Cambridge Audio Minx Go (Wireless Speaker)

It takes a mere two hours (give or take a few minutes) to juice it up to its full extent. And then it will provide, it is claimed, a mighty 18 hours of music at what Cambridge Audio calls ‘background’ levels.

We didn’t sit there for quite that long in one sitting, but the claim doesn’t seem outlandish to us. We listened for a good few hours over a few days during testing – at considerably more than background levels – and it didn’t break sweat.

Another useful feature is that, if the Go is plugged in to the mains, it can charge a smartphone or tablet over the USB socket on the rear. Handy.

And this is a well-built piece of kit, too. It’s nicely solid to hold, the heft to it in part explained by the acoustically damped construction it shares with its larger siblings. It’s not so heavy as to make you think twice about moving it around, though – it won’t fit in your pocket, but it will slip easily enough into a handbag or the like.

The Minx Go has a little foot at its base that swivels out when the speaker is in use to keep the unit stable. Set-up itself is straightforward. Push the power button on the top of the unit to turn it on, double-press it to activate the Bluetooth connection, and then search for the Minx Go using your portable device. We found it at the first time of asking without difficulty. And then it will happily play whatever it is that’s playing on your source.

The unit will remember up to eight devices, so a number of people can use the speaker without any unnecessary IT faffage.

It produces, via Bluetooth, an extremely impressive sound for a speaker of this size and price. It has a rich and warm tone that is really easy to listen to, and doesn’t suffer from any of the somewhat tinny sound that many small speakers inflict on the listener.

The bass is impressive for a unit of this size – the bass radiator at the back of the unit is clearly doing its job well. It marries nicely with the two 19mm titanium tweeters and two 5cm midrange units, to produce a well-balanced sound across the frequency range.

It copes confidently with Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog, rocking along merrily and keeping the listener’s interest with ease. It handles more subtle stuff well too: Saint Etienne’s Casino Classic mix of Only Love… has lots of bass to go with the clean vocal and fast beat – and the Minx Go provides a sound that seems simply too large for this diminutive box.

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