It has never been easier to listen to your favourite tunes whilst on the move given the plethora of portable listening devices available today. Now there is an equally gigantic range of earphones available to suit your pocket and level of audio quality. However, if you like the portability offered by your music device but are looking to avoid jacking into your ears there are fewer portable speaker solutions available. iSound is addressing that gap in the market with this travel friendly two speaker setup aimed at iPod, iPhone or any similar music device user for that matter.

The speakers require you to plug in the 3.5mm audio jack and the USB cord in order to operate. As you fire them up immediately you will be greeted by the warm blue light emitted through their crystal clear icecube shaped enclosures. Shortly thereafter, before you have even played a song, your colleagues will begin swarming by your desk to ooh and aah at their beauty. The blue glow is very cool to start with, however, at times you will want to turn the lights off but you cannot. Thinking I was smart I tried unplugging the USB cable whilst leaving the audio jack in, leaving me without sound. You need to power these babies so if you don’t like the glow you’ll have to try conceal them out of sight.

At first I was annoyed with the length of the cables but after some careful consideration I saw the method in the designer’s madness. Given that these are compact speakers to travel with you don’t want meters of cabling to tie up. So hence you get a short cable that is perfect for hooking up to an iPod or laptop but not so great for reaching behind a standard PC…but that is not what they are designed for. Worse case, if you want to use these beauties outside their standard cables reach, just purchase a non-expensive audio extension cable.

“There was a definite need in the market for a set of iPod or MP3 speaker units that would add fashion to function without losing sound quality,” said Richard Weston, dreamGEAR co-founder. The speakers live up to their design mandate and deliver a quality sound in a stylish package that is very easy to travel with. The speakers themselves deliver decent sound for their size but cannot compete with high range desktop or earphone solutions. So if you are looking for quality travel speakers that are convenient, stylish and affordable then these are the right product for you.

Out the box you get a solid looking carry case with inserts to keep everything snug whilst travelling. It even has space to put your music device in so you can keep all your goodies together. A nice addition is a USB charger which can be used to power the speaker, or alternatively charge your music devices as long as they have a USB cable that can slot into the power adaptor. It is the perfect bookshelf speakers that I could find to pair with my iPods.

The Ice Crystal Clear Compact Speakers retail for +/- R630 and are available now. Thanks go to TCM Warehouse for the review sample.