So Apple are hi-fi manufacturers now. OK, it's called a Hi-fi. Would they lie to us? Initial impressions weren't all that promising. This is quite a large box roughly equivalent to a tool box, with a black grill held on – rather clumsily we feel – with magnetic pegs.
The speaker arrangement is a singular 130mm subwoofer surrounded by two 80-mm wide-range woofers. Frequency response is a quoted 53Hz to 16kHz ± 3 dB, with the lack of larger drivers and dedicated tweeters showing at the lack of frequency extremes.
Once we fired it up, we were initially underwhelmed by an overly woolly sound. But fed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Red Right Hand, we quickly warmed to it. There was a softness in the treble as could be expected, but we didn't expect the bags of detail presented, with the subtle echoing vocals seemingly springing from a point 50 cm to the right of the box. This sucker does image better than we expected. The only problems we encountered were a slight thickening in the lower mids, which can make deep voices such as St Nick's boom a little more than usual, which also caused that wooliness we heard.
Dance music is presented vigourously, but without the high frequency heft to really propel it forward. But even jacked up to the extremes the box refused to distort or rattle itself to bits.
The box is portable, and has easy to grab handles, but we wouldn't recommend toting it about ghettoblaster-style as the iPod sticks straight up, and is likely to drop out if moved around vigourously. There's a missed opportunity here to mount the iPod flush with the unit in the same way as Monitor Audio has.
Onboard features are in keeping with competitors, offering a line-in/optical-in, IR port, battery storage (6 x D cells!), and a dedicated volume control. The remote control is a little hit and miss, as with our iPod Photo the Menu button refused to work, but the Ipod may require an update so we will be testing it further.
Based on first impressions, it's behind the Monitor Audio iDeck in the sound stakes, and way ahead of its closest competitor the Bose SoundDock. This machine fits a definite niche – it's portable, easy to setup, and will look great sitting on a side-table. But will it replace your hifi? Never in a million years.
Look forward to a comprehensive review in the April/May issue of SmartHouse. Out Soon!

Apple iPod Hi-Fi | $549
For: Portable; takes batteries; good sound.
Against: Some bass issues; remote problems; bested by the competition for fidelity; build.
Verdict: Will sell by the bucketload no matter what we say about it, but thankfully it's pretty good.