Whenever I hear the words “wireless” and “speaker” together, two bad visions come to mind. One is the set of Advent wireless stereo speakers in my daughter’s playroom: if you even look at them funny, they lose the signal and sound like crap. The other vision is a party I was at a few years ago where the host spent half the night moving around a set of those all-weather wireless speakers like you see in the Skymall catalog because the sound kept cutting out or getting distorted.
Fortunately this cy*fi speaker is a different story: it promises “CD-quality” sound while broadcasting tunes from your iPod and my skepticism was dashed as soon as I fired it up. When I compared the sound on this nifty 4-ounce device to a couple heavier ones that plug in, the cy*fi actually sounded better, even when the transmitter was on the other side of the room or I was moving around the room with my iPod.
Now some would say that for a $200 list price ($180 for the Bluetooth version), it damn well better sound good, but cool technology that does what it’s supposed to comes at a price. They get this down to 4 ounces with a sci-fi-looking plastic housing (get it, “cy fi”?), plus a small built-in rechargeable battery. The speaker battery, which outlasted the music player itself, charges up when plugged into a docking station. The transmitter attaches to your non-Shuffle iPod—or in the case of the Bluetooth version your phone or other device.
Two included attachments are meant to let you take this with you on the move. One is for attaching the device to your bike, the other to the strap of a backpack or other bag. I tried this one bike ride and got a lot of funny/annoyed looks, and I wouldn’t make it a habit, but if you insist on having music while you cycle it is far safer than wearing earbuds. You can still hear the ambulance bearing down on you or the other cyclist shouting “on your left!”
The annoyances with this are minor ones. The device and transmitter keep flashing while in use, which kind of destroys the mood in a dark bedroom if you know what I mean. The buttons allow you to change the volume and track on the speaker, but they’re kind of hard to push and they disable the volume control on your player. The proprietary charging dock is a hurdle for travelers who want to pack light. As with most electronics manufacturers shipping container loads from China, the device comes in an unrecyclable plastic blister pack that requires care to keep from slicing a finger.
All in all though, this would make for a great travel speaker. I loved being able to place it anywhere in a room, accessing all my playlists and getting great sound. Plus it’s weather resistant enough that you don’t have to worry about moisture. It is light and compact enough to squeeze into any bag, though hopefully in version #2 they’ll streamline the bulky charging dock.
The cy*fi wireless speaker comes in three color combinations. It’s not widely available at retail yet, so get it direct at the mycyfi.com site.
