Scandyna Speakers Dock Pack

Leslie Ayers — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:09:00 -0500

Loud, clean sound emanates from these tiny, ultramodern iPod speakers—but it will cost you.

Scandyna Speakers’ Dock Pack offers iPod owners who care about crisp, clean audio a smart way to save a few bucks on the company’s curvy Micropod iPod speakers. The Dock Pack bundles Scandyna’s Dock (an iPod dock with speaker output, line out, and an AC adapter port) and a set of two Micropod SE speakers, which win points right off the bat for being compact, stylish, and cute, not a word we tend to use to describe iPod speakers.

Sold separately, the three items would set you back $419. The Dock Pack saves you $117. Still, at $299, the bundle seems pricey. And since the Micropod SE speakers connect to the Dock with wires, moving the whole show around is not a simple matter of picking up one device. If you’re looking for warm sound, don’t turn to the Dock Pack—its forte is clean, crisp, loud sound, pumped out of stylized round plastic speakers that are a mere 6 inches tall and 5 inches wide. You can mount them to the wall or set them on a shelf with the brushed chrome-plated legs inserted, tripod-style. Scandyna designed the Micropod SE speakers to work well on their own, without a subwoofer, but the system bottomed out on low notes, which left us a little blue. For a party in your living room, though, the power of these diminutive speakers dwarfs their physical size—they can fill a room with big, clear sound—just don’t invite any bass-loving audio snobs to the soiree.

Controlling playback with the included remote worked seamlessly most of the time, but it only has eight buttons: mute, power, volume up/down, play/pause, skip forward/back, and repeat. To choose specific playlists, albums, or artists, you have to use the iPod’s clickwheel—which pretty much defeats the remote’s purpose, since it forces you to walk up to the Dock.

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Scandyna Speakers Dock Pack