Well, It Can Fill a Room With Sound

For little iPods that dream big, Apple Computer last week introduced a speaker system designed to pump out enough sound from the hand-held music player to fill a room.

The iPod Hi-Fi system, which costs $349, does just that.

And that's just about the only favorable thing I can say about this product -- maybe the weakest offering from Apple since the woeful Cube computer of 2000.

The sound quality coming from the Hi-Fi is quite disappointing, especially considering the price and its Apple pedigree. The Hi-Fi, basically an iPod dock atop a stark white box with a black front, doesn't even have the usual visual flair of an Apple creation.

"I expected to open it up and pull out a grilled cheese sandwich," said Los Angeles Times staffer Wanda Lau, who was on a panel of music experts at the paper who helped evaluate the sound of the Hi-Fi.

More on them in a moment. But first comes the basic question: What was Apple thinking?

According to company executive Greg Joswiak, the aim was to create a product that would "replace the home stereo."

But why? For just a few bucks you can buy a cable to connect an iPod to your home stereo system or home theater setup.

Joswiak countered that, "You can take [the Hi-Fi] to any room in the house."

Not easily -- it weighs about 15 pounds. But he does have a point, if not an original one.

Several audio companies -- some of which were making speakers long before Steve Jobs was making computers in a garage -- offer systems that include iPod docks.

To test the iPod Hi-Fi against these competitors, we gathered three of them: the cylindrical Altec Lansing inMotion iM7 ($249.95), the Bose SoundDock ($299) reminiscent of the company's popular Wave line of compact units and the JBL On Time ($299.95) that comes equipped with a clock radio.

Our testers were Times classical music critic Mark Swed, pop/rock critic Randy Lewis and copy editor Lau, a classical singer. There was no audio testing equipment; it was a real-world, subjective test.

All four speaker systems were equipped for the test with iPods, each of which were loaded with four music selections purchased and downloaded from Apple's online iTunes music store.

We started out with the soundtrack overture for the movie "Hero" (2002), composed by Tan Dun.

For that selection, Swed favored the Altec Lansing unit, although he said he would not be happy with any stereo system that is packed into a single enclosure.