Faulty speaker or bad bluetooth connection?

[greycobalt]

Several months ago I got an Insignia Alarm Clock/Speaker from Best Buy. It was $20 bucks - a total steal! It sounded great and has been working fine.

However, in the last week, whenever I play music from my tablet or phone every the music will skip or stutter. I have not done anything new to the tablet or speaker that would cause this (that I know of). The phone seems to play the music for longer before there's an issue, but not by much. Weirdly, I've noticed it's more prone to dropping out during a quiet lull in the music. I listen to a lot of instrumental music and whenever one instrument is playing alone, like a piano, it almost seems like the speaker mutes itself inbetween notes. It's hard to explain and super bizarre.

I've tried restarting the speaker, the tablet, reconnecting the Bluetooth - nothing has worked so far. My tablet is fairly old - a Galaxy Tab S - but my phone is a brand new Pixel 3 XL. It'd be odd if the speaker was failing already, but at least it'd be some kind of explanation. It's driving me bonkers. I can post some recordings of what I'm hearing if that will help anyone understand what I mean.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Rukbat]

The only way to figure out where the problem is, is to try a different (and known good) BT speaker with your phone and tablet, and to try a totally different device with that speaker.

But I'm inclined to guess that it's the speaker - unless the phone, playing the same music file to its own speakers exhibits the same problem.