Sound quality: Altec Lansing's Life Jacket 2 had fair overall sound quality. Bass has very little impact and mid and lower bass is lacking. Midrange is thin, gritty and a bit "boxy". Treble is very pronounced and sizzly. Doesn't do a good job recovering room ambience, lacks fine detail and sounds somewhat congested. Bluetooth and wired sound quality are similar except in wired mode treble is less pronounced but still sizzly and overall volume level is slightly reduced. Provides a decent volume level in a small- to medium-sized room.
Ease of use: We found the Altec Lansing LifeJacket 2 ease of use to be good. Connecting to Bluetooth is very easy. The unit is always in pairing mode when not already paired, shows a pairing mode indicator and indicates when pairing mode has occurred and never times out. Unit also has NFC. The console volume controls are large and in a prominent place, but low contrast, with nothing else to indicate that it is a volume control except a + and - symbols. The +/- are unlabeled multifunction controls, which also unpairs from Bluetooth. Source selection is mediocre since both Bluetooth and the Aux input play at the same time. Have to turn off audio from source so there will be no overlap. Unambiguous and line-in is poorly labeled.
