One of the great things about the iPod is its portability. It’s a pity that when we want to share our music we have to plug it into a stereo, thus defeating the object. A recent influx onto the iPod accessory market is portable speaker systems that are battery and/or mains powered and can be taken anywhere the iPod can. The offering from d.Muse fits into this category, but goes one step further by being powered from the iPod itself thus eliminating the need for batteries.

First Impressions

The handheld d.Muse when folded is 42mm thick, 70mm wide and 114mm long. It comes with a Velcro-fastening leatherette carrying pouch which resembles a camera case. Folded up the speakers look neat and attractive – a clam-shell design, white, contoured exterior casing with gunmetal trimming and a simple ‘d.Muse’ logo on each side. The line-in cable is threaded around one side of the speakers in a groove and held in place by the headphone jack plug inside the speakers. When opened the metal mesh speaker grilles are revealed and the 23cm long cable can be released.

Appearance wise, the d.Muse looks pretty good – the white casing is co-ordinated with the iPod, and the metallic parts of the speakers make them look better than plain black plastic would. They are truly portable in the sense that they hardly weigh anything. Each speaker is only 50mm with 800mW output, so they cannot really be expected to have any substantial mass.

Plugging in the iPod

The good thing about these speakers is that they can be used with any device that has a headphone jack. This means essentially when it comes to iPods that they are generation independent, even including the iPod shuffle. Unless you use a dock, the iPod has to be lying down to be connected to the speakers.

The sound that was produced from the d.Muse was fairly quiet, but reasonably clear with a decent range and as much bass as can be expected from two single tiny speakers. There was very little distortion at full volume, but then full volume was not very loud. Obviously stereo sound, if it was implemented would be pointless as the speakers are so close together. The output achieved acceptably filled a small room, but at greater distances sounded tinny and indistinct.

Overall

The best aspects of the d.Muse are that they are very portable and convenient. There is no way that these speakers should be bought on the expectation that they are going to perform as a stereo system would. For situations where music is going to be played to a short range audience where high quality is not important, i.e. just to have some background noise, these speakers are perfect.