Logitech mm50 Portable Speakers for iPod

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Design, finish, portability .
Disadvantages:	Poor sound quality for the price .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Like a lot of people I own an iPod, and I’ve invested a lot of time ripping all my favourite tracks into iTunes. There are the odd occasions when I’d like access to my music and headphones just won’t do so I was in the market for a set of speakers for my iPod.

I’m pretty (no! very, very) fussy about sound quality and I wouldn’t normally dream of buying speakers without listening to them first. But I wasn’t planning on spending a fortune and was probably going to buy via mail order anyway so I took a bit of a chance.

I had a brief look at what was available and thought that the Logitech mm50s ticked lots of the right boxes. I’ve had quite a few Logitech products over the years and always found them well put together and thoughtfully designed. The mm50 runs off mains power or inbuilt rechargeable batteries (for 10 hours according to the specifications). My iPod Nano would neatly dock in the centre between the speakers making the whole assembly very portable.

I’d seen enough and purchased a set in white (and paid a premium for the colour), though I’m confident all my comments would be equally true of the black product.

When the parcel arrived it was a bit smaller than I expected, and when I unpacked the mm50 I was struck by how much smaller it is in real life than it looks in the photos. In fact it is 325mm wide x 100mm high x 35mm deep. It was hard to image that such a small box would generate much bass sound. Further inspection revealed first class materials and finish. The outside is made of very shiny, accurate plastic moulding with a metal grill across the front. Two recessed legs rotate to form a stable stand, and these are fitted with non-slip rubber feet. The legends and logos are printed in silver which looks classy against the bright white plastic. The power adaptor is built into the mains plug and even that it finished in the same bright white plastic printed in silver. Also in the package is a cute white remote control and a black zipped semi-hard carry case (complete with little strap to hold the remote).

All in all I’d give it 10 out of 10 for wow factor.

The mm50 has two sockets at the rear, one for the power and the other for auxiliary input if your source is not an iPod. On the top right hand side is a panel with four round buttons: On/off, Wide stereo, Volume down, and Volume up. The remote control has the same four buttons plus Pause/play, Forward and Reverse controls.

My Nano docked without any fuss. To navigate the menus you have to use the iPod’s wheel, while the volume level can only be controlled from the mm50 (either the buttons on the main unit or from the remote control). This is not as awkward as it sounds.

The initial impression of the sound quality is quite good, the bass sounding if it comes from a slightly larger cabinet, but the colouration is high as is the distortion and I found listening fatigue sets in after only a few minutes. Volume is limited, as one would expect from such a small device and my mm50 would switch itself off it you turned up the volume to full. I can’t be sure if this is a protection function or a fault. It makes little difference to me as I suspect the distortion at full power would be more than I could stand. Overall I would rate the sound quality as on a par with a pair of PC speakers costing around £20-£30, or a low cost set of headphones.

The wide stereo setting only increased the level of distortion to my ears. I could not find a location where it added anything to the stereo imaging.

I tested the auxiliary input using the headphone output from another MP3 player and found the volume range too low, even with both players set to full output.

To sum up, a very portable, well designed, beautifully finished device with sound quality at least on a par with its small size, but below what one might expect from its price tag.

I have given the mm50 recommend status but that is with this important caveat, that portability is more important to the potential buyer than sound quality. If you want the best sound quality for your money, look elsewhere.