Remember these? We first eyed them at CES this year and now we have them for on-hands, in-depth testing. You’d be surprised how excited a bunch of folks could get over a simple pair of mobile speakers from Chill Pill Audio.

A fight ensued when these showed up. If you stuck your hand in when the box was being opened, you’d have lost a few fingers.

Chill Pill Mobile Speakers are an extremely small, pill shaped pair of speakers. Powered by a USB rechargeable battery that lasts for a reported 6 hours (we’re getting slightly more in our testing). They’re ideal for travel anywhere.

The design itself is pretty sweet. The Pill is held together by two magnets that securely hold it in place. It’s strong enough that you won’t accidentally separate the two halves, but easy enough to just “break” apart. These two halves connected together via mini-USB connector that smartly and neatly retracts for storage and pulls out when you need it. When open it, you can move the two speakers apart about 15 inches, so you’ve got a nice personal sound stage right there.

All the cables on this retract and hide-away flush, so you can move and deploy pretty quickly. Connection to your audio source is via a standard 3.5mm plug, so you’ll be able to hook up most any PMP source like iPods, etc, but also phones, Nintendo DS/DSi, PSP’s, anything with a 3.5mm plug.

Everything you need to get going is included in the package. There’s a nice velvety carrying case, mini-USB to fat adapter. Although, there is a USB wall charger that Chill Pill Audio offers for 19.95 that you might want to invest in. However, we got along just fine with charging from our laptops or wherever we could plug our mini/micro USB based phones for a charge. The Pill will charge (in our testing anyways) in most powered USB plugs just fine.

Considering the form-factor (2″x4″ in Pill form”), these are spectacular portable speakers. We tested on PSPs, DSi, iPods, laptops, portable DVD players, and anything else that had a 3.5mm audio plug that we could get our hands on. Music: we listened to classical (Bach, Mozart, and a whole bunch more), classic rock and roll (Jackson Browne, The Band, CCR, Styx, and more), hip-hop, R&B, Michael Jackson, heavy metal, punk, death metal…you name it, we tried it. And it all sounded really really good.

The Pill includes an added feature of a rising sound chamber which provides a bit more bass and depth to the sound you’re listening to. A quick twist and the tops “pop” up in spring loaded fashion. Carefully pull and stretch a little bit to get more bass.

It’s critical you do that. Without it, we found the speakers cranked our highs and mids, but lows were missing. You’d expect that from a pair of low powered speakers. Pop-the-top and you’ll get an added boost.

Even with the boost, the lows are just a little weak. Sound is just tinny and highs are equally just shrilly enough that it might bother you. Overall though, mid to highs are really well produced. Keep in mind the source as well the formfactor of the Chill Pill. These are qualities you’d almost expect, so don’t be all audiophile now.

That being said, explosions and sounds on PSP and DSi were faithfully recreated and added a depth to the game that you just couldn’t get from headphones. Some of us still have UMD movies and this is the only way to watch and listen while traveling. That goes the same for iPod movies as well as portable DVD players. Chill Pill added improvements to all portable sounds.

Keep in mind if you have a bass booster/loudness setting on your PMP/device, you’ll want to turn it on. Once you do, place the Chill Pill halves as far apart as you’re able to, and you’ll be enjoying some awesome sound on your own personal sound stage.

The volume on Chill Pill is no slouch. Crank it, and you’ll soon see the tops of the speakers shake slightly as they bust it out. They’re loud enough to fill a quiet room and certainly be heard in a hotel room easily. All the way, you’re going to hear it and feel it in your chest. The surface you have it on will rumble as well.

But really, just how good is the sound? Good enough to give my Logitech mm50’s a run for it’s money. We tested it head to head against the Logitech unit which is more than double the price of Chill Pill, and also much larger with more speaker arrays than the Chill Pill and sound was just a little under what the much bigger Logitech unit was cranking out. Compared to an overpriced Bose SoundStation, and Chill Pill is an absolutely bargain at around $50. Plug this into your iPod dock for an awesome sound solution/alarm clock combo.

Combine portability, price, feature, function, and overall slick design, and you have one fantastic pair of tiny ultra-portable speakers.

Now throw in the fact that you’ve got a freakin’ awesome performing pair of speakers (for the size and limited power), with acceptable range and it’s not just an awesome pair of speakers, it’s a Tech Bucket Blog Golden Bucket winner.

That’s right. We’re awarding this unit a Golden Bucket Award for best mobile sound quality and overall performance. It just doesn’t get any better than this when it comes to being this ultra-portable and at this price.

Head on over to Chill Pill Audio and pick up a pair. Really. Now.

(Editor’s Note: Our resident audiophile wants you to know, that for optimum sound, spreading your speakers apart as much as possible when cranking the sound on high will provide a much better sound stage than close together when blasting. We found the maximum length of the Chill Pill be a very good, wide, mobile sound stage.)

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