Listen to music in the house or in the garden

Bottomline: Excellent sound quality, well-made and simple to set up

Vista compatibility: Yes

Manufacturer: Vivanco

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The Vivanco Outdoor speakers are unusual in a few ways.

First, they operate wirelessly using a transmitter that is connected to an audio source (such as a computer or hi-fi). They are also splash-proof and they can be battery-powered, meaning they can be set up in a garden, without the risk of them being destroyed by a rain shower. Indoors they can be powered from the mains.

We found the sound quality to be top-notch, and the signal from the transmitter to the remote speakers was strong and didn’t break up – something that affects many of the wireless speaker sets we've seen. This was limited, however, to the times when they were placed on the same floor of the house as the transmitter. Arranging the speakers and transmitter on different floors resulted in the audio breaking up, annoyingly.

They are certainly not as feature-packed as the Griffin Evolve speakers we recently looked at, which have a built in iPod dock and two rechargeable speakers, but are instead intended to be a speaker-only product to be used for relaying music from a PC or other fixed music player.

There’s also a remote control included to adjust the volume or mute the speakers. Their space-age design won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the excellent sound quality and solid build quality won’t disappoint.