Apple Hi-Fi, RIP: 2006 - 2007
By Ryan Block 
posted September 6th 2007 7:45PM
posted September 6th 2007 7:45PM
"Apple has decided to focus priorities on the iPod and iPhone and will not be making more iPod Hi-Fi units. There are over 4,000 accessories in the iPod ecosystem and hundreds of speakers systems designed specifically for the iPod, which provide customers with a wide variety of options."
Goodbye Hi-Fi -- for some you'll be missed. Just not so much here.
P.S. -Although they're officially not being made anymore, it's likely you can still pick one up on store shelves if you act quickly. Might be a good way to reinvest that $100 store credit Steve is giving you.
My parents actually bought one... it's a fun thing when you're not the one who paid for it. Sound quality is reasonable. Not too good, not too bad.
I'm not so sure it is being retired. A tipster on The Apple Blog noted that there is now a photo of the iPod Hi-Fi with an iPod classic perched on it on the main iPod/iTunes page.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
It is portable, unlike most/all the other units people here are comparing it to.
My students gave me one last June. The dock part started to malfunction in March. My 1st gen Nano stopped working in it. Then my 60 Gb wasn't making a good connection. I finally took it in for a repair this june to discover that it was out of warranty as they had actually purchased it in April of 2006. I said , no problem the school will pay to fix it, How much? They wanted $269 to repair it!!!!! It only cost a $100 more and a Bose or other Brand could be had for less. I said, thanks but no thanks as it still works with the auxiliary plug connection. Boy am I glad it was a gift and I am getting a $100 back on my iPhone. Some time s Apple can really suck.
I doubt Jobs will ever read this review. For such an industrial design powerhouse...this was a bleak entry into the home audio realm.
Here is a list of its design problems.
1. The shape. The very worst shape for a speaker is a cube- (one of Steve’s favorite shapes) the next worst shape is rectangular box. Many home speakers are made of wood and construction with wood cost considerations often end in Boxes being made. (Of course inside quality ones are have wooden baffles and perhaps non parallel walls to help break up standing waves. Why Steve Jobs (An audiophile?) would select Plastic and make a product with walls that can easily flex by selecting a rectangular shape is beyond me. Certainly an Ovoid shape or curved shape would have added rigidity to the cabinet.
2. Material selection. ABS plastic? Like.... what "HI-Fi" speaker in the world that deserves the moniker of "Hi-Fi" was EVER EVER EVER made of ABS- or whatever that junk plastic they made it out of ..Polystyrene? Who knows? It is far from acoustically inert.
3. The interior design. Was there any internal bracing...I doubt it. Minimal if any.
4. Acoustic deadening... was any attempt made to control speaker wall vibrations with even the cheapest of Asphalitic adhesive strips...NO.
5. Tuning.... was there any done at all? Like did they use a 1998 version of some speaker box building program to design this...it was pathetic. No attempt to figure out proper ratios. Apple had enough money to hire someone like Arnie Nudell (Infinity/Genesis) or Gayle Martin Saunders (Martin Logan), Dick Sequerra (Pyramid), Stuart Tyler (ProAc), Mark Levinson (Red Rose Music) hell even the guys currently working for Harmon International would have been a better choice- at least they have some Mark Levinson and Revel engineers. Too expensive? Well not with Apple's economies of scale. But if you want to talk cheap parts and scalable production... Steve Jobs best bet would have been to hire Shuji Yamamoto a former Bose and AR speaker designer out of Massachusetts who left to make designs he wanted to hear. He made the Aego 5 system for Acoustic Energy, which got rave reviews from Stereophile and anyone who encountered the system. If he wanted to really do something ground breakingly Hi-Fi in a small package.... he could have hired John DeVore, of DeVore Fidelity in New York- these last two designers are really onto something- and MAN can they ever turn out a well tuned product. The Apple Hi-fi made all expensive instruments sound like cheap $200 instruments.
If you haven't heard of these manufacturers- they are worth having a look. The make music- not just reproduced sound.
6. Speaker transducer i.e. Driver quality. Were these drivers from China? Probably. Most of the worlds most respected speakers have drivers that are European in origin. Vifa, Scanspeak, Dynaudio (Danish). The drivers used in Apple hi-fi were not in any way Hi-fi with poor excursion control at XMax (the point of the speaker cone moving far away from the center of the magnetic flux). Looking at the wimpy magnet structure and cheap stamped basket just told you that you were getting a speaker on par with ones that come in Televisions. Most people bypass their TV speakers- just like you should with the Apple Hi-FI. Steve Jobs Cheapened Apples Image by producing this clunky plastic boombox quality speaker.
7. Uncool. it just was uncool looking. IS this the technology Apple is known for? Is it in ANY WAY "amazing" or "incredible"? (Steve's commonly used vernacular when introducing products) Well, no.... but it did sound "BOOM"y and sloppy. This was the sort of junk I would expect from Microsoft. With so much cool speaker technology.... Steve could have had an amazing product. He could have used designs from Gallo Acoustics (Base ball shaped speakers), Eminent technology (Flat panel speakers that could fold flat for transport that are true dipoles), Ribbon Tweeters and Midranges (former Apogee speakers), He could have designed a slot loaded floor firing subwoofer with KOI Audio, A see through electrostatic speaker (Martin Logan- heck wanna be really cool Steve? Project the Itunes info onto that see through diaphram like a "Heads up display" giving track info...or perhaps if the technology improves enough even video. Steve - you could have used NXT technology to make video screen with that vibrated over the whole surface- and even if the screen was not so great...you could have integrated the visualizer to make it a modern day LAVA lamp type display or laser light type display in a flat speaker panel.
So far the only iPod dock speaker worth any listen is the Harman Kardon Go+Play Boombox for iPod. Perhaps the FATMAN iTube would be decent...but far too fragile with tubes...unless it used a RCA Style military quality Nuvistor type of metal encased tube.
Steve could have done soooooo many things. And to build a good speaker ...well it could have broadened Apple's reach. Perhaps if Apple bought out Bang and Olufsen and used volume sales to bring down the price of the Beolab 3 system he could have integrated that speaker system and acoustic lens tweeter into a very small package that would have amazed people. The Beolab 3's can be within 18 inches of each other yet sound like they are 6 feet apart- yet with total room dispersion in the horizontal plane. A buy out of Bang and Olufsen would have made sense since it would have given more European market penetration, similar industrial design ethos, and good reliability and performance (this is only recent to 2002 + model year Bang and Olufsen speakers), hell apple sells tons of A8 earbud Headphones for B & O as it is.
8. Lack of Apple system integration. Why was there no built in dock or compartment for Airport Express? Why was it just another "Any Brand" iPod dock. Were we supposed to think it was Apple worthy because it was white? As far as I can tell...that was the only system integration I could see.
9. Not portable enough for Road Warrior use. Lets face it. You gotta be more than single purpose. The iPod hi-fi had batteries...but was not really portable. It also wasn't a portable party. Try toting one of those in your carry on luggage. Beach Worthy.....uh ...no. The plastic was also easily scratched and showed grime.
10. Value per dollar. IT Just wasn't there. You would be better off spending your audio money on better headphones or an Aego 2 system from Acoustic Energy, or the Harman Kardon Go+Play, or even...just buying used Sound Dynamics RTS-3 speakers off Ebay and fishing some junky old amplifier out of the landfill and tossing on airport express and calling it a day. You'd have $250 extra dollars in your pocket and VASTLY superior sound at any volume- as well as lots of volume. The Apple Hi-Fi was a huge waste of cash- its true value as a system , perhaps $110 at the far end. I wouldn't buy one NEW for myself for $30, at $20...yes, but just to use to connect to my TV and regift it to a tone deaf friend for Christmas. At least they would think they were getting something that was at one time...."expensive".
Harsh- no, just the truth laid out. If only Steve would read this. Maybe I would take him to some audio stores to hear real high end audio. billbaysick at yahoo
In all fairness an all in one system is never as good as a proper hifi system anyway. Apple were just diluting and bringing down the product line with this thing. http://www.sipedia.co.uk/HiFi/hifi.htm and http://www.sipedia.co.uk/mac/mac.htm shows a great list on using mac with a proper hifi system.
Best thing Steve Jobs could do. Go vistit the Rocky Mountain audio Fest.
Rent a small room. Let people schedule appointments to show him compact designs. Let them compete for an initial contract for 250,000 units.
Darn it. I actually wanted to buy one. The thing that I really liked about it was the fact that you could carry it anywhere with the battery option. It would be great to take to the beach. Anyone know where they still have it?.