01
.Introduction
15 speaker docks on test, priced from $98 to $230.
As the name suggests, personal music players are not designed for more than one person. However, since music is something we like to share occasionally, a relatively low-cost speaker dock may come in handy. Most are quite simple devices made up of a couple of speakers, an iPod dock, some simple controls and a display.
For this test we bought 15 speaker docks. They’re all one-piece, portable docks, though they differ greatly in shape and size. We tested them for:
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Sound quality: A panel of three listeners with experience in the recording and sound engineering field awarded scores for each speaker dock after listening to six music tracks using an iPod Touch. The music files were in the *.wav format (lossless) and ranged from choir to rock. We averaged their scores to get a sound quality score.
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Ease of use: Our tester assessed how easy it is to set up the dock and follow the instructions.
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Standby power: We measured the docks' energy use on standby – the higher the score, the lower the power consumption.
We didn't conduct separate technical tests as they’re more suitable for testing the audio source, which was the same iPod in each case.
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Brands tested
- Altec Lansing inMotion iM310
- AVLabs AVL785
- Edifier iF330
- EDS SP99
- GHT 2.1 Home Entertainment System
- Jensen JiMS-225
- Logitech Pure-Fi Anytime
- Logitech Pure-Fi Express Plus
- Memorex miniMove
- Memorex iWake
- Sony ICF-CD3iP
- TEAC CRX260i
- TDK iSLIM
- TEAC CRX260i
- TEAC SRLXiB