Customer Reviews

COBY CS-P14 Personal Mini Stereo Speakers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Don't listen to the people who complain about the 'lack of sound' from these speakers; aside from the lack of bass, they sound essentially identical to your average one-piece radio unit. I used them with my iPod Nano at work, and they were loud enough for me to hear them fairly clearly all the way on the other side of the building. The fact that I neither needed to plug them in, nor pay the absolutely outrageous amount of money Apple wants for iPod speakers, even if they do have matching fascias and color-identical whatnot was just icing on the cake.

So why the two star review? I was very happy with the sound I got from these; however, they broke within two months of regular use. As I said, I used them at work, so they were being used every single day. In about two months, the right speaker completely failed. With only one speaker, the unit becomes much harder to hear anywhere, and since the iPod Nano has no way to set its sound output to 'mono' from 'stereo', every song sounds bizarre and surreal, with half of its output missing.

That being said, it may be useful for 'casual' use, or to leave them immobile on a surface. But this unit won't stand up to heavy usage.

Way better than my laptop (500m) speaker and for $4 you can't really beat it... seems plenty loud to me. And they're kinda cute :)

This is an okay product if you want to have speakers for your iPod, but don't want to buy the more expensive stuff. You get good sound quality, it's cheap, and it's very portable. They're very quiet though, so you won't quite rock the house, but you'll be able to hear it.

I just connected these to an MP3 player and they work great. They are loud enough and I bought them for $2.00. I probably wouldn't use them for a laptop or computer, but they are perfect for my little MP3 player and work great. Plus, they are a super cute desk accessory for my little cubicle. :)

Do you need sound for your computer, but you don't have an extra outlet for active speakers? These work pretty well 99% of the time (some You Tube videos don't have enough sound)

Do you want something that provides crisp clear sound equal to a stereo system? Look elsewhere.

For my purposes, these speakers work just fine.

Shouldn't even be called "speakers." I attached these to my netbook whose speakers are not great but are better than these little things. These made the sound muffled and I am better off using the netbook speakers instead. Do not bother.

Very inferior sound. Instead of these, spend [...] and buy the Philips SBP1100/37 portable speakers [...]The Philips have much better sound, and only cost a few dollars more.

I bought these for my work place to bring in my ipod, and though it's a little noisy in there, you can still talk to people, and yet I couldn't hear anything out of the speakers. I ended up blowing them turning them up all the way. Very cheaply made.

I bought these babies concurrently with the battery-powered Coby CS-MP23 and a similar generic version from Walgreens "GoStereo" brand, all for the same price. At the electronics store, I noticed at least two, possibly three, packages of this model (CS-P14) which were obvious returns, which made me leery. Mine certainly became the third or fourth to be put back on the shelf... and they WEREN'T "defective"... just a "bad design", I told the customer service counter.

So getting to try two "mini" but battery-powered versions, along with these hugely larger yet unpowered speakers, side-by-side, was eye-opening, if disappointing. Believe it or not, these speakers were the quietest of the bunch. However, the volume of all 3 models were in similar range. These CS-P14's were worst in terms of sound, though--quite a disappointment. I would think that unpowered speakers which nevertheless had a decent amount of surface area, would be the best performs in terms of straight fidelity, if not volume. Nope. Sound was, well, VERY muddled. Voice (the primary usefulness for a product like this) was not clear. Voice through this model was the most difficult to understand of the three (add that to the lowest volume, too, and we have a clear loser). Highs just weren't there, I mean almost at all. And "bass"... well, you know. Not enough to make it in any way make up for its deficiencies.

The product packaging advertises how the speakers can be put together (as if "kissing") for more compact transport, but the way it is illustrated, with the speaker wire wrapping around the bases to keep the pods together, the laws of physics don't work that way; the wire wrapped at the base would actually serve to pull them apart like a clamshell. I envisioned a way that, with a slightly better design, that this would've been a possibility, but these speakers were just an exercise in lackluster design all around.

The speaker cord length is adequate; that's about the only positive thing I can say. With a complete redesign, and some battery power (goodness knows there's plenty of space in there), these things could have promise, but as they are, are losers all around.

Not enough sound. My laptop speakers are better. I wouldn't buy it!