Bose ® SoundTouch 20 Series II Wi-Fi Music System - Black

Product Information

We have reservations about the sound, however, and the limitations with compatibility are hard to swallow. Proceed with caution. Experience your favorite music from one or many SoundTouch® speakers, with the SoundTouch® app. SoundTouch® is a family of wireless speakers for your home that play the same music throughout, or different music in different rooms. They both have embedded OLED displays in the center that show connection and music data. Manual control consists of six physical preset buttons, AUX input, and a power button. The presets can be assigned to six favorites of your choice, perhaps your iTunes library, a Spotify playlist, or your favorite radio station. This is an excellent feature that will save you the trouble of taking out your phone every time you want to play something specific.

Ask Alexa to control your SoundTouch system. Be sure to use the name you gave your system in the SoundTouch app. For example, if you named your system “Kitchen,” try these commands: The alternative is to use AirPlay, which is in your computer’s iTunes or on iOS devices. There’s no Bluetooth, so Android users should be wary. The Sonos App will allow you to set up and manage new speakers as you expand your system. If you are using an iOS device, you can use Sonos Trueplay (which is built in to the iOS app) and it will use your device's microphone to calibrate your speakers for optimum performance in whatever room you set up your Sonos. Keep in mind, though, Trueplay is only available on iPhone and iPad. Content comes from whatever device you’re using for control, or from networked computers. Web-based streaming is limited to Pandora and internet radio stations. Scale, power and volume distinguish the SoundTouch 20 from its little brother, the SoundTouch 10, and they are more than decent for its price and size.These presets offers instant access to your favorite music without needing your smartphone,tablet, or computer on-hand. It's an incredibly handy and simple feature that combines the ideas of a multi-room audio system with a dedicated Internet radio device. Unfortunately, you can't set any of your favorite playlists from other streaming music services like Spotify if it's not available on the app. It looks fine on a phone (the control app is free on iOS and Android), but it’s a poor use of space on larger screens.

In theory, you can plug in an iOS device or computer and just transfer your current settings over, but this didn’t work for us. Personalize your home with “living” presets like Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” or Pandora’s “Thumbprint Radio.” Always have a fresh list of favorites a touch away, without having to even find your phone.With the exception of Trueplay, the Sonos and Bose app experience are pretty similar. One important difference between the apps is the integrated services each system supports. Supported Services The audio performance is good, but not amazing. Sound is clear and volume is never an issue, going louder than you’d ever need it to without hardening.

When you set up your first Sonos speaker, it will use your home's Wi-Fi to create its own, dedicated wireless network called SonosNet. This wireless system exists outside of your home's Wi-Fi and is the primary method your Sonos system will use to communicate with other speakers in the system and to stream music. SonosNet will reduce congestion on your home Wi-Fi, and will allow you to easily add additional speakers, making it simple to expand your home audio system. And if you’ve bought into the whole Apple ecosystem, you may like the system’s network integration. A tiny tab on the right leads you to the options, where you can browse for music. You can also add extra SoundTouch devices for a multi-room system.

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To set up the SoundTouch 20, you need to plug it into your computer through the included micro USB cable and run the SoundTouch app. It's an incredibly simple process that walked me through configuring the speaker to access my Wi-Fi network, registering my iTunes library, and setting up my Pandora account. It was painless, but there was no option to set up the SoundTouch 20 wirelessly with my iPad. The six preset buttons on the SoundTouch 20 add a ton of convenience through the SoundTouch app. Whatever you're listening to, whether it's a playlist, a genre, an artist, or a single song from your music library or a Pandora or other Internet radio station, you can set it to one of those six buttons just by holding the button down on the radio, the remote, or the app. It can then access that station or (if your computer/storage is on) local music just by pressing the button. The Bose SoundTouch 20 is a mixed bag. We like the idea of preset buttons, and being able to play our networked library with relative ease. There’s still room for improvement in the sonic and streaming service department, but right now it shapes up to be a good value option for those who are after the whole works.