First thoughts on seeing the box?  Not great. Opening the box and looking inside did very little to change opinions. The C11 is a mobile battery-powered speaker unit which has two inputs; auxilliary and SD slot (which plays MP3/WMA).

Geek… Outsmarted…

Being the typical geek type, the first thing after I did after opening the box; attempt to get the C11 working. The on/off switch strangely didn’t appear to do much. Apparently (after consulting the manual), the C11 essentially has 2 power switches, the on/off switch, and the “mode” button which needs to be held for 3 seconds. Must be the electronics world trying to rub the RTFM culture into more people.

SURPRISE!!!

After getting the C11 powered on and plugged into my mobile music library (Macbook Pro duh!); the first thing I did was raise an eyebrow like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The sound quality produced by the C11 is the polar opposite of what you would expect the entire time you spent unpacking the C11. At very high volumes, there is some crackling and vibration; but at any reasonable volume, it is nothing less than impressive – treble is well-defined (but not as sharp as I’d like, problem easily solvable with a software equaliser), mids and bass aren’t spectacular but similarly clean (nobody expects heart pumping bass from something this small).

If you are trying to set up a mobile disco, the C11 probably isn’t the droid you are looking for. If you are a traveller of some sort looking for speakers that are a step up from the puny speakers that are part of all laptops and tablets, the C11 will fit your needs nicely and much, much more. A few tiny additions like better handling of vibrations at higher volumes and the follow up model would be something I’d be looking forward to taking for a run!