Saturday, July 25, 2015

Hiddenradio2 -- big sound from a tiny can

Another early arrival -- my set of 2 Hiddenradio2 Bluetooth speakers. Ordered from Kickstarter more than a year-and-a-half ago, it arrived unexpectedly on my doorstep this morning.

Unboxed and activated (right), it looks like a soft drink can. The bottom layer is the speaker proper, while the upper bit is the casing that slides up and down on a smooth touch-activated mechanism. In fact, there are no visible controls at all. Just touch the top surface for on-off; start-stop music track; or draw circles, clockwise for more volume anticlockwise for less. Right now, I've got a single speaker playing music on Spotify. The sound is beautifully crisp, no hiss, no fuzz; lyrics, instrumentation and percussion sharp and clearly reproduced -- though given its size, it's not bass-heavy. Maybe when the app is released on the respective app stores, there'll be a software equalizer to play with. Still, sound projection is omni-directional, which means it should do well outdoors, especially when paired with its twin for a stereo effect.

For the moment, though, I'm thinking of keeping one unit at home and taking the other to work. Yes, there are times I need an easily set up wireless speaker system while being hard at work. This device should fit the bill quite nicely!