Keeping sane on the move

Just in case you were wondering how - and indeed whether - I've been staying sane during this protracted Far East trip, the answer is that I'm just about keeping it together.

And that's despite flaky internet connections, haphazard wi-fi, cumulative jet-lag I still haven't quite shaken off and over-officious security guards here at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair who require me to show my press badge each and every time I take a picture.

Playing no small part in keeping me from climbing the walls is this, which is just about the only thing I've acquired on this trip.

It's Yamaha's NX-U02 USB-powered computer speaker, which has opposing stereo drivers, an onboard bass-boost system, technology designed to store power and then release it as music, and no more than volume up/down and mute controls.

It's been sitting on the desk in various homes and hotel rooms for the past week or so, hooked up to the little Advent laptop I've been using for all this bloggage, along with a must-have Philips SCE7640 portable battery pack, which more than doubles the running-time of the laptop for very sensible money.


With that battery and the Yamaha speaker, all the drawbacks of the bargain Advent are answered - and best of all the Yamaha's cable is long enough to stretch to the bedside table, so I can go to sleep listening to radio from 'back home'.

At the moment I've become a late-night addict of Danny Baker's afternoon show on BBC London 94.9, which is playing right now.

That traffic on the M3 sounds nasty...

Andrew has written about audio and video products for the past 20+ years, and been a consumer journalist for more than 30 years, starting his career on camera magazines. Andrew has contributed to titles including What Hi-Fi?, GramophoneJazzwise and Hi-Fi CriticHi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice. I’ve also written for a number of non-specialist and overseas magazines.