Twelve South only make accessories for Apple products. In fact, they make some exquisite products like the “no two are alike” BookBook for iPad & MacBook Pro, the desktop stand BookArc for iPad & MacBook and the stylish and well engineered*Compass stand for iPad. Now they have a subwoofer that brings some doof-doof to your Mac. Hooked up via a single USB cable to this 11” MacBook Air is the Twelve South BassJump. With a similar look to the current Mac Mini, but with a size and weight closer to the old Mini, it matches nicely, as all good Mac accessories should. It doesn’t really tell you what it is just by looking at it. It’s one of a kind. It has a solid aluminium housing, black mesh on top and a rubber bottom. It’s a portable subwoofer for MacBook.
The BassJump is different from other portable speakers in that it supplements the existing stereo speakers in your MacBook, rather than replacing them. It provides the low end bass that the MacBook, especially the MacBook Air, lack. MacBook speakers generally compare quite well to other notebooks on the market, but only a few notebooks have ever had subwoofers built in.
Twelve South have the attention to detail we expect, plus a sense of humour. The packaging is typically minimalist (only slightly bigger than the product itself) and includes nothing more than the subwooder, its soft neoprene case (with USB cable inside) and a brief brochure. There are some handy suggestions in the bottom of the box on what to do with it instead of putting it under the bed with all your other Apple boxes, but I’ll leave those as a surprise.
Setup is as simple as plugging in the USB cable and installing the BassJump software (I always ignore the included CD and grab the latest from the manufacturer’s website - Twelve South obviously agree with this as they direct you online). The software installs a preference pane, and also sits in your menu bar as a glowing orange live decibel meter when thumping the tunes (luckily it fades to grey when not in use - I hate colour in my menu bar). From the menu bar, you’ve got quick access to turning the BassJump on and off, as well as accessing the more fun settings.
The software allows you to control 2 important settings that balance each other to make the most effective impact on your music; the BassJump Volume and the Crossover Frequency. Volume is pretty straightforward but crossover frequency is a little more particular to getting appropriate response from your music. A subwoofer is designed to produce only the lowest frequencies in your audio and the crossover frequency is the high end limit of audio that will be handled by subwoofer vs your internal MacBook speakers.
The good news is that Twelve South include 5 preset combinations of volume and crossover frequency, including Classical, Default, Pop, R&B and Rock, plus a Custom setting for your own adjustments. The manual is careful to point out that pushing each slider to the right is not a good idea.
How does it sound? Pretty awesome.
How does it sound? Pretty awesome. Switching the BassJump on and off while playing tracks highlights the significant difference it can make. Keep the subwoofer close to the MacBook to ensure the low end sound blends well with the audio from your notebook. The included presets actually matched the labeled genre of music quite well, to the point where I stopped trying to mess with a custom setting and just enjoyed the full sound it added to my tracks. It’s not your typical thumping club doof doof or Metallica concert bass but more smooth, filling the gap in the bottom end.
And it’s not just for music. The BassJump made a positive difference to the audio on movies, TV shows, YouTube clips and even just sounds and alerts like “You’ve Got Mail” (yes, that’s what I use and always have). Hearing Alex announce “It’s 7 o’clock” with new found bass in his voice makes it seem like he’s just gone through puberty.
Being USB powered, you’d have to expect an impact on battery life, but with the amount my battery life varies based on what I’m doing it is hard to gauge the true impact. The other advantage of being a USB device is that your MacBook is still able to control the overall volume of the compined MacBook and BassJump.
The unit itself weights 640g, about two thirds the weight of an 11.6” MacBook Air, plus the added bulk. Although it makes the biggest difference on sound from an Air, I can see BassJumps being the companion to more Pros, where you are likely to be less particular about carrying around additional kit with you.
Conclusion
Once you’ve connected the BassJump, you don’t want to disconnect it. It improves the sounds of everything coming out of your MacBook, including every type of music. If Apple could fit this kind of sound inside a MacBook it would be amazing (and I suspect impossible). If you’re a very mobile person, play a lot of music from your notebook and can squeeze a solid box into your kit then you’ll really appreciate the BassJump.
You can get it for $119 from the Apple store.
Review: Twelve South BassJump