Sound advice
Use the Force (and Bluetooth) to power these top speakers
With the trusty hi-fi going the way of the dodo, boom boxes a relic equivalent to the mummified remains of King Tut and all your music stuck on a device that can’t easily be plugged into anything built before 2005, playing tunes round the house usually means resorting to tinny laptop speakers. Or worse, TV channels that play music so alien it may as well be broadcast on a soundwave that can only be heard by people with a YouTube channel. Bluetooth speakers are the handy, wireless way to stream music from your phone, tablet or other Bluetooth-enabled, music-hosting device. But who wants a characterless black cube sitting in the corner of the room pumping out the Star Wars soundtrack? John Williams’ timeless orchestrations deserve so much better. That’s where AC Worldwide’s officially licensed Star Wars Bluetooth speakers, available to pre-order now, come in.
The two models – one based on a Stormtrooper helmet, the other based on C-3PO’s golden dome – hook up to any Bluetooth-enabled doodad to play music, audiobooks, recordings of yourself impersonating Threepio or any other sound files you care to transmit through thin air. You don’t even need to be trained in the arts of an ancient religion to pull it off, it only takes a few button presses. Offering premium 2.1 sound, the 30cm tall speakers can be plugged in at the mains or powered by an internal rechargeable battery for maximum portability. Better yet, you can conduct phone calls through them, spicing up conversations with friends/family members/nuisance PPI robots by having their disembodied voice emerge from Threepio’s mouth, or a crack-shot Imperial grunt (hey, there’s got to be one). Bonus points if you can convince the person on the other end into saying “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
As well as a nifty bit of top of the range tech, the Star Wars Bluetooth speakers are also a lovingly crafted collector’s item, comparable in build, quality and design to lavish replicas. Both Threepio’s head and the Stormtrooper hero helmet are exact replicas of the films’ original designs. The makers even used the original specs to ensure that every detail, down to vents and grills on the side of the