Ryobi has come out with a new 18V cordless Bluetooth speaker system, and they called it SCORE.
The new Ryobi Score speakers are compatible with their 18V One+ Li-ion batteries, and also come with AC adapters.
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Ryobi Score is a linked-together system where you have one transmitter and up to 4 receivers, for up to 5 speakers playing at once.
The starter set, P765, comes with a primary speaker and transmitter (P760) and receiver (P761), shown above, giving you 2 speakers, and you can buy additional speakers separately, P761.
Ryobi sent over a starter set and one additional speaker. I have all 3 playing right now, and it is GLORIOUS. I have a lot of testing to do, and welcome any questions you might have!
Setup was quick and easy. I had the pair of speakers from the starter set playing some music in under a minute, and that includes time to pop 2 Ryobi 18V batteries in.
Getting the third speaker going required a quick consult with the user manual. I think I might have done something to interrupt the exploration process. In any case, it too was playing music quickly.
The transmitter has an LCD display, and the receiver speakers LED color codes. It’s pretty easy to figure things out.
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Oh, and it’s not just a Bluetooth speaker. You can connect an aux input cable to the transmitter, in case you have some other music player you want connected, and there’s also a radio tuner.
The music transmits to the receivers via SKAA wireless technology. I’m not at all familiar with the SKAA wireless tech at all, but I can tell you that the speakers are all in perfect sync and as mentioned earlier, it sounds fantastic.
There are more advanced settings that I need to look into, such as “clustering” the speakers to act as one. This is what the manual says about it:
A Cluster is a product with two or more pieces which behave as one, such as a left and right speaker pair.
If you have more than one transmitter, you can choose one as the transmitter and set the others to receiver mode.
There’s a note included in the manual that’s worth mentioning:
If your speaker turns itself off during the first few minutes while using a charged P103 or P104 battery pack, please use the included AC adapter or install a different battery pack.
There is also a slip-in page that talks about tool and battery compatibility.
P103 is Ryobi’s compact Lithium+ battery, and P104 is their high capacity Li-ion (basic, non-Lithium+) battery. If you’re buying everything new, you’ll probably want to look at their rather budget-friendly 4Ah 2-pack, which sells for $99.
- 2.25″ driver size
- Up to 150 ft range between primary and secondary speakers
- Handle doubles as a hanging mount and smartphone stand
- Independent volume controls for each speaker
- FM tuner
- Aux input (cord not included)
- Included AC adapters
The controls are intuitive and easy to manipulate. The tuner and aux input is only on the primary speaker.
I’ve got more fiddling around to do, but here’s my early take:
They’re compact, and sound great. The wireless music sounds far better than I had anticipated. The overall music is fairly pleasing too, with no readily detectable distortions. The bass response is decent for a compact portable Bluetooth speaker.
I need to explore the mounting potential. I’m able to hang it off my 3/4″ thick desk without difficulty, although it’s not very secure. I’m happy to support them on a flat surface.
I have all 3 speakers relatively close to me, and so I balanced the volume to avoid directionality bias. In a larger workshop setting (I’m in my small office workspace at the moment), I wouldn’t feel as compelled to do this. Or I would try clustering the speakers and placing them equidistant to my listening location.
That’s one of the things I hope clustering the speakers will do. Maybe I’ll have the primary speaker independent controllable and set the 2 others to be controlled the same, which I would think is something a cluster allows for.
Overall, I think that Ryobi “scored” with the SCORE. It seems to be a nicely designed system that works exactly as advertised. It’s easy to use and sounds great!
I think I would like to see a more premium version in the future, with a smartphone app that can control the speakers, but that might be asking for too much.
Pricing information is not available yet.
Thank you to Ryobi for providing the review samples unconditionally.
Rich
Man I love my Ryobi blue radios, use both of them, never bothered with the newer model due to the battery drain. Does this model drain the battery when not being used and turned off?
Stuart
I’m not sure yet, but that’s something I’ll try to test for.
When on, there’s an LED light, and when not playing music there might be a low power receiver waiting for a signal.
But when off?
The power switch might be electronic as opposed to purely mechanical, and if so, it would consume a very small trickle of power.
Rich
Trickle is fine. The green one just drained the battery completely and the old blue ones would keep for days. Thanks will keep an eye out for your report.
Patrick H
I have the green one and I have not experienced that at all. I have left the battery in it for over a month and it still showed full charge when I got back to it. I had heard that it was an early issue and was later corrected.
Rich
Awesome news, thanks for letting me know. There isn’t a revision number on your radio by chance?
The yeti
I find it rather interesting how the lower tier brands . Such as Ryobi . Continue to innovate. While my go to Bosch . Continues to not offer much new products . Yet the Bosch stuff is so well made I could never switch . Not worth it for the few things I do . Better to just keep what I got its good stuff . Ryobi is unique I guess . They have shelf space
Johnny4
My thoughts exactly. Bosch invented the speaker/battery changer and they have yet to introduce bluetooth and/or redesign the shape that it locks into the L-BOXXs. I guess success bread complacency. Ryobi has every tool under the sun. I find myself contemplating filling the hole Bosch has with their option. I am also considering their gargen tools.
OhioHead
^ ummm DeWalt invented the radio/battery charger circa 99/00 and had the patents locked up for years…….
Guess again…….
Adam
I wouldn’t consider that an invention by any means for either company. They combined two separate things, that’s all. That’s evolution, not invention
jc
I agree completely. Look at the automobile world. I watch Kia and Hyundai making leaps and bounds in innovation and watch Toyota resting on its laurels from its heritage of reliability. I never loved my Tacoma, it was adequate. I just bought another one even though it is still built on the same platform from 2005 and has a mullet of disc and drum brakes.
Art
They had a livestream and said the cost of the base unit + 1 expansion speaker (you need the base unit) will cost $199. You cannot order just one base unit speaker and expand later. The expansion speaker which cannot operate alone will cost $99.
Jonathan
Been holding off to see these, my local HD Milwaukee rep, was telling me about these (part of the TTi group). Unofficially they are some how licences/built or connect to SONOS technology.
If the price point is right it will be awesome not to wear BT headphones to listen to music when I’m working around the house and move about to my shop, shed-quarters, garden area and yard. Most of the other clustered speakers are not priced or design for rugged area usage.
The innovation coming out of Ryobi/Rigid/Milwaukee continues to impress me.
Adam
I was thinking that it almost had to have Sonos tech, or similar, for the sync functionality to work well.
While in HD today, I saw their Commercial Lightning brand has a Bluetooth Shop speaker. I think it was $60. I was hoping that had some kind of sync technology, otherwise they have sort have limited people to buying one per work area.
junyo
As much as I love my Ryobi stuff, I’m having difficulty seeing the value prop here. Using them in the shop cordless ties down a ton of batteries. Using them in the shop wall power, and I’ve got better/cheaper options. Okay, great, wireless connectivity. Using them on a jobsite, maybe, but again, tied up batteries, and better options; not seeing what these do that something like the Ion Job Rocker doesn’t do better.
dave
Wow, if Art’s post is correct and the basic set of base plus 1 expansion speaker is $199, THEN $99 more for a pair of batteries, that is so outrageous if it were a GOOD set instead of a piddly 2.25″ driver based set.
I could see the 150ft range being useful in certain applications but for the crowd Ryobi is probably hoping to market towards, forget about it.
I’ll just keep using my 4 x AA (Eneloop) powered Sony portable. It’s not stereo but I don’t mind that much and if I wanted to wire in a bluetooth module, it would fit in the battery bay area where the built-in cord stores, and such modules can be had on eBay for about $4 or less. It’d run fine from ~6V to ~4V battery power range.
Total cost for ALL of that is $30 radio, $12 batteries, $4 BT module = $46. Add the cost of a 2nd set of batteries if you want higher volume all work day long, and the speaker isn’t a piddly little 2.25″ thing.
Art
… or for $300, you could get this:
https://www.amazon.com/Aiwa-Exos-9-Portable-Bluetooth-Speaker/dp/B00WF78GS4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493419927&sr=8-1&keywords=aiwa+bluetooth
firefly
You guys are right at that price I think there are much better options. With that in mind I do think the price will drop once they hit retail.
Dean K.
When I first saw these, I thought they looked like a mini version of the heatpumps outside my house
Chaim
Are they outdoor (waterproof)?
Stuart
I don’t believe so.
ChrisFox
I really didn’t need the portability. After trying 3 or 4 small bluetooth speakers I finally gave up. Went with a PA speaker that has bluetooth connectivity. JBL EON612 demo unit I got for fairly cheap. Sounds great, really loud and it’s rugged enough to handle being tossed in the back of the truck when I move it somewhere else.
josh
They would sell more of them if they advertised them as mini heat pumps!
Jose
I already got them they are awesome. I live the fact you can take them anywhere with batteries!
Koko The Talking Ape
Just came across this, and I thought I would describe a slightly lower-tech solution.
You can buy small battery-powered FM transmitters for about $60. Set it to a frequency that is open in your area. I have one from C. Crane that sounds great and lets you choose any frequency for transmission. Others might require you to chose from just two or three preset frequencies.
https://www.ccrane.com/item/acc_trans_trans2/100106/digital_fm_transmitter_2_for_sending_near_broadcast_quality
Attach a sound source like a phone or a microphone using a standard 1/8″ stereo cable.
Then use any portable radio to receive the broadcast.
One nice thing about this approach is that since FM is an open standard, any portable radio can receive it. You can use big ones, small ones, nice ones or cheap ones, whatever you want (or have.)
Also, there is no limit to the number of receiving radios you can have.
The transmitters have a limited range per FCC regulations, but many are easily modifiable (e.g., by turning a trim pot) to exceed those limits. That C. Crane unit can be boosted in seconds (I hear.) It would probably work well for a typical jobsite of up to one block.
The sound quality may be lower, because FM broadcasts are analog, but the limiting factor is probably the speaker at the receiving end.
Stuart
Way before Bluetooth I had something like that, a mini Belkin Tunecast that plugged into my mp3 player. It sounded so bad, even though the channels were empty. I ultimately shelved it and went with a tape deck adapter.