Slashdot Mirror
3 High-End iPod Speaker Systems Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together a round up of three high-end iPod speaker systems, including the new Apple iPod Hi-Fi. From the article: 'With the seemingly unending success of the iPod, accessories for the popular digital music player have become a more and more popular option for companies looking to hop on the bandwagon and make a quick buck. Companies that once had no business selling product accessories for consumer electronics are now jumping into the game because of the success of the iPod. With the growing number of stores carrying the personal audio device and a growing crop of users desiring to hear their music in more places, speaker systems have become an increasingly popular accessory.'"
Personally I'm happy using a $4 mini jack to composite audio adapter to connect my iPod to my stereo. Sure I might not be able to control the iPod via a stereo remote, but it sure beats dropping $250 (the speaker system in the article).
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
When I read this earlier, as soon as I saw that he strongly preferred the look of one of the speakers, I immediately predicted that he would like its sound the best. And, of course, he did.
It's important to do blind testing in audio. People just don't hear as well as they think they do.
Also note that everyone appears to hear differently. Vision is highly specialized, and differentiation between people is fairly low. That's why it's easy to pick out 'best' monitors, for instance. But audio isn't like that; each brain appears to figure out hearing a little differently. The brain uses, relatively speaking, very few neurons on auditory signals, which leads to (relatively) wide variations.
All sound reproduction is an illusion, and all speakers make tradeoffs, especially in the low end. It's important to listen to speakers for yourself, in blind testing, to find a set that fits your particular hearing strategy well.
Because of this, speaker reviews are much less useful than other kinds. Being geeks, we're used to being able to categorize and rank things by technical merit. Speakers just don't work like that.
Unfortunately, there's also a vast number of people in the audio business selling snake oil to take advantage of the poor hearing of most humans. So you DO have to listen for yourself.... but with BLIND testing. That's the only way to find out if a given effect is real, or just psychological.
It also would have been helpful if the Slashdot summary (instead of simply copy/pasting the first paragraph of TFA) had listed which speaker systems were being reviewed. Then it would have saved me the trouble on clicking the link to see that, in fact, the headline should have read "Zero High-End iPod Speaker Systems Reviewed."
To save the rest of you said hassle:
There's the Apple "Lo-Fi" (as I like to call it), a boom box from Altec Lansing, and Yet Another Puny Satelite System With A Subwoofer made by Klipsh. All junk. All overpriced.
What would be nice is if somebody made a rugged $50 lo-fi plastic boom box with an iPod dock. Something you could carelessly throw into an open pick-up truck bed and head to the beach with. What's the point of building a small, portable, speaker system if it's as delicate as gossimer wings, more expensive than a monthly car payment, and still sounds like ass anyway?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.