Jawbone Jambox with LiveAudio review

We’ve been fans of the Jawbone Jambox ever since its late 2010 launch. Although its $200 price tag is sure to cause a double-take, living with a Jambox for the last six months made me a believer in the portable Bluetooth 2.1 speaker powerhouse with 10-hour battery (depending upon use). Today, the little 57 x 40 x 151mm speaker gets even better thanks to a free 2.0 software update that adds LiveAudio to the mix - Jawbone speak for playback of three-dimensional binaural recordings. I was skeptical that any tweak to the unit's DSP would be worth my attention, let alone yours. But all doubt was cast aside once I found suitable tracks to exploit the feature.

Listening to the swirling introduction of the The Cars, "Moving in Stereo" was like standing in a new wave Osterizer with Paulina Porizkova running her fingers through my hair... and that's a good thing. Unfortunately, the effect only works on tracks recorded with three-dimensional binaural listening in mind. Thus, I found myself constantly toggling the feature for each new track in order to test the benefits. Behavior that'll get old, quick.The 2.0 update is available now.