Bose SoundLink Plus vs JBL Charge 6, huge win for JBL Charge 6

Bose SoundLink Plus was recently released after the SoundLink Max. The retail price for the SoundLink Plus is $269, which is very high compared to similarly sized speakers from other brands. You can check out my SoundLink Flex vs Soundcore Motion 300 comparison article if you’re interested. For today’s comparison, I am bringing on the JBL Charge 6, which being considered as a premium brand, comes at even cheaper than the SoundLink Plus at $200. Usually, JBL loses the value-for-money battle against other budget brands, but maybe today will be different. I am feeling good about the JBL Charge 6 today.

Inside-the-box

The packaging of the SoundLink Plus is a standard sturdy paper box. Inside the box, the speaker is well protected using cardboard molds. Also, the SL Plus is wrapped inside a thin fabric sleeve. This makes the experience very premium. Along with the speaker, you also get a Type-C to Type-C charging cable and a safety instruction guide. By the way, the charging cable looks kinda short, but not as short as some of the TWS earbuds. I liked the presentation and packaging of the SL Plus speaker - it looks and feels like quality.

JBL Charge 6 also has the same standard hard paper box packaging. The speaker is very well protected inside, as cardboard mold is used to hold the speaker in place for protection. The Charge 6 is wrapped inside a thin foam pouch, which also feels like quality. However, you don’t get a charging cable in the box, which is not good. There is a user guide too in the box and the carrying handle that you can install later. Bose SL Plus had that carrying loop already installed on the speaker - different types of carrying mechanisms on both.

I think both have quality packaging, but Bose takes the win for the cable. Adding the charging cable in the box can be a huge benefit for some people. I really like it when companies add accessories in the box - it feels like they are not just about profit. If you need help with the setup, you can check out the manuals for SoundLink Plus & Charge 6.

Configuration Check

The Bose has something unique going on here, even though it produces mono sound. So, it has a woofer and a tweeter for active drivers. However, the unique part is that the single woofer is driving 4 passive radiators, 2 in the front and 2 in the back. It’s usually only 2 passive radiators with these types of portable speakers. So that woofer might be pretty beefy and doing some serious heavy-lifting and movements - a bummer that you can’t see it moving like crazy because of that dense grille. Bose didn’t specify the power rating of SL+.

JBL Charge 6 has a woofer, a tweeter and 2 passive radiators on the lateral sides. Charge 6 is rated at 45 watts. The 45 W rating on Charge 6 refers to 30 W woofer and 15 W tweeter. Charge 6 also plays mono sound, the input is stereo but the single woofer-tweeter configuration produces a mono sound. However, both SL Plus and Charge 6 can play in stereo configuration if you have 2 units of each. The Charge 6 can play wired lossless audio via the USB Type-C port, but the SoundLink Plus probably cannot - I’m not sure.

Design and Build

There isn’t much excitement in me for these 2 speakers, especially not for the SoundLink Plus. I was very excited about the Boom 3i’s design when I did the Charge 6 vs Boom 3i comparison, but today not anywhere near as excited. So, the Bose SL Plus has a metal grille on the front and another grille at the back that looks like metal, but the back grille is probably made of plastic. However, the build is really solid and high quality with that metal front grille and outer silicone material. The quality materials used are Silicone, Polycarbonate, Steel and Nylon. You can’t see much inside, the grille doesn’t allow you to see much of the drivers and radiators. This is a very toned-down look and the design is not exciting at all.

For the JBL Charge 6, it’s kinda exciting and even more exciting than the Charge 5. JBL has exposed passive radiators, you can at least see the radiators move like crazy. In my opinion, it doubles the fun to see them moving, even if it’s a less safe choice. The Charge 6 passive radiators are more cool and bold looking than the previous JBL Charge 5. I really like the radiators of the Charge 6. It’s also a really high-quality build on the JBL Charge 6, but does not have a metal front grille like it is on the SoundLink Plus speaker. Both look and feel premium, reliable and durable. Overall, Bose has slightly better build quality, but the design is much better on the JBL Charge 6. I prefer JBL’s design anytime over Bose’s.

The JBL Charge 6 weighs about 990 grams vs the Bose SoundLink Plus’s 1492 grams of weight. So, the SoundLink Plus is much heavier than the Charge 6 speaker. The SL Plus also looks bigger than the Charge 6. More expensive, bigger and heavier, that makes you think like it should sound better too - you’ll find in the sound quality section.

Sound Quality

There is a huge difference in their sound signature. The Bose SoundLink Plus has an obvious V-shaped sound signature, while the Charge 6 has a more balanced sound. From their frequency response, you can see that the Bose has louder bass and highs at a similar normalized volume. This demonstrates the V-shaped sound signature, which has recessed mids. However, this doesn’t mean that the Bose has deeper and louder bass. Both the Charge 6 and SL Plus deliver similar deep bass at lower volumes.

The frequency response is taken from RTINGS.com and for additional frequency response related technical data, check out their article about the Charge 6 and SoundLink Plus. So for the lowe level listening, at or below 50% volume, the SoundLink Plus has boosted bass and treble with recessed mids. You lose a lot of details in the mids with the Bose’s sculpted out V-shaped sound. But with the JBL Charge 6, you may feel like it has less bass and treble but more mids. The SL Plus sounds cleaner at lower volume with slightly louder and boomier bass. The Charge 6 doesn’t sound that boomy, but overall at lower volume, it may sound less fuller and richer. However, to be more precise, the Charge 6 has deeper bass.

It feels like the SoundLink Plus is peaking at 70 Hz and Charge 6 is peaking at 60 Hz. But the JBL Charge 6 is a bit quieter in the bass, which is why the SL Plus is perceived as stronger at lower volume. You may perceive the SL Plus as a richer-sounding speaker, but the Charge 6 has more details in the mids. So, I think most people will prefer the Bose SoundLink Plus for low-level listening, but the Charge 6 is quite close to being equal.

But the goal post totally starts to shift towards the JBL Charge 6 as you go up in the volume scale. The Charge 6 delivers richer bass along with better mids. It slowly catches up in the bass loudness and on top of that the Charge 6 has cleaner, way less boomy and deeper bass at these 50 to 70% average listening volume. However, the SoundLink Plus may still sound slightly better in the treble, but the Charge 6 is becoming the boss here.

At close to maximum volume, the Bose SoundLink Plus totally loses it to JBL Charge 6. The dynamic compression is pretty noticeable on the SoundLink Plus speaker. The bass is way quieter than the Charge 6. Overall, the loudness is also noticeably higher on the Charge 6. At these high volumes, the treble also becomes weaker on the SL Plus. So, the SoundLink Plus starts to sound muddy compared to Charge 6. In LUFS, at max volume, the Charge 6 is at -22.8 vs the SoundLink Plus is at -23.4, which makes the Charge 6 over 0.5 LUFS louder. The Charge 6 has way less distortion than the bad compression of SoundLink Plus. So, the JBL Charge 6 being smaller and much lighter is kicking SL Plus at max.

Overall, the Charge 6 wins big here, only at lower volume does the SoundLink Plus have a chance. For mid to high-level listening, the Charge 6 is a clear winner. Also, being $70 more than the JBL, Bose should do much better than this - uncontrolled mess at max. During my research on these speakers, I found some testing videos from Dominik Reviews and Mateusz Cholewa very informative, check 'em out and give 'em love.

Features and Battery

The SoundLink Plus supports Bluetooth multipoint connection. It can connect with 2 devices at the same time and play audio or switch audio playback between devices. The Type-C port can do both charge-in and charge-out, so you can charge your smartphone using this feature. SL Plus is IP67 rated - waterproof and dustproof. You can immerse the speaker in water for up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to 1 meter. SoundLink Plus has Party Mode to connect multiple units. Also, with Bose SimpleSync technology, you can connect the speaker to a Bose smart speaker or Bose smart soundbar via the Bose app - pretty cool.

JBL Charge 6 also supports charge-in and charge-out via the Type-C port. On top of that, it has lossless audio support from the same Type-C wired connection - so cool. Bluetooth version is 5.4 on both speakers. The Charge 6 has multipoint connection too. However, recent JBL speakers like the Charge 6 are using Auracast technology to connect to multiple speaker units. So you can connect many JBL speakers that support Auracast, but cannot connect to older JBL speakers that have PartyBoost. To prolong the runtime, Charge 6 has Playtime boost feature. The AI Sound Boost feature can help to produce maximum acoustic performance. The Charge is IP68 water and dustproof - it also has drop protection.

The battery spec reads like Li-ion polymer 34 Wh, equivalent to 7.2 volts 4722 mAh for the JBL Charge 6 speaker. Charge 6 offers 24 hours of playback at around 50% volume with an additional 4 hours when Playtime Boost is on. Fast charging is also present on the Charge 6, only 10 minutes of quick charging can give you 150 minutes of playtime. The charging time is 3 hours at 12 - 20 V / 3 A rate. On the contrary, the SoundLink Plus has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack that lasts around 20 hours on average volume.

At maximum volume, the battery lasts up to 4 hours. That max-volume information is a very good technical detail that other companies don’t provide, but Bose did. However, the official battery capacity details are missing. The SL Plus takes about 5 hours to fully charge its battery pack at a 5-V 3-A rate. Both speakers have app support, but the custom eq is more flexible and advanced on Charge 6. The SoundLink Plus with the Bose app has only a 3-band eq vs Charge 6’s 7-band eq - a year ago, JBL also had 3-band custom eq.

Conclusion - Charge 6

Huh, don’t you expect a more extended bass response, more controlled deeper bass, a balanced sound and not a huge bass limitation at higher volume, from a speaker of that size that costs $269 ..? The Bose offers poor value and feels like a disappointment. On the contrary, the JBL Charge 6 is also a pricy speaker, but it has a good design and build, along with a well-rounded sound that doesn’t fall apart like the SL+.

The design of the SoundLink Plus is also not attractive. In terms of sound, the SoundLink Plus only takes the lead at lower volumes. After 50% volume, the JBL Charge 6 starts to sound more powerful, balanced and detailed. At maximum volume, the Bose SL Plus loses its dynamics. So overall, this is a huge win for the JBL Charge 6. Check out my Boom 2 vs Xtreme 4 article, Boom 2 is a better buy than both Charge 6 and Xtreme 4. Also, if you need more information, check out the official pages for Charge 6 & SoundLink Plus.

Check the JBL Flip 7 vs JBL Flip 6 story

IF you're interested in portable small speakers, check my Soundcore Motion 300 vs Bose Soundlink Flex article. Both did well in a head-to-head.

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