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iPod Speaker Round Up

Author	Benny Har-Even
Published	29th Mar 2006

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Sound quality

The first thing we noticed when we powered up the iM7s was a clean accurate sound. The sound stage seemed to be focussed about a foot in front of the centre of the unit and when sat in the right place it sounded very rewarding. In Moby’s ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad’ the sample that sits underneath the vocal at the start could be heard more cleanly and distinctly than on any other player. Pushing up the volume the sub woofers quickly make their presence felt and it’s no surprise to learn that half of the unit’s rates 50 Watts of RMS is supplied by the side facing sub woofers. You can quite easily feel the air being pushed out from the side when you put your hand close.

The problem is that the bass sounds disconnected from the upper end and the mid-range is notable by its near absence. It sounds as if Altec Lansing has attached a set of regular PC stereo speakers and attached the sub-woofers to hide their shortcomings. One of the team rather dismissively described the sound from the iM7s as ‘radio with extra bass’. Things got worse, when we pushed up the volume on bass heavy tracks with distortion began to creep in.

At lower sound volume levels the iM7’s have a more accurate and brighter sound than the Apple’s but they only really seemed comfortable at mid-volume levels.

I was able to find the Altec Lansing’s online for £177, which is a good £50 less than the Apple set but hearing both side by side it would be hard to justify going for the iM7’s over the Apple.

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