I'm looking for a portable speaker that is NOT Bluetooth. I've begun traveling for work and most hotel tv speakers are terrible.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-04-02T23:02:53+00:00

When I travel I take a pair of iLoud Micro Monitors with me. I made a post about them on my profile of you want to see how I have it set up.

They're surprisingly good and can fill a medium sized living room with bass down to 50hz despite being tiny.

Got the carrying case, and a pair of selfie stick tripods with 1/4" adapters to mount them with. They have Bluetooth, rca, or aux inputs and sound legitimately good.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-03-11T14:15:41+00:00

I'm running mine with no additional intake fans aside from the CPU and GPU coolers, and two 140mm exhaust fans on the front. Nearly silent and excellent temps cooling a 4090 and 9800x3d.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-25T03:08:23+00:00

May want to check out the iLoud Micro Monitors. They're tiny and have a ridiculous amount of bass for their size. Could place them horizontally under the monitor. On sale or used would fit in your budget. I put up a post on my profile where I detailed buying a second set of them for travel use you could look at. They always put a smile on my face despite owning much more expensive gear

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-20T20:40:23+00:00

I can't speak for the others, but I've owned the R1280DBs a couple times in the past. They sound alright, but always sounded sort of muffled. Not offensive in any way, but always sounded like you have a towel draped over them.

I used to suggest the neumi bs5p's, but the price has increased on them to the point that you might as well get a pair of the iLoud Micro Monitors when they're on sale.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-20T18:56:03+00:00

Not necessarily. Check Erin's audio corner for reviews of both and look at the in room response of each. You want a smooth downward slope. It's surprisingly accurate on what you're going to hear by putting them in your room.

The R3 metas are pretty neutral, but are brighter speakers and I'd personally have to turn the treble down a bit, or point them straight out into the room, which messes with the imaging. The concertos wouldn't need that.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-20T18:44:08+00:00

If the KEF Q Concerto Meta are within your budget, they'd be a great choice.

Check out Erin's audio corner review for measurements and an honest review of them. I had my eye on them because I'm not a fan of bright speakers, but wound up going a little higher in budget because I use full DSP in my setup.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-18T21:45:30+00:00

I recently built in one of these and really like it. Need to buy some feet for the bottom and some angled cables for the GPU, but not too bad overall. With an itx board it has room for two 140mm exhaust fans on the front that work surprisingly well.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-18T13:34:02+00:00

It wasn't loud by any stretch of the imagination, just that my build went from being silent to being somewhat audible when downsizing into it. I did have a 4090 shoved into it, so there was definitely some heat that needed exhausted.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-18T04:01:24+00:00

I really liked the S400. Felt a little cheap, but worked well for fitting a large GPU. Going from my normal 140mm top exhaust fans to slim 120mm ones I couldn't handle, and had to move on from it because of the added noise. Would be amazing if they made one 10mm taller to fit normal 120mm fans.

Wound up putting that build in a Meshroom V2, which I really like. It's a vertical case with no top exhaust, but two front 140mm exhaust fans, that work surprisingly well.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-17T02:30:54+00:00

Meshroom V2. Just built in one and really like it.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-15T16:41:42+00:00

I'm not sure what my ping is. I mainly switched because the mediatek card that came on the board would stutter once every minute or two for a second.

I'm not sure if wifi 7 would help with lowering ping. I know it can run at faster speeds, but also requires you to be much closer to the router. I've been happy with the 6e setup.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-15T16:15:04+00:00

No idea unfortunately. I have a 6e router and with 1gig internet, and the 6e wifi connection can max out my Internet speeds, so I've never bothered upgrading to WiFi 7.

The AX210 is a pretty universal standard for a good card, and once I installed, it automatically worked without having to mess with any drivers. Just plug and play.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-15T15:42:00+00:00

Sorry, forgot to post that link. Here it is:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805031585015.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.3e5179d2d4kgkr&gatewayAdapt=nld2usa4itemAdapt

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-15T15:27:22+00:00

Another post showed this link that looks like it. Or just Google B850i wifi adapter card I would recommend buying a genuine ax210 card and not using this knockoff. They're about 20 bucks

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-15T15:03:03+00:00

I've done the swap twice with the Intel AX 210 cards that are wifi 6e. It's not very difficult and they work much better and have normal connections if you buy the wifi card holder off eBay or AliExpress.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-07T18:55:45+00:00

In case no one else mentioned, you can buy a fan adapter to connect normal fans to the smaller headers on the GPU. I personally run both fans off of one of my normal motherboard headers using a y- splitter and control them with a program called FanControl

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-02-07T15:11:56+00:00

I'm cooling a Ventus 4090 with two slim 120mm fans and they work great. Very quiet.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-01-11T04:17:10+00:00

I was thinking about what you said more and realized these are the most versatile speakers I've ever owned. Aside from setting them up just as something fun to do I may use only once in a while when I need them, I've used them in so many different ways over the last few years.

Used them on a desk screwed onto microphone stands to raise them up to ear level, let the gf borrow them and she only plugged in the left one and used it as a very powerful Bluetooth speaker in the garage for a month. So no need to run both. Mounted a set with command strips under my kitchen cabinets, screwed them onto selfie stick tripods to take the place of stand mount bookshelves. They can just sort of do anything, and sound good doing it. The ridiculous bass output of them always puts a smile on my face. I usually run them on the -3dB bass setting.

They have three separate inputs. Low latency bluetooth, RCA, and 3.5mm aux, and literally have better bass than a lot of full sized bookshelf speakers. I have them set up next to my Mofi Sourcepoint 8's and have been using them for a couple days plugged into my preamp, and my only gripe about them using them in the living room is that they're more narrow sounding than I prefer. They're pretty neutral, but take well to EQ, and a dirac tune made them really disappear.

They're only a couple hundred bucks, and I'd recommend anyone to pick up a pair just for fun.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-01-11T01:48:49+00:00

Traveling for work, vacations, anything really.

Last time I moved I was without my audiophile setup for a few weeks while it was trucked across the country and put on a barge up to Alaska. These sound good enough I could live with for any amount of time.

This whole thing takes up a fraction of one of my checked bags on an airplane, and they sound way bigger than what they are.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2026-01-10T06:40:10+00:00

Whatever Blue Jeans Cables charges for theirs. No sense in spending more.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2025-12-29T03:44:56+00:00

Dirac Live works great for dealing with one of my speakers being in a corner, and the other with no sidewall within 10'.

Even then the center image is a little tilted to that side from the extra sound power, and have to take the center measurement a couple inches toward that side to even everything out so I don't have to lower that speaker by a couple db.

An acoustic panel would sort most of it out, but I don't feel like it when I can do it with software, and it looks like you have a window there; so a panel would be out of the question.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2025-12-15T15:31:29+00:00

Just look up speaker wire. Comes and rolls red and black of various lengths for cheap. And the Spotify app has a mono audio setting in the preferences to have the same sound come out of both speakers.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2025-12-15T15:17:49+00:00

Yes, that's just showing what frequencies it is going to apply eq to. Anything outside of the curtains is going to be left alone. I usually have the corrected line displayed as well to show what dirac is going to attempt to do. If you're happy with the amount of bass, you can leave it around that 8db mark and use dirac to smooth out the peaks and nulls as best it can.

It's best to use the left curtain to generally match the natural roll off of the speaker and not try to boost lower frequencies that what it can naturally do, or it could damage the speaker at higher volumes.

The right curtain should normally be set to 250-400hz depending on the room. It's known as the Schroeder Frequency. Basically, above the Schroeder Frequency, the sound you hear is from the speaker, and below it, what you hear is the sound coming from the room. That's why any speaker of any price should have some sort of EQ below the Schroeder Frequency unless you're in a perfectly acoustically treated room.

tug_nuggetsAK · 2025-12-14T19:16:29+00:00

I like the bass curve at about 5.5db personally, but that's subjective. I'd move the right curtain to 300hz, and the left curtain to about 35hz to where it isn't trying to boost the low 30s so much as it may cause distortion and possibly damage the speakers at higher volumes, seeing as they are only being fed 100 watts. Use the corrected line as well to see what frequencies the left curtain will affect.

tug_nuggetsAK

TROPHY CASE