This battery-powered amp that turns any analog speaker into a portable Bluetooth speaker is bonkers, but I love it

• The SoundUp battery-powered Bluetooth amp is launching on Kickstarter
• 100W of mono class D amplification, and two can work in a pair
• 40 hours of playback on battery, 1kg (2.2 lbs) weight

What's more convenient than taking one of the best Bluetooth speakers to the beach? Taking some heavy analog speakers, speaker wire and a battery-powered amplifier to the beach. Er...

It's not the best pitch I've ever pitched, I'll admit. But the SoundUp portable amp is a clever little thing, albeit one with a very specific niche. It's designed to take passive stereo speakers, power them and add Bluetooth streaming to them, and all without requiring a power socket.

This isn't the first device to stream to analog speakers, of course: the likes of Bluesound, Elipson and WiiM have made compact Bluetooth and Wi-Fi amps that'll happily bring ...