d want to take into the field anyway. That’s especially true of the more powerful SongBook Max (£599), which looks similar but adds a digital display and a dial for tuning its DAB/FM radio. That one weighs 5.2kg – which is a bit much to carry to any beach.
NEWS FEED
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APPLE HAS LOST TOUCH, AND THAT’S GOOD NEWS
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