iGo Boomtube portable speakers

Review Personal music players maybe designed to be just that, personal, but sometimes you just want to throw down your white headphones and share your music with the world. Well, a few gathered folks anyway. Preferably not on a number 38 bus – and depending on your musical taste of course...

The Boomtube allows you to do just that, without sacrificing something that's scarce in the portable music world - a respectable bass. While a system this size isn't going to create bowel-moving, sub-sonic, low frequency oscillations, it still produces its fair share.

The systems consists of two satellite speakers, providing your standard left and right stereo configuration, and a bass tube that sits in the middle and also houses the electronic gubbins to amplify the signal. Also tucked neatly inside the bass tube is a battery, so you can listen to your tunes when you're away from a plug socket for around five hours.

While iPod lovers will be disappointed to learn there's no dock to just slide their portable pal into, the lack of proprietary connector means you can use the Boomtube with just about anything you can connect a pair of headphones to. There's a standard 3.5mm jack for hooking up the device and there's even a 2.5mm adapter in the box for pesky devices like mobile phones that use the smaller connector.