Review: Pebble V3 are the best speakers for a Mac

[arnolds1]

To start, this is not a paid or affiliated review.

I searched a long time for speakers which had similar sound stage as the 16" Macbook Pro since when I use it in a clamshell mode on a side of my monitor, the sound placement goes for a toss. I know there are expensive speakers like the Kanto YU2 which are generally recommended, but I am not an audiophile and wanted something cheaper and gave the Pebble V3 a shot. And it is impressive for $40. The sound stage is very similar to the Macbook speakers with just a hair more bass. They work seamlessly via the USB-C cable and have an integrated DAC - so both the power and audio are transmitted through a single cable.

I highly recommend these to anyone looking for inexpensive external speakers to use with their mac. If you want to buy something more expensive, I would still recommend getting speakers with a USB DAC since the audio quality is just better and you can control the volume within MacOS. Hope this helps someone.

 

[MikeDr206]

Presumably you can control volume through your Mac directly? so is the idea you set the speaker to a desired max volume, and then day to day use the Mac keyboard to adjust volume?

 

[RabidMacFan]

Presumably you can control volume through your Mac directly? so is the idea you set the speaker to a desired max volume, and then day to day use the Mac keyboard to adjust volume?

I set my pebbles volume knob about half way, and then just control the volume on my Mac keyboard. Unless I want it extra Loud or extra quiet.

 

[arnolds1]

Presumably you can control volume through your Mac directly? so is the idea you set the speaker to a desired max volume, and then day to day use the Mac keyboard to adjust volume?

Echoing what @RabidMacFan said - I am leaving it at 50% volume too and controlling with Mac keyboard too.

 

[Yael-S.]

The following products are in the <30 $ segment and they outperform the Creative speakers in sound quality:

C-Tech SPK-14
Niceboy ORYX VOX 2.0 (oryx-vox-2.0)
C-Tech SPK-310B

You can just as easily buy a used F&D F550X for the money of a Pebble V3 and then you have sound that approaches the best sound systems.

Here is my sound test of these speakers.

F&D F550X sound demo.wav

drive.google.com

 

[RabidMacFan]

The following products are in the <30 $ segment and they outperform the Creative speakers in sound quality:

C-Tech SPK-14
Niceboy ORYX VOX 2.0 (oryx-vox-2.0)
C-Tech SPK-310B

You can just as easily buy a used F&D F550X for the money of a Pebble V3 and then you have sound that approaches the best sound systems.

Here is my sound test of these speakers.

F&D F550X sound demo.wav

drive.google.com

Those don’t appear to be easily purchasable outside of Czech

 

[tehabe]

Because of this thread I got those Pebble V3 and I'm really happy, even though thay occupy one of my two USB-C ports but most of the time they are not in use anyway.

 

[Sptzz]

I have the speakers and I actually think the MBP 16 sound way better way more low end than the Pebbles. But regardless, I do have an issue with them. If sound is playing and I manually move the volume on the sound settings with a mouse, it will do a massive pop in and out. Check the video. This happens on every usb-c port as well as hub

 

[RabidMacFan]

I have the speakers and I actually think the MBP 16 sound way better way more low end than the Pebbles. But regardless, I do have an issue with them. If sound is playing and I manually move the volume on the sound settings with a mouse, it will do a massive pop in and out. Check the video. This happens on every usb-c port as well as hub

There's a firmware update that will massively reduce the popping noise on the speakers when changing volume.

 

[Sptzz]

There's a firmware update that will massively reduce the popping noise on the speakers when changing volume.

I tried updating it through my windows laptop and it didn't work. Followed the instructions, when I turn on the speaker whilst pressing the Bluetooth button a voice comes up saying "Version 2.7" and it instantly goes back from cyan to deep blue color. It doesn't retain the cyan color, if I then click on the bluetooth button it cycles between green, blue and cyan.

It doesn't matter which color I land on, it never goes past the "instructions" window of the firmware updater.

So Im stuck on 2.7.......

This is what happens btw. Didn't happen on my desktop PC funnily enough

https://imgur.com/BZMeCqK