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    Samsung UA55C7000 3D LCD TV

    The hottest new home entertainment technology to appear since the introduction of Blu-ray has got to be 3D. Most of the major brands have their own systems on the verge of launch, but Samsung was the first to make it into Australian retail electronics stores.

iPods and Portable AV

Premium iPod Docks

Alex Kidman- 05/03/2010

Tags: Alex Kidman, Bowers & Wilkins, Geneva, iPhone speaker, iPod dock, iPod speaker, Pioneer, Revo

product

Inexpensive iPod docks abound, but will moving up the price ladder yield a music system that better serves your playlist? Alex Kidman tests the theory with five premium models.

These days, if you want it you can pretty much get any particular AV item with an inbuilt iPod connection, whether you fancy something to carry in your pocket or stack in front of your TV.

The iPod and iPhone are primarily personal music players, but that hasn't stopped a healthy market popping up for iPod docks that share your musical tastes with others. An added benefit of most docks – particularly those tethered to the wall via an AC socket – is that they'll recharge your iPod or iPhone while you're playing back music.

Does that mean you should buy the cheapest available dock? Probably not. For a start, very cheap docks have a strong tendency to look awful, with cheap plastic construction. Beyond the aesthetics of that choice, the construction of a cheap dock is often reflected in the audio quality you receive from it. A simple plastic enclosure with cheap speakers gives cheap sound, in other words.

Docks like the Revo Blok are made from wood providing a different look, feel, and sound than other plastic enclosures.
Docks like the Revo Blok are made from wood providing a different look, feel, and sound than plastic enclosures.

Another factor to bear in mind when purchasing an iPod dock is iPhone compatibility. Any dock with a standard iPod connector will accept and should play back music from an iPhone, but unless they're certified as shielded from EMF interference, you may find that incoming calls and SMS messages cause interference during playback. If you've ever popped your phone too close to your car's speakers in transit, you'll be familiar with the burst of bass-heavy static this can cause.

The iPhone is clever enough to detect appropriate docks and warn you that they're not specifically designed for this purpose, with the choice to either turn on airport mode, stopping incoming calls and WiFi connections, or go ahead and play anyway. You won't harm your iPhone going ahead, but may have intermittent musical interruptions along the way.

It's entirely possible to spend a lot of money on a really good iPod dock and still get rubbish results. Except at the highest possible AAC settings, iPod music is still compressed to fit, and that compression affects audio quality. You'll get a lot more music onto an iPod if you record it at 64kbps MP3 or AAC, but on a good set of speakers you'll quickly notice the difference, with music that sounds flat and lifeless. To get the best possible performance from any investment you make in a quality iPod music system, use lossless AAC or MP3 formats, or encode your own music at 320kbps.

Page 1 of 3  Next - Premium iPod Docks: The contenders  

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