The Clip 3 JBL Bluetooth speaker by Harman Kardon is a low power, hand-held style unit with still enough RMS watts to fill a small room with decent sounding tunes.
But what do the watts a wireless mini speaker has, tell us about how good it is? Firstly, the watt is a measure of how much power the speaker requires and outputs. Plus, this metric is a telling comparison measure. Why? Because generally, speakers with more audio watts tend to play louder than those with less.
While they do cost more, have larger, heavier, and costlier batteries and chargers, along with bigger drivers and magnets, they nonetheless offer some big plusses. They have more dynamic range, a deeper bass response, and the models that play in stereo offer typically a bigger soundstage and better sound imaging to listeners.
Thus in general, the more powerful the speaker, the better it sounds, even at lower volume. You get improved clarity due to higher accuracy reproduction of the bass, midrange, and treble parts of the music. Plus, more reserve power likely means less clipping distortion too, even at higher volumes. So, the speaker’s max watts output is a primary indicator of its quality and performance. And as such, this value is of great interest to audiophiles and novice listeners alike.
In this case, the Clip 3, as a small BT speaker, is a surprisingly loud model for all the bigger it is. Its three plus watts can fill a small size party area with clear and full music. See below for details on its power output.
JBL Clip 3 Watts Details
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- Battery Capacity: 3.7 watt-hours (3.7 volts, 1.0 amp-hours).
- USB Charger Power: 3 watts (5 volts at 0.6 amps).
- Power Bank Output Power: Not available on this speaker.
- Play Time Per Recharge: Up to 10 hours.
- Total Audio Output Power on AC (RMS): 3.3 watts.
- Total Peak Audio Power: 4.67 watts.
- Output Power per Channel: 3.3 watts RMS (One channel in this speaker).
Notes on JBL Clip 3 Watts
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- This speaker may not input enough enough power from a low power USB AC adapter (under 5 watts capacity) to keep the battery from discharging when playing at full volume, depending on what you’re listening to. So it could happen that even with the Clip 3 fed from external power, you could still see the music shut OFF abruptly. Thus on the (rare) times that this occurs, just stop playing the unit for an hour or so, to let it build up some reserve battery power while charging. Then, fire it up again for continued party enjoyment.
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References
Revision Log
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- 2022-08-26: First published.