So it turns out my weekend deadline was slightly optimistic. I won't bore you with the details but it may or may not have involved hunting wolverines, wrestling bears and other deadly feats.

Either way I am very excited to give you an in-depth look at an upcoming product.

Firstly you have to give Twelve South a hand for making something different. USB subwoofers aren't a completely new concept but a portable one made for MacBooks is pure genius (again quoting Old El Paso).

Like taxes, broccoli and Michael Bolton tinny sounding laptop speakers are an unpleasant but generally accepted fact of life. Until now the solutions have been, buy new speakers (terrible for traveling) or use headphones (bad for sharing). Now there is a third option, the Twelve South BassJump.

Simply put the BassJump is a small USB powered subwoofer made specifically to enhance audio from the on-board speakers on the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro (according to the manufacturer you can use it with an iMac also but the improvement is marginal and sadly it doesn't work with the LED cinema display). 

Instead of jumping right in. I would like to sidetrack for a moment to go through the packaging which is full of surprises.

First you have the product (hopefully).

Then a nice thank you card (with brief instructions).

A carry case with a mini USB cable inside.

 

If you made it this far you get a list of possible uses you can recommission the gift box for. Which is nice if you are like me and never keep any gift wrapping materials at home (for those moments where newspaper and a garbage bag doesn't quite cut it).

 

Back to the BassJump. You need to install software for the device to work (for the people who never switch their machines off you will need to restart the machine). And for as long as I have been testing products I have never come across so many reminders that software needs to be installed prior to use, there is a sticker on the unit, it is embossed on the rubber base of the unit, printed on the instructions and on the plastic bag the USB cable came in. Impressive.

The unit itself is tiny and shaped like a shrunken Mac mini. The BassJump is made from aluminium with a metal grille and rubberised base. There is a single mini-USB port on the unit, an embossed Twelve South logo and nothing else. 

Quoting the manufacturer tech specs, the drive unit is a 77mm subwoofer speaker cone with a frequency range of -6dB at 50Hz-20kHz and a signal-to-noise ratio of 80dB. 

 

Once the software is installed you get a new pane in the System Preferences where you can adjust the volume of the BassJump and the crossover frequency, there are also some presets (default, pop, r&b, rock) for people who don't like to tinker around. 

So how is the sound? On my 13" MacBook Pro there is a definite improvement from using the standard speakers alone particularly with the mids and to a certain extent the lows. The BassJump gives my MacBook a much warmer and fuller sound. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that the BassJump complements the audio rather than overwhelming it. Those expecting some doof doof bass in your face should probably stick with an external sound system. 

Long story short it exceeded my expectations for a small subwoofer powered completely by USB. When I head overseas later this month it is definitely coming with me in the 'suitcase of awesome.' As a person who watches movies from a laptop on the road these are perfect.

As of this exact second we do not have pricing set for this product yet and as it is brand new there are no stockists as yet either. This post will be updated when the information becomes available.