Tech blog: Who’s a pretty speaker then? The Parrot Zikmu reviewed

Last week the Scotsman online desk received a rather large delivery, in the distinctive shape of a Parrot Zikmu speaker by Philippe Starck. Hardly the sort of gizmo you can test in an office environment, so Grant Paterson volunteered to cart it home for a proper weekend trial...

The clarity on these new Parrot speakers is fantastic, the bass warm and well-defined. The high-end is pristine clear - throw the volume right up and hear them roar.

They give a natural and faithful sound. I ran a live recording through them and the sound was strong, wide and we felt as if we were transported to a gig. On went a live set from Ibiza this summer - we felt as if we were on the terrace, totally blown away.

Next we threw some meaty bass-hugging tracks through it and the built-in sub blasted back at us with gusto.

As a further test I played a recording which was flawed, and this was recognisably poor and warbling in the low end. But if you play good quality mp3s, wavs or CDs through these, the speakers really shine.

A negative about the design is that once the cabling has been plugged into the power, the units don’t sit flat. Perhaps this will improve over time once the cables settle.

The iPod dock was also the usual fitting, which I’m not a big fan of. Somehow every iPod dock suffers the same problems - they never fit properly without some serious fiddling. The bass is so strong our iPod was thrown out of the dock.

We connected through analogue, and we weren’t really too bothered. The wireless setup is the way forward for connecting through a variety of audio sources and brilliant as you would expect. All the software and instructions are available from the Parrot website and easy to set up for Mac or PC.

I haven’t been this excited about a set of speakers since listening to professional studio monitors (which were more expensive). For around a grand they are great value if you are serious about music and love the sci-fi inspired styling.

If Barbarella owned a set of speakers it would be these - even though the range is available in black, white, grey and yellow, but not pink.

For those who want to get rid of their hi-fi separates and upgrade to a more 21st century approach to sound, these are cool, clear and exciting.

• Wireless stereo speakers Zikmu ‘in Color’ Parrot by Starck are available now at £1,000 including VAT. For more information, visit www.parrot.com/zikmu

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