Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First off, I have to say that this is a stunning design. I build speakers myself at home and I picked this up to get some design ideas myself. I love the passive radiators they use on this thing! But overall, I was looking forward to testing it out for myself as I had heard great things about this unit and I'd love to have a great sounding portable speaker. Modeled after the Sony SRS X77 and tuned much better in my opinion, picking this up for $89 was a no-brainer and I tip my hat to DOSS for adopting this design. But... It's not quite there yet. The DOSS Soundbox XL suffers greatly from the enclosure not being totally deadened and dampened against the vibrations of the sub-woofer. The passive radiators in place will do their job thoroughly if the box was to be sealed better and deadened completely. Again, This is a great design, It's just executed somewhat cheaply. These currently available units are not deadened enough stop the buzzing fart noises from the ports in the back and the enclosure as a whole. The grill on these models now seem to have additional dampening to address some original complaints about grill vibrations. My units did not have grill vibrations or rattles. In my testing of this speaker, I decided to actually purchase two units and I've now sadly returned them both. I originally listened to Oluv's YouTube videos on this unit and when compared to other units I thought this was a good choice for my intended application. But they definitely suffered from the same issues you hear about in some of the written reviews as well as in Oluv's commentary. The first one arrived and sounded fine in the beginning. With only the loudest techno tracks being played at max volume causing this buzz like fart that you hear about. This began to get worse though over the course of the past few days and as I listened today, it seems like the Soundbox XL wants to literally vibrate itself apart. The buzzing from the back became very noticeable especially with the unit against a wall. It was not like this when I began using it and that was why I picked up the second unit. I really liked it at first. The second unit I bought though was much louder overall. It also had a much more distorted sound at lower volumes. It also buzzed a lot more from the back ports than the first unit. It also had a noticeably louder Bluetooth hum. I had two very different offerings of the same item. Still, with the second unit purchased, the left driver hissed loudly with a static like harshness when playing music and videos. The right driver operated closer to normal but was muted and less clear. This particular unit was obviously internally setup just a little differently than the first one I bought and the little 2 inch main drivers were possibly improperly sealed within their isolated enclosures. I boxed it up pretty quickly for a return as the sound was just unacceptable. I boxed the first unit up today for a return as well. If DOSS would dampen and deaden the enclosure better to eliminate the vibration issues, double down with some back plane absorption material, seal and deaden that back port better, pay stricter attention during the process in which they lay the foam seals around the drivers, specifically the sub-woofer. Then and only then will the Soundbox XL be a winner. Especially when the overall intended sound stage and presentation is easily on par or better than other portable units costing hundreds of dollars more. They should also probably use lock-tight on their screws too. Honestly, the normal listener might be OK with the shortcomings of this portable speaker. They may not even notice. But as stated, I build high-end bookshelf and tower speakers and based on my own 35 years worth of experience. I would stay away from this portable speaker until DOSS specifically addresses the issues that their production practices have introduced to the unit that should not be present. I was truly excited about it and I still want one. It could be the best in class! It looks amazing and if built just a bit better, it would surely be the one to beat... But in the long run, in its current state, I am a bit disappointed.