Gadget review: SoundScience QSB - 30W USB Desktop Speakers

What do a reservoir, a USB cable and a cube have in common? All are used in SoundScience's QSB 30W USB Desktop Speakers. Most laptops have speakers less powerful than a baby bicep competition and with so many half-baked tribute acts on the speaker market, it's often tricky to identify the real McCoy. Dangling a 90 price tag, SoundScience better impress me from the get go.

I wasn't disappointed. The design is clean and simple – all that was required was a union with my laptop's USB port. Recognised immediately by Windows – the QSB sprang into life with a balanced, powerful rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, while the edgy tones of Glasvegas echoed with the sonic sharpness of shattered glass. The treble was shrill, the bass powerful – with a width of soundstage that such small speakers have no right to produce.

As any techno-geek will tell you – the main problem with USB is that it's limited to producing a mouse-like 2.5W of power. So how does the QSB reach a roar of 30W? SoundScience's solution is NXT DyadUSB technology – this effectively uses a series of capacitors to store energy from the USB like a reservoir. Since an audio track does not have a continuous power profile, the QSB is able to produce instantaneous peaks of 15W/channel, and burst power of 7.5W/channel. As well as this audio juggling, the QSB also uses NXT's Balanced Mode Radiator for its internal flat panel speakers.

The QSB's simple form belies its technological wizardry. If you can hurdle the price, this stallion will deliver you a grandstand performance.

• This article was first published in The Scotsman on May 21, 2011