Product Reviews

The vast majority of iPod dock speakers are self-contained units, but the A-211 follows a more conventional 2.1 layout common to PC speakers. This makes them less suitable for use in a kitchen but better for studies and some living rooms where the subwoofer can be hidden out of view. It's disappointing, then, that there isn't a USB pass-through for connecting the docked iPod to a PC. The auxiliary input's location on the dock rather than the subwoofer shows that iRhythms expects the set to be used primarily with iPods rather than with both iPods and PCs.

The upside of the 2.1 speaker configuration is that the satellites can be spaced apart to produce a wide stereo sound, which gives a huge boost to the perceived sound quality. The bulky subwoofer had no problem churning out deep bass and the satellites produced crisp, detailed middle and high frequencies, giving the best sound quality - and certainly the highest volume - we have heard from iPod dock speakers.