A couple of months ago we ran a competition with our dear chums
at KitSound to win one of their awesome Cayman speakers. Clearly our Twitter
followers had heard great things about it, as we had thousands of entries. At
the time we were a bit jealous of the lucky winner, as we'd yet to have the
chance to sample the audio delights of the Cayman... until now. Finally we
pumped up the volume on the KitSound Cayman Wireless Sound System.
Look at this thing! As free-standing speakers go, this thing is pure sex! We absolutely love the contemporary design of the Cayman, with that compact and thin stand holding the speaker grills aloft with a subtle curve, and the downwards projected light that glows blue. We think this would look good either on a shelf high up, or centrally located by a TV on a side cabinet. Certainly it isn't a speaker you're going to want to hide away.
As the name suggests, this speaker is wireless, connecting via traditional Bluetooth or with slightly more user friendly NFC. Both methods connect quickly and strongly, and on all the devices we used, both smartphones/tablets and computers/laptops we got an average range of about ten metres. Oh, and in terms of the NFC connection, the Cayman gave us the quickest pairing of any NFC-capable gadget we've ever tested. Seriously, one little tap of our phone and it paired instantly. And, should you wish to connect with a wire, there's also a 3.5mm cable, as you might expect.
In use, the Cayman Wireless Sound System performs very well. The speaker features a 50W output and a dedicated sub-woofer, and boy do you feel it. 'Room-filling' doesn't do it justice, as the Cayman can, at high volume, blast your socks off with sound. We found that the music was very evenly spread about the room as well, and even when positioned in the middle of the room, the Cayman sounded great at all angles. It ships with a remote control as well - which is always handy - but this one even features a call answering button when using it as a speaker-phone. Genius.
Making the transition from a smaller speaker (such as the recently reviewed Otone Blufiniti) to one of the Cayman's size is always startling. If you use small and portable Bluetooth speakers around your home because of the convenience, you really ought to invest in the Cayman. We'd forgotten how good it is to hear music through a deep and resonating sound system, and it is true that much of the music's detail is lost when the speaker is scaled down. The Cayman Wireless Sound System brings all that to life, wrapped up in a package that looks just as good as it sounds.
£99