Portable speakers need a bit of work

SPEAKER SYSTEMS that'll fit your iPod are as common as cheating politicians, but while some get away with it, the imperfections of others are very clear, writes Luke Peters.

Our case in point is Logitech's mm32, a portable speaker system for iPods and other digital music players.

This good-looking cylindrical device had us thinking that we were looking at a great piece of kit. But set it up and it's clear that Logitech's attempt at versatility means it has inadvertently shot itself in the foot.

There's no built-in docking port, which means to charge the Ipod while using the speakers, you have to feed your own Ipod charging/synching cable through the bottom of the mm32, up into the correct Ipod dock connector and then into the Ipod.

It also means Logitech has had to use a 3.5mm line-in jack-on-a-cord to connect to each Ipod's headphone socket. Then there's the awkward tightening dial to turn to keep the Ipod in place.

All this makes for an extremely fiddly process and a mess of cabling underneath and out the back of the speaker.

We weren't impressed and found it infinitely easier to simply plug the 3.5mm line-in jack into the Ipod (or any other player) without battling with Logitech's docking method.

Naturally, the mm32 will work with any audio device with a headphone socket.

It also comes with a padded carry case that has a separate pocket for spare batteries. The mm32 runs off main power or four AA batteries, which provide around eight hours of use.

Sound quality was more inspiring and Logitech's 'quad micro-drivers' (four small speaker drivers) worked well, remaining calm and poised even at higher volume levels.

Bass response is almost non-existent, but for what the mm32 is designed for (hotel rooms and bedside listening) we didn't expect it to blow us away.

That said, for £70 we did expect a much better design and at least an integrated docking/charging port. ?

L'INQ
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