Product Reviews

The twin notions of 'iPod' and 'high fidelity' are not happy bedfellows. Apple Lossless format aside, the overwhelming majority of music stored on the world's iPods is compressed. The very nature of listening to music encoded as MP3 or AAC negates the idea of fidelity to the original recording; the act of encoding throws away detail. At best, then, Apple's decision to name its first foray into long-established iPod speaker market the iPod 'Hi-Fi' demonstrates naivety bordering on the obtuse. And having spent the last week thoroughly testing this smart little boombox in the home, office and outdoors, we suspect that Steve Jobs' assertion that he's ditching his high-end stereo rig in its favour is marketingspin of the first order.

Let us be clear: this is a good speaker system. It's not, however, either an audiophile's dream or worth the asking price.

Before we discuss the audio quality, take a moment to appreciate the trademark Apple attention to detail. While the visual styling doesn't appeal to everyone, it's clean, simple and elegant. An incredible amount of engineering has apparently gone into its development and construction. It's pleasingly solid - 6.6kg without batteries, plus another kilogram for the six D batteries - and there's very little vibration in the unit even at high volume. This is significant; the fact that the case here vibrates so little means there's little getting in the way of the iPod Hi-Fi producing what it thinks is pure sound.

The base is rubberised like the iPod dock, which should keep the Hi-Fi from moving around, and further dampen resonance.

The speaker grill can pull off to reveal the 130mm woofer and two 80mm wide-range cones; and it snaps back into place with four very satisfying clicks.

Your iPod sits in the Universal Dock connection on top of the device - an ungainly solution which means that you have to remove it before moving the Hi-Fi, and can't slot it into a bookcase

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as seamlessly as we'd like - or you can pipe audio from any other source into the combined analogue and optical port on the back of the box. You could, for example, hook it up to an AirPort Express to stream music from your Mac, though it would have been more in character for Apple to have included this functionality in the box and pushed the market forward rather than merely joining it.

There are no other ports on the rear - no pass-through Dock connector to allow you to have the iPod connected to your Mac, and no video ports to have it output slideshows or movies.

Adding brand new Duracell batteries gave us around three hours' use, then it limited the volume to a level still suitable for a living room and gave another three hours' playback, other tests have suggested that the second figure is as much as eight hours. The iPod Hi-Fi will provide a trickle charge to your iPod so you can keep listening to music even if the iPod's battery is low.

A nice touch: if the iPod is playing when you slot it into the connector, the audio fades in rather than suddenly starting.

If nothing else, the iPod Hi-Fi is loud; we turned heads when using it in the park, and at full blast it was almost unbearable at point-blank range. There was no distortion; full marks there.

The quality of the audio is good. Bass is hugely impressive; meaty, reasonably crisp, and with lots of presence. Treble is detailed, but listening to a variety of tracks, you can't help feel that there's a huge hole in the high to mid range. What's worse, music lacked warmth, and the sound stage was woefully shallow and narrow; there's virtually no stereo separation. With the 5G iPod and iPod nano, you get options to boost the bass or treble.

We're criticising the audio performance based on Apple's own insistence that it's an audiophile's device; compared to other iPod speaker systems such as Logic3's iStation, the iPod Hi-Fi kicks out a big, competent sound.

We're confident that the Apple badge will ensure this device sells, but don't be fooled by Apple's rhetoric. It's the best one-box iPod speaker system - beating the similarly priced Bose SoundDock roundly into submission - but you'd be better served either by saving your money and plumping for Logitech's excellent mm50s (£80) or doing the thing properly and buying a mini hi-fi such as the Denon D-M33. The D-M33 gives you proper stereo separation and richer, warmer audio, as well as a CD player and radio, and it's available online for the same price as the iPod Hi-Fi.