Okay Geek Farm
House of Marley Bag of Rhythm review
Ricardo Trejo
It’s 2012 and boomboxes have slowly been replaced by smaller, more portable, lightweight speakers. You truly don’t see people lugging around a box of sound on their shoulders anymore. Now it’s a Jambox or even iHome’s iDM11 cube spearker. But what if you want to take your party on the go? There’s still not much of solution for that, unless you take a look at the House of Marley’s Bag of Rhythm.
Features
- Made for use with (any gen.) iPod and iPhone
- Fitted with carrying bag with adjustable strap
- Twin 1” tweeters, twin 4.5” high-definition woofers, and amplifier
- Earth friendly: Designed and built with FSC certified Birch wood and durable canvas
- Cordless power use (batteries required)
Our Impressions
If you haven’t noticed yet, The House of Marley is all about the reggae lifestyle, based around Bob Marley’s unique flair. Their products are crafted with environmentally green methods and usually sport earth colors. They’re built for durability and marketed toward people who are constantly on the move, living the “Marley” lifestyle.
The Bag of Rhythm we’re reviewing today couldn’t any better be a perfect representation of the company who made it. It’s a boombox for a new age, a time when iPods, iPhones, and iPads are the daily drivers for everyone from kids to adults, and many people have seem to forgotten about these one time, popular, audio relics.
Design
The Bag of Rhythm is a boombox fitted into a stylish, Marley-inspired carrying bag with even a pouch to hold your miscellaneous effects. It measures out to the tune of 11 x 26 x 10 inches, and weighs in at a whopping 15lbs. It’s a beast of a product, one that is sold for the high price of $350 bones, so it definitely thinks high of itself. But how well does it work and what else does it got to offer to justify such a high price tag?
Well, the Bag of Rhythm is essentially an oversized dock and speakerset for your iPod or iPhone. It doesn’t really have much features; no bluetooth capabilities, remote control, etc. It can’t even be charged to be used on the go! Interestingly enough, it’s meant to be tied down by the included AC plug, that’s unless, of course, you’d like to go down to the store and buy some batteries should you dare take it outside. Yeah, we’re back in 1987 alright.
Carrying Case
Its only real accessory comes from the canvas carrying case that’s been developed to snap on to the “bag” itself, allowing for easy portability when lugging the ‘Rhythm’ from place to place. It offers a strapped handle as well as an adjustable shoulder strap, and also hosts a side-pocket which I suppose could be meant for tossing in your iPod when it’s not being holstered into the connecting pin.
The bag’s construction has been made for rugged terrain, or at least to withstand the elements of being stood onto a pile of sand at the beach. The Jamaican flag’s colors and House of Marley logo are subtley thrown in for brand recognition. The carrying case is removeable and can be kept on the ‘Rhythm’ when it’s in use as it also has cut outs for air flow to give this 2012 boombox even better sound.
Its front panel is constructed out of a FSC-certified slab of Birch wood that makes the device look a whole lot like a drum. See the reggae influence? On its sides are twin 1” tweeters fitted with 4.5” high-definition woofers each, and there’s also an amplifier built in there somewhere. The House of Marley emblem is cut into the face of the wood ever so gently and it really gives the ’ Rhythm’ a look all to its own.
Directly fitted dead center on the board is the dock for iPods and iPhones. There’s also an AUX cable jack that could easily let you use just about any other sort of music playing device, so anyone owning an Android shouldn’t feel left out. Right above the dock are the Rhythm’s only set of controls; a power button and volume down and up buttons. Oh, and for some reason they thought it would be best to make these as touch-sensitive buttons, sorta like how the PS3 used to have for its power button.
Performance
So we know what it looks like and how to carry it around but what does it sound like?
Delivering some of the most satisfying vibrations you’ve ever heard from a “boombox-esque” device, the Bag of Rhythm is a power house when it comes to rich bass for any environment or setting. However, you will definitely hear a lot of distortion when volumes are set too high. All ranges of sound, whether they be low’s, mid’s, or high’s all are expressed generally in the same flavor, without there being any over compensation for any one of these.
Low’s are deep and rich while vocals in the mid’s are so favorably heard that you can truly enjoy multi-layered songs easily without hearing unallocated noise filling up the space. The choice to have the speakers face upwards instead of outwards to the side benefits most areas with the audio rising up to ear-level instead of blasting into one general direction.
When playing music through the speakers of the Bag of Rhythm there aren’t many who will feel dissatisfied with what comes out. But as we mentioned, when the volume is too loud then you’re going to get an entirely different experience that makes it sound like the ‘Rhythm’ is taking a pounding from within itself. Let’s just say it sounds like it’s going to explode and the sound being played suffers extremely during such a time. Room-level audio should cover most situations, even most parties.
If you’re near a power source then you can simply plug the ‘Rhythm’ with its AC plug for an unlimited number of hours of continuous use, all the while charging your iPod as its playing its heart out.
Oddly enough, however, for it being a boombox in the 21st century we would’ve thought that batteries would’ve went out of style a long time ago. And while they really have for pretty much everything else in our lives outside of flashlights, that is, the Bag of Rhythm demands you get back into the habit. The Bag of Rhythm only allows cordless operation when fed with 6, yeah that’s S-I-X, D-cell batteries. The battery housing is on the bottom of the actual boombox when its outside of its carrying case, and it can only be accessed by using a flathead screw driver too.
Overall
For $350 bucks the Bag of Rhythm is definitely not a window purchase. Does it revive the boombox generation? I don’t think it can by itself, especially since it has a look all to its own, but it is a solution for those who want more than a tiny bluetooth speaker to share the audio from a Youtube video with friends. The Bag of Rhythm is meant for wider social occasions, maybe even taking it to the beach, camping, or to events going on at the park. However, for it does and what it offers, it’s really a bare bones experience that may or may not fit what you need it for.
In the end, the audio quality is above average, even stellar though not something completely out of this world. It does the job in carrying sound waves from its source to your ears and does a fine job all while looking as mellow as can be, and maybe in the end that’s exactly the way Bob would’ve like it. That’s Bob Marley if you were wondering.
Pro’s
- Fitted with durable carrying case
- Charges iPod and iPhones when in use
- Audio quality and delivery is stellar
Con’s
- Requires (6x) D batteries if you want to lug it around for cordless use
- Price tag is a little hefty
- Bare bones features with no accessories, not even a remote
Where to buy
House of Marley / Amazon — MSRP: $349.99
///4///
