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

Product Information

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. Both let you program and control speakers throughout your home to play music. You can choose to have the same music on multiple speakers, or different music on individual speakers. 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. Play the same music throughout your home with “Play Everywhere,” or listen to different music in different areas, it’s up to you. The SoundTouch® app lets you control one or multiple SoundTouch® speakers in your home, from any room.

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

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.

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. 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: 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. But if you want the added convenience and functionality of multi-room and wi-fi as well, the SoundTouch 20 III is a more pertinent choice – not to mention a better proposition than its predecessors offered a year or two ago.

With the Bose SoundTouch speakers, you have to use the app if you want to program internet radio stations to the preset buttons on the top of the speaker. When Bose first introduced their SoundTouch lineup, they had to be initially set up by plugging the speakers into a computer, configuring them, and then placing them in your home. Now set up can be completely done through the app. 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. Whether you want to play music from your computer, smartphone, or tablet, either streamed from the Internet or your own collection of songs, the Bose SoundTouch app is there to serve as the friendly but strict gatekeeper. The free software for PC, Mac, Android, and iOS controls and programs the SoundTouch 20 and any other SoundTouch speakers you want to use. And AirPlay works too—if it's on and connected, it will be available both through the SoundTouch app and through iOS and iTunes as an AirPlay device.

Have a library of your favorite albums and artists? Connect your laptop or NAS drive to have access to your stored music libraries.Our major issue is the bass. The SoundTouch 20 is capable of diving right down to the depths, but the sound isn’t balanced. If you're planning on managing your streaming music through paid services like Apple Music and Spotify, then the Sonos family of speakers offer the best support. Which is right for you? Once connected, the SoundTouch software is basic across all platforms, but easy to navigate. The default-screen is the same six numbers that you find on the main unit. 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.

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. 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. 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. We have reservations about the sound, however, and the limitations with compatibility are hard to swallow. Proceed with caution. The low-end is overstated, and a little distracting. This has an effect on the rest of the performance: there’s little real feeling of agility or dynamic expression, and the result is a performance that feels both unnatural and a little bored. VerdictBoth the Sonos and Bose SoundTouch speakers allow you to send music wirelessly, though they work a little differently. 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. 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.