I've been after a decent bluetooth speaker for quite a while. Recently on HotUKDeals there was a 'deal' for an Anker Soundcore improved bluetooth speaker, which get good reviews, however one of the commenters suggested that a Cyboris 40W bluetooth waterproof speaker was a better deal. So I decided to purchase one from Ali Express in the hope it really was as good as the commentor made out.
I've now had it for a (short) while, and it is a decent speaker. However, it does have a few quirks, and the manual also doesn't seem to be available online. So I thought I'd document the quirks and post a PDF of the manual I've had to make. On Ali Express it's sold as Upgraded Cyboris 40W Subwoofer Waterproof Portable Bluetooth Speaker NFC TWS Bass Speakers DSP Support MIC TF/Aux Non Tronsmart
, however the actual manual calls it X3-PRO-N
. Manual download: X3-PRO-N bluetooth waterproof speaker manual.
On bluetooth with audio device set to "Headphones (X3-PRO-N-Stereo)" sound quality is good and sound clips play okay. Latency is bad.
On bluetooth with audio device set to "Headset (X3-PRO-N Hands-Free AG Audio)" sound quality is poor and sound clips play okay. Latency seems improved.
On USB cable (audio device set to "USB Audio") sound quality is good, but the first 250ms or so of a clip is cut off unless the speaker is already playing audio. Latency is good. Same with both DX and Wave.
Playing via audio cable no issues.
Playing from micro SD card plays mp3 and wma files, but not .m4a, .ape, .mpc, .m3u (playlist). Max card size 64GB. Likely has to be formatted ex-FAT or FAT32. Will play music within subfolders nested several deep. Play order is roughly alphabetical, but not quite. In testing it played files in the root, then "Daft Punk" folder, then "Air" folder, "Playground", "Röyksopp", "Wagon Christ", and finally "Vitalic". Files in folders are played first before playing files in subfolders.
When turning on it always goes into bluetooth mode. It did remember the pause position when paused while playing from micro SD card, turned off, then on again.
With the speaker connected to a computer over USB, Generating white noise at 0.001 with Audacity, and playing this gives enough of an audio signal to the speaker that it won't cut off the start of clips when playing them. Using with ASIO4All, it gives exclusive access to the USB Audio device (presumably because it has no ASIO drivers), even when this option is unchecked in the audio device settings. This means you can't play a looped very quiet white noise in one application while using Ableton Live with ASIO 4 All to output to the speakers.
It can't play from a usb stick plugged into the USB port.
