iPod Hi-Fi
by Josh Ray, Feb 28 '06
The iPod boombox has officially landed. $349 gets you two 3" full range drivers and a 5" subwoofer in the center with, of course, an iPod dock built right into the top as well as nifty handles. Frequency range is 53-16k Hz, +/- 3dB and can run off battery power. Weight is 14.5 pounds.
So there you go. Interestingly, the only real difference between Apple's Hi-Fi boombox and the dozen of other products on the market is size. It seemed Bose, Altec and JBL were too afraid to make something larger than a paperback book.
The big question, of course, is if we'll see any sales move into the audiophile world. In the keynote, Steve said something like, "I've replaced my home stereo system with the iPod Hi-FI. It's real audiophile sound." Yeah, he's a master of the BS. We'll see how many people buy into it.
The iPod Hi-Fi (what an ironic name) is Apple's shot across Bose's bow.
The arrogance of the press conference was quite amazing.
Does anyone really believe that Jobs is going to dump whatever high-end system he owns for this?
Apple is getting very dangerous as they get bigger and bigger.
Ian
Posted by: Ian White at February 28, 2006 3:37 PM
As an aside, a friend of mine bought the Klipsch iFi system, and it is the single best desktop system I've heard for the money. It does everything this does, and it actually has tweeters. LOL
This CAN'T sound good. ;-)
Posted by: B. Riley at February 28, 2006 4:01 PM
It takes either balls of steel or absolute lack of real audio knowledge to put an "audiophile" label on that thing. Sure, we don't buy Stevie's claim - but many others will. Besides, Apple's target market is often the usual demographic that is more concerned with style and looks than with high fidelity as a goal..
Plus let's see: No headphone input? "Bass Boost" EQ? Hoo boy, I'm so getting one of these... :P
Sometimes I wish Apple just stayed making computers only.
Posted by: beto at February 28, 2006 4:17 PM
Well to be fair, does anybody know what system Jobs was using before? Maybe this really is better... though as likely as not, Jobs is just being a salesman.
If this really does sound good I could see it being tempting for the dormroom crowd with their iPods, but $350 sounds a little stiff for that, without a whole lot of advantages over just a good set of self-powered speakers.
I'll keep shopping for a good, cheap USB DAC to attach to my Powerbook I guess.
msykes
Posted by: Michael Sykes at February 28, 2006 5:18 PM
"From pumping bass to bright treble, iPod Hi-Fi delivers natural, room-filling sound. Close your eyes and you’d think you were listening to a huge stack of speakers."
So Apple marketing is learning a lot
from Bose :-)
Posted by: Vinnie R. at February 28, 2006 10:23 PM
I remember reading somewhere recently that Jobs has/had some megawatt Krell system. Makes sense. He doesn't strike me as a SET kinda guy.
I think Apple's big mistake is not making a boom box, it's holding a press event to unveil a boom box. A simple press release would have sufficed.
The 30th anniversary of Apple is coming in April, so I would expect to see some legitimately interesting products being released then.
Posted by: Jake at March 1, 2006 2:47 AM
Fact is, Apple has just hamstrung their partners who have been releasing boom-like-boxes for the iPod almost since its inception.
But let's call a spade a spade and take a look at this thing: It's a fairly plain, fairly ugly box with no outwardly redeeming qualities nor any video output (in case you wanted to look at your oh-so-Low-Def iPod videos on something larger than the iPod's screen). For $349.99 you get ... nothing special at all.
If this is Apple firing a shot across Bose's bow, Amar and the gang must be having one helluva laugh right about now. For a company that has always prided itself on form factor and features, Apple has really dropped the ball on this product.
My prediction: utter market failure. Look for v2.0, and then for the product to be discontinued.
There is no shortage of companies trying to play in this space, but there is a shortage of companies producing anything worth listening to.
Posted by: Chris at March 1, 2006 6:50 PM
digging through our archives of reviews, we can across the "HiPod" review we wrote. After the review both of us were so enthousiastic about the capabilities of the combination, we purchased the lot. Not a real el-cheapo, but so satisfying! Here's the link: www.6moons.com/audioreviews/hipod/hipod.html
Marja Vanderloo & Henk Boot
Rotterdam/Netherlands
Posted by: Marja Vanderloo at March 9, 2006 4:09 AM
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