I had a lot of positive things to say about Bose’s SoundLink Max when I tested the portable Bluetooth earlier speaker this year, and that praise was universal from other reviewers as well. But there was one main hangup: the price.
At its usual retail cost of $399, Bose’s flagship Bluetooth speaker gets lumped into a very competitive crowd and isn’t far off from more advanced products like the Sonos Move 2 and much larger party speakers. Even if you put those alternatives aside, it’s a lot of money to spend on a Bluetooth speaker that doesn’t offer any smarts, lacks audio playback over Wi-Fi, and has no AirPlay / Chromecast compatibility to speak of.
But as is often the case, when you slash the price by $100, it’s much easier to make an…