Behringer MPA40BT-Pro

The compact trolley suitcase-style sounds good a holds a nice set of features. The usual flimsy Behringer knob quality that probably won't stand a long rough life on the road. Quite annoying, though, that the battery life is shortened by a quite unintelligent charging system. You might consider changing the battery and removing it form the speaker till the day you really need it - and meanwhile check charging levels manually.

I'll start with a positive - this unit gives surprisingly good sound quality when playing music via Bluetooth/aux input. If this is all you want to use it for, then I would recommend this product as it does this job well!

However it's downhill from there I'm afraid. I bought this to plug in an acoustic guitar and microphone for small outdoor performances where mains power is not available. Initially I was reasonably impressed despite not being very loud - if you turn the inputs up too high, sound quality becomes poor and it can't handle any very low frequencies - if you use an acoustic guitar for percussive purposes for example, the sound will simply cut out temporarily if there's any low end frequencies present. However, it was better than nothing and did give enough amplification for very small outdoor events. (NB - I'm using a high end Gibson acoustic guitar with a great Fishman preamp and a Shure SM58beta mic, so it's not the source material causing the problem!)

After 6 months or so (and not with heavy use either, maybe once a month) I noticed that the battery was starting to run down more quickly. By a year in, I was getting maybe 2 hours out of it at best and now after 2 years I wouldn't trust it to last beyond half an hour. NB - it uses less battery power for music via Bluetooth/aux so is still pretty useful for this purpose, and this is all I use it for now.

The main problem I have now though is the awful crackling noise on the potentiometers (volume nobs!). It's almost impossible to adjust the volume on the various channels now without the sound cutting in and out constantly and an awful crackling sound when you try to adjust them. Usually this is down to dust, but I've taken them apart and cleaned them, and the problem persists - so it's probably down to poor quality components in the circuitry. I contacted Behringer, as this started happening just outside the year warranty (only a couple of weeks outside) and they completely dismissed me. Very poor customer service. I also asked them about the battery life and they said this wasn't something that would be covered by warranty anyway. I'd expect the battery to degrade a little, but to run down so quickly with relatively little use was very disappointing.

Conclusion - pretty good for simple music playback via aux/bluetooth although expect the components to fail and the battery to degrade quickly. It's not super-cheap either so if this is what you want a portable speaker for, look elsewhere and go for a batter quality brand. If you're looking to amplify instruments/vocals, avoid this speaker.

Bought this with the primary intent of busking (Acoustic guitar + Voice) + as a speaker for e-drums and bit of outside party for kids.

For the busking setup i tested in a 10x6m room, Cheap Bayern Dynamic v35d s mic, Dovina Acoustic guitar plugged directly to speaker.

So far i can say that I'm nothing less but impressed.

Voice is clear - i adjust the bass/hi on the speaker to adjust voice eq, then adjust the eq on my guitar to match what i need on the guitar side. The high speaker (tweeter) is not the horn type so it sounds more natural and does not hurt the ears in the upper frequencies.

Volume is good enough for small venues + bit outside (tested on 50% battery), bit better with AC power (bass). But nothing that will punch your guts when on max volume. Better than what i expected for 40W.

I did not expect the AUX to be working when bluetooth is connected (that's a plus).
So in theory you can have 1xMic, 1xGuitar,1x Bluetooth/Phone backtrack + 1x Aux for whatever you need (e.g. kyes, electric drums or external mix with plenty of other inputs) - the AUX and Bluetooth volume knob is shared so you need to adjust on ext device or phone for different volumes (which is still manageable)

Bluetooth range is what you can expect for 10m better quality BT device. Sound drops off at aprox. the same place as my Sennheiser HD4.40 headphones which have great range.

The speaker is lightweight and compact. Wheels have ball bearings.

The handle is a bit flimsy tho and the mic is very cheap, with a lot of handling noise (this was expected, it is still usable for spoken word/presentation). I can also see that the knobs could be shorter so they won't get damaged during transport (i can swap those easily). The pots underneath are plastic (maybe a future fix/update)

I can't comment of the battery life so far (too early to tell). You can run the speaker from AC and charge at the same time. Charges when off and plugged in the wall.

Overall 9.5/10 - amazing for the price and far - far better than i expected