If you are looking for very small portable powered speakers, read on.

I've got an MP3 player, and wanted small speakers, although 80% of my
listening is through headphones. So I trotted down to Fry's and
attempted to compare the Sony Travel Speakers and the Creative
Travelsound speakers. For those of you who are familiar with Fry's,
you'll understand why I purchased both units and tested them at home.
Result: both are surprisingly good, but I'll be returning the Sony.
Reason: sound.

DESIGN: I actually like the design of the Sony a bit better; the
speaker cones themselves are behind grills, while the Creative cones
are exposed. The demo unit at Fry's showed the predictable smashed
cones.

CONTROLS: A nice plus for the Creative is that you can control the
volume from the speaker. With Sony, the volume is controlled at the
source only. A nit, and not the reason I picked Creative.

SIZE: Close enough to not be an issue

POWER: The Sony comes with a nice little AC unit and takes AA
batteries. The Creative takes AAA batteries, and you have to find
your own AC power unit, no big deal.

SOUND: OK, I'm not a speaker critic, so I don't have the right words,
but here goes. The treble/bass range is so close that I can't tell a
difference. Neither will make the floor vibrate, but neither tries to
overemphasize the bass by pushing the low/mid. Overall, they were
both fairly accurate ... a big surprise. The highs on the Creative
might be a little clearer. The only way I can describe the real
difference is that the Sony sounded more like I was listening to a
portable radio speaker. Again, not quite as bright, with just a tiny
bit of a muffled sound.

LAST COMMENT: If I had bought home the $89 Sony instead of comparing
it with the $69 Creative, I would have been very happy with the Sony.
Only by listening for 10 minutes was I able to pick a winner. They
both surprised me with their accuracy. But close your eyes and the
Creative almost sound like a small bookshelf unit.

BTW, just for grins, I picked up a cheapie portable speaker set from
Radio Shack, and while I LOVED the design (retractable cable for
instance), the sound reminded me of the $9 AM radio I bought when I
was 12. I'm not slamming Radio Shack; the world is a better place for
having this chain around.

PS ... I'm an old fart and my ability to hear the very highest
frequencies is not as good as it once was ... so, your mileage may
vary.

-Jim

JamesBahn a écrit :

If you are looking for very small portable powered speakers, read on.

I've got an MP3 player, and wanted small speakers, although 80% of my
listening is through headphones. So I trotted down to Fry's and
attempted to compare the Sony Travel Speakers and the Creative
Travelsound speakers. For those of you who are familiar with Fry's,
you'll understand why I purchased both units and tested them at home.
Result: both are surprisingly good, but I'll be returning the Sony.
Reason: sound.

DESIGN: I actually like the design of the Sony a bit better; the
speaker cones themselves are behind grills, while the Creative cones
are exposed. The demo unit at Fry's showed the predictable smashed
cones.

CONTROLS: A nice plus for the Creative is that you can control the
volume from the speaker. With Sony, the volume is controlled at the
source only. A nit, and not the reason I picked Creative.

SIZE: Close enough to not be an issue

POWER: The Sony comes with a nice little AC unit and takes AA
batteries. The Creative takes AAA batteries, and you have to find
your own AC power unit, no big deal.

SOUND: OK, I'm not a speaker critic, so I don't have the right words,
but here goes. The treble/bass range is so close that I can't tell a
difference. Neither will make the floor vibrate, but neither tries to
overemphasize the bass by pushing the low/mid. Overall, they were
both fairly accurate ... a big surprise. The highs on the Creative
might be a little clearer. The only way I can describe the real
difference is that the Sony sounded more like I was listening to a
portable radio speaker. Again, not quite as bright, with just a tiny
bit of a muffled sound.

LAST COMMENT: If I had bought home the $89 Sony instead of comparing
it with the $69 Creative, I would have been very happy with the Sony.
Only by listening for 10 minutes was I able to pick a winner. They
both surprised me with their accuracy. But close your eyes and the
Creative almost sound like a small bookshelf unit.

BTW, just for grins, I picked up a cheapie portable speaker set from
Radio Shack, and while I LOVED the design (retractable cable for
instance), the sound reminded me of the $9 AM radio I bought when I
was 12. I'm not slamming Radio Shack; the world is a better place for
having this chain around.

May I understand that you try to demonstrate that all portable Creative
portable speakers are better than Sony's ones.
Interesting review, but you forget to provide us with model names or P/N
of these speakers.

PS ... I'm an old fart and my ability to hear the very highest
frequencies is not as good as it once was ... so, your mileage may
vary.

-Jim

It looks like more and more people have finely put their *boom box* in
the grenery and look for this solution for Sunday *picnics* :-) (Dave?).
I guess that the "portable" notion may vary from one to other and is
directly link to age and/or the distance that the girl with you is ready
to walk before to eat the sandwich and/or before to bit in the apple. ;-)

In an other place I have suggest a guy to have a look to this page :
http://www.edirol.com/products/speakers.html

Thank you for introduce the subject in this audio newsgroup because it
concerns all music lovers (addicts) who are often not the same persons
than audio hobby-ists ;-) .

Have some fun,
Lionel

Lionel Chapuis lionel{dot}chapuis{at}free{dot}fr wrote in message ...
JamesBahn a écrit :

If you are looking for very small portable powered speakers, read on.

I've got an MP3 player, and wanted small speakers, although 80% of my
listening is through headphones. So I trotted down to Fry's and
attempted to compare the Sony Travel Speakers and the Creative
Travelsound speakers. For those of you who are familiar with Fry's,
you'll understand why I purchased both units and tested them at home.
Result: both are surprisingly good, but I'll be returning the Sony.
Reason: sound.

DESIGN: I actually like the design of the Sony a bit better; the
speaker cones themselves are behind grills, while the Creative cones
are exposed. The demo unit at Fry's showed the predictable smashed
cones.

CONTROLS: A nice plus for the Creative is that you can control the
volume from the speaker. With Sony, the volume is controlled at the
source only. A nit, and not the reason I picked Creative.

SIZE: Close enough to not be an issue

POWER: The Sony comes with a nice little AC unit and takes AA
batteries. The Creative takes AAA batteries, and you have to find
your own AC power unit, no big deal.

SOUND: OK, I'm not a speaker critic, so I don't have the right words,
but here goes. The treble/bass range is so close that I can't tell a
difference. Neither will make the floor vibrate, but neither tries to
overemphasize the bass by pushing the low/mid. Overall, they were
both fairly accurate ... a big surprise. The highs on the Creative
might be a little clearer. The only way I can describe the real
difference is that the Sony sounded more like I was listening to a
portable radio speaker. Again, not quite as bright, with just a tiny
bit of a muffled sound.

LAST COMMENT: If I had bought home the $89 Sony instead of comparing
it with the $69 Creative, I would have been very happy with the Sony.
Only by listening for 10 minutes was I able to pick a winner. They
both surprised me with their accuracy. But close your eyes and the
Creative almost sound like a small bookshelf unit.

BTW, just for grins, I picked up a cheapie portable speaker set from
Radio Shack, and while I LOVED the design (retractable cable for
instance), the sound reminded me of the $9 AM radio I bought when I
was 12. I'm not slamming Radio Shack; the world is a better place for
having this chain around.

May I understand that you try to demonstrate that all portable Creative
portable speakers are better than Sony's ones.
Interesting review, but you forget to provide us with model names or P/N
of these speakers.

PS ... I'm an old fart and my ability to hear the very highest
frequencies is not as good as it once was ... so, your mileage may
vary.

-Jim

It looks like more and more people have finely put their *boom box* in
the grenery and look for this solution for Sunday *picnics* :-) (Dave?).
I guess that the "portable" notion may vary from one to other and is
directly link to age and/or the distance that the girl with you is ready
to walk before to eat the sandwich and/or before to bit in the apple. ;-)

In an other place I have suggest a guy to have a look to this page :
http://www.edirol.com/products/speakers.html

Thank you for introduce the subject in this audio newsgroup because it
concerns all music lovers (addicts) who are often not the same persons
than audio hobby-ists ;-) .

Have some fun,
Lionel

Thanks Lionel. To answer your question ... in this case, my
descriptions of the speakers are in fact their formal names. There is
only one $69 "Creative Travelsound" and one $89 "Sony Travel Speaker",
though on closer inspection I see that the Sony's are model SRS-T77.
I forgot that for non-US sites, these US list prices don't mean much.

-Jim