I bought ION Block Rocker Plus bluetooth portable battery operated speaker (ION going forward) because I was impressed by how loud and clear it sounded at a friend’s birthday party when it was brought by the entertainment team. I am extremely happy with it!
Then, browsing Amazon, I saw Monster Rocking’ Roller 270 (Monster going forward) and by looking at it’s specs and features, in theory it should be better than the ION:
- Monster has 2 mic inputs with echo, while ION only has one without echo.
- Monster has additional side speakers while ION only has front facing speaker.
- Monster claims to be 200W of power while ION only 100W.
- Monster has bass and treble control, ION does not.
- Monster is waterproof and ION is not.
- Monster has Qi wireless charging and ION does not.
- Monster has line out for connecting another speaker and also can pair to another speaker wirelessly.
I was looking to buy a second speaker so I could play them in stereo using a DJ splitter cable. So I went ahead and purchased the Monster excited to have all of those extra features.
After comparing them side by side, I was surprised that ION actually sounded much louder than Monster. And that goes for both music and microphone signal. What is impressive is that ION is actually smaller and lighter than Monster.
So I do like all of the extra features of Monster, but after all, it is a speaker and the sound volume and quality trumps all of the extra bells and whistles for me. So I returned Monster and purchased another ION.
And on a side note, I do also like the style of ION better than the rugged look of Monster.
Hope this comparison will be helpful to someone who is deciding between these two speakers. I was actually looking for such a comparison myself, but could not find it.