ELTAX BT15 ‘BLOCK ROCKER’ SPEAKER
Manufacturer: ELTAX
Website: www.eltax.com
Typical Selling price: £249.99
In A Nutshell
A ridiculously clever, absurdly well featured and hilariously entertaining device. For £250 the Eltax BT15 replaces; speaker boxes, amplifier unit, small mixing desk, speaker stands, speaker wires, a radio microphone, another radio microphone, mains units, a mains generator and an aching back. It adds a pretty flashing LED lights, the ability to stack and connect to get it as loud as you want with as many units as you want and it sounds good enough to croon through. If you take part in any event that involves people standing in groups and shouting for attention to organise things. Then you need one of these, end of.
A BEST BUY.
Overall 9.2
Sound Quality 8
Build Quality 9
Power 9
Efficiency 10
Value For Money 10
The ELTAX BT15 is a complete, able and clever solution in one box, that lacks only an accessories bag.
This earns a Best Buy badge within the Talk Audio genre, one up from ‘Recommended Product’ and means it offers a real slice of quality and potency of sound for the money.
Editor Review : ELTAX BT15 ACTIVE ALL-IN-ONE P.A./MUSIC SYSTEM
As well as the absurd pith helmet, a significant piece of my public image is a microphone held in my face. I have been the MC at so many car shows, that some folks grew up seeing the fat man with the hat and I got recognised only if I was wearing it. For many people that was the only way they knew me. I have been getting into a crazy outdoor things lately. Slingshots and competitive slingshot tournaments. This stuff resonates back to when I was a schoolboy and of course being me, I have ended up as a reporter, writing about it.
From my very first competition, I really wanted to be the announcer. But I was a new bloke they knew nothing about with no status whatsoever, so I bit my tongue and waited my time. Two years into making videos and generally reporting on the catapult scene in any case and I have been accepted as their media dude!
And just before the biggest shoot of the year, I got a press release about the Eltax BT15. Like so many bits of technology, the features have gone through the roof, the price has gone through the floor and in this case the quality of the output has decidedly improved.
I did a good few shows with an old wooden box P.A. system, from Carlsbro, that has to date from the 1980s. Two boxes two stands, another weighty box for the little amplifier. Which, despite being too weedy to be heard more than 10 feet away at a car show, weighed a ton for all its crappy little output. Another bag of wires and of course the need for three sockets of mains power. Then there is the radio microphone system. It added up to half my boot of my estate car.
The press release I was sent, started with a product sporting a 12 inch speaker in it. Of course I wanted to try the 15 inch version. Apparently there is a product above this, The Eltax BT15 Pro, that is three-way and designed to be more about music than mere fun. I reckon I will have to have a go on that one, too. Because I can tell you, that once I had had a little play with the Eltax BT15 at the event’s campground while we had breakfast, I’d managed to do entertain rather than irritate and the organiser dude sent someone to fetch me to be the announcer. However, I did have an ulterior automotive and stayed cooking sausages. The bloke he had sent took it away and within five minutes I heard the announcer announcing… it really is that easy-to-use.
The knobs buttons and plug holes on the back can look a bit daunting to the untechnical, but the Eltax BT15 truly is idiot proof. My kinda unit. If you plug in an SD card or USB source, then it selects automatically. A press of a button sets it into Bluetooth mode and there is even an FM radio on-board. Two little aerials do different things. One is for that FM radio and one is for the two supplied radio microphones. And here is the single flaw. If you buy one of these, you will have to get a little baggy to put the two microphones inside along with the wires and the remote control.
The microphones are remarkably sensitive, and do have a lot of handling noise. You have to spend serious money on the solid metal body products to avoid that. And the instructions contain brilliant tips on microphone technique, specific to the capsules of these two cheap microphones. Despite their cheapness, the only lack, sonically was their ability to take high levels of sound. If you keep the volume sensible, they send a perfectly delicious crisp and detailed signal to the single two-way speaker unit.
I admit I was sceptical about how long the battery would last, so I was careful to make sure that there would be enough power for when they announced the raffle prizes! That’s when I took the unit back to my room and plugged it onto charge, it was barely 45 minutes before it was full up again. Awesome. It had been supplied to me properly fully charged but those four and a half Ampere-hours of 12V must be feeding one very efficient little amplifier indeed.
The whole system is so absurdly clever and cunning for the money, that the Eltax BT15 actually makes me feel old. Although the really ‘gosh you’re old’ bit, is the ‘funnest’ switch of all. If you press one more button, an array of pretty LEDs flickers in pretty colours on the front all around the subwoofer!
Fact is as soon as I fired it up, one of the more jocular participants trotted across the field, Took the microphone from me and started to sing terrible Welsh karaoke!
I loved it. This product is very strong in the F Word.
FUN!
Speaker System: 2-way
Tweeter: Piezo electric driven horn
Woofer: Fifteen inch, with LED lighting around the outside
Cabinet: Injection moulded tough plastic incorporating three handles.
Rated Power: 450W
Sensitivity 99dB/1w/1m
Internal Battery: 12V 4.4Ah Approx six hours use
Power input: 240V AC or 12V DC
SOURCES/Connections: Bluetooth, USB, SD card, built in FM radio, TWO wireless microphones, guitar input jack, aux in, audio out
Control by remote or the device buttons and knobs, very straightforward
Dimensions: (WxHxD) 480mm x 735mm (950 with handle extended) x 420mm
Weight: 15Kg
Complete With: Euro and UK mains leads, PHONO to 3.5mm tip-ring-sleeve stereo jack for use with any headphone output, remote control, two radio microphones and batteries for remote and mics. NO bag.
