A wireless speaker worth hearing?

It's only 7 inches tall, but I suspect the Yamaha NX-B02 portable Bluetooth speaker can put out some serious sound.

(Credit: Yamaha)

When Yamaha shipped me its itsy-bitsy NX-A01 speaker cube last August, I had only two complaints: It needed to include Bluetooth; and it needed the option of being battery powered. Lo and behold, Yamaha got its act together and created the NX-B02, a taller, less tofu-looking, completely wireless speaker based on the NX-A01 design.

The Yamaha NX-B02 includes a stereo pair of 1.75-inch titanium cone drivers, along with the coolest little fluttering bass port I've ever seen (watch the NX-A01 First Look to see what I mean). You also get a standard 3.5mm line-input, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR/A2DP, and the option of powering the system from either an adapter or four AA batteries. Battery life is only about 4 hours, so using rechargeable batteries is definitely the way to go with this thing. The Yamaha NX-B02 is available now in either red, black, or white, with an MSRP of $199 and a street price hovering around $140.

Watch for my full review of the Yamaha NX-B02 in just a few weeks.