home stereo: Living out loud
GEAR | We checked out some speaker systems to go with your MP3 music collection. Here's what we thought.
By Ricardo Baca
Denver Post Pop Music Critic
Everything we do has a soundtrack - or a playlist, to use modern terminology.
We work out to Bloc Party and Kelly Clarkson, garden to Sonic Youth and Neil Young, and shower to Radiohead and A Tribe Called Quest. We drive to a pensive playlist of Akron/
Family and Sam Cooke - unless it's late and we're tired, which is when we rely on the workout playlist. We clean the kitchen to the Flaming Lips, Elvis Costello and the Dandy Warhols.
But what happens when we're mobile? What do we listen to out loud (not in headphones) when we're camping, boating, picnicking or hitting the beach? More important, how do we listen to it? How do we amplify sound from our MP3 players when we're on the move - something Colorado's outdoor-loving populace is known to do with great fervor?
The market recently has been flooded by speaker sets designed for MP3 players that mimic home sound systems in that they fulfill every possible audio need. They have bass boosts and surround sound. They're battery-powered - or they're fueled by an internal rechargeable battery. They have a dock that charges your iPod, and they have remote controls to allow you to skip that song that you simply cannot hear right now.
Speakers have turned out to be the best-selling iPod accessory, an exploding $5 billion market, according to Envisioneering Group. And all the major players are at the table - including Bose, Klipsch and JBL. The speakers come in every imaginable shape and size, from the curvaceous Klipsch iGroove to the rudimentary boombox design of the Logitech MM22 to the sterile couture of Apple's own iPod Hi-Fi Home Stereo.
But before we get too technical, let's talk situational.
These speakers, like the MP3 players they were manufactured for, truly do change lives. Say your kitchen isn't wired for audio. Instead of blaring the stereo sounds in from the living room, you could have a docking station underneath the spice rack or atop the refrigerator. Simply plug the set's headphone jack into your iPod (or iriver or Jukebox) and you're connected to your catalog.
The bigger change comes in the outdoors, where these devices - when paired with MP3 players - can change the experience entirely.
We used to camp in silence, breathing in the pure mountain air as much as the crystalline silence. Sometimes we'd open the car doors, blare some music and run the battery down - but still, your musical and portable options were limited.
Last weekend, my family took to Wellington Lake outside of Bailey armed with my iPod and portable speakers. And here's what it sounded like.
We cooked breakfast with the Old 97s, soaked our feet in the stream to Slim Cessna's Auto Club, sipped tea with Hem and read in our tents to The Flying Burrito Brothers. We fished to a playlist that was all Scissor Sisters, X, Electric Six, Photo Atlas and Fat Lip, and we watched the sun set over the lake with "Moon River," June Carter
Cash and Sufjan Stevens.
Sure, there are still quiet moments camping. But with the 15,000-plus songs on my 60-gig iPod - and the accompanying Logitech MM22 speakers that fit in my pocket - the mood-setting options were unlimited. And when else will you have such uninterrupted time to introduce your friends and family to music they should know about?
There are niche products, including '50s-radio-styled iPod docks and Hello Kitty iPod speakers. But the bread and butter are the lifestyle speakers - the Bose set in the kitchen, the Logitech set on the backpacking trip. There's a reason behind the $5 billion in sales - and it's all about expanding our life playlists and soundtracking our experiences.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
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... sound rules
Two of the best iPod speaker systems, whether your budget is beer or champagne, are these units:
Logitech MM22, $44.99: Ideal for car-camping or trips to the beach, this cheap set-up works on four AAA batteries and can take a beating. Although not overwhelming, it's enough sound for a small picnic. Best of all, the price is right.
Bose Companion 3, $249.99: This docking system gives you money-is-no-object fidelity without the four-figure price tag. Bose brags incessantly about its sound, and the Companion 3 - with its Acoustimass subwoofer and two deceptively small satellite speakers - delivers. The tones are full, the mix is sharp, the range is broad and the distortion is minimal.|Ricardo Baca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks count, but ...(clockwise in the above picture)
1. JBL Onstage 2, $118: As much as JBL would like you to think that this round wonder can fill an entire room with music, it doesn't. Distortion comes early and often, and the dock is difficult and often faulty.
2. Logitech MM50, $149: Forget about this model. It has overemphasized bass, tinny treble sounds and lacks real volume.
3. Klipsch iGroove, $249.99: While this system is stylish and convenient, it's not very good at delivering high frequencies and big rock/hip-hop sounds. Turning the volume up to 10 doesn't help, either.
By Ricardo Baca
Denver Post Pop Music Critic
Everything we do has a soundtrack - or a playlist, to use modern terminology.
We work out to Bloc Party and Kelly Clarkson, garden to Sonic Youth and Neil Young, and shower to Radiohead and A Tribe Called Quest. We drive to a pensive playlist of Akron/
Family and Sam Cooke - unless it's late and we're tired, which is when we rely on the workout playlist. We clean the kitchen to the Flaming Lips, Elvis Costello and the Dandy Warhols.
But what happens when we're mobile? What do we listen to out loud (not in headphones) when we're camping, boating, picnicking or hitting the beach? More important, how do we listen to it? How do we amplify sound from our MP3 players when we're on the move - something Colorado's outdoor-loving populace is known to do with great fervor?
The market recently has been flooded by speaker sets designed for MP3 players that mimic home sound systems in that they fulfill every possible audio need. They have bass boosts and surround sound. They're battery-powered - or they're fueled by an internal rechargeable battery. They have a dock that charges your iPod, and they have remote controls to allow you to skip that song that you simply cannot hear right now.
Speakers have turned out to be the best-selling iPod accessory, an exploding $5 billion market, according to Envisioneering Group. And all the major players are at the table - including Bose, Klipsch and JBL. The speakers come in every imaginable shape and size, from the curvaceous Klipsch iGroove to the rudimentary boombox design of the Logitech MM22 to the sterile couture of Apple's own iPod Hi-Fi Home Stereo.
But before we get too technical, let's talk situational.
These speakers, like the MP3 players they were manufactured for, truly do change lives. Say your kitchen isn't wired for audio. Instead of blaring the stereo sounds in from the living room, you could have a docking station underneath the spice rack or atop the refrigerator. Simply plug the set's headphone jack into your iPod (or iriver or Jukebox) and you're connected to your catalog.
The bigger change comes in the outdoors, where these devices - when paired with MP3 players - can change the experience entirely.
We used to camp in silence, breathing in the pure mountain air as much as the crystalline silence. Sometimes we'd open the car doors, blare some music and run the battery down - but still, your musical and portable options were limited.
Last weekend, my family took to Wellington Lake outside of Bailey armed with my iPod and portable speakers. And here's what it sounded like.
We cooked breakfast with the Old 97s, soaked our feet in the stream to Slim Cessna's Auto Club, sipped tea with Hem and read in our tents to The Flying Burrito Brothers. We fished to a playlist that was all Scissor Sisters, X, Electric Six, Photo Atlas and Fat Lip, and we watched the sun set over the lake with "Moon River," June Carter
Cash and Sufjan Stevens.
Sure, there are still quiet moments camping. But with the 15,000-plus songs on my 60-gig iPod - and the accompanying Logitech MM22 speakers that fit in my pocket - the mood-setting options were unlimited. And when else will you have such uninterrupted time to introduce your friends and family to music they should know about?
There are niche products, including '50s-radio-styled iPod docks and Hello Kitty iPod speakers. But the bread and butter are the lifestyle speakers - the Bose set in the kitchen, the Logitech set on the backpacking trip. There's a reason behind the $5 billion in sales - and it's all about expanding our life playlists and soundtracking our experiences.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... sound rules
Two of the best iPod speaker systems, whether your budget is beer or champagne, are these units:
Logitech MM22, $44.99: Ideal for car-camping or trips to the beach, this cheap set-up works on four AAA batteries and can take a beating. Although not overwhelming, it's enough sound for a small picnic. Best of all, the price is right.
Bose Companion 3, $249.99: This docking system gives you money-is-no-object fidelity without the four-figure price tag. Bose brags incessantly about its sound, and the Companion 3 - with its Acoustimass subwoofer and two deceptively small satellite speakers - delivers. The tones are full, the mix is sharp, the range is broad and the distortion is minimal.|Ricardo Baca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looks count, but ...(clockwise in the above picture)
1. JBL Onstage 2, $118: As much as JBL would like you to think that this round wonder can fill an entire room with music, it doesn't. Distortion comes early and often, and the dock is difficult and often faulty.
2. Logitech MM50, $149: Forget about this model. It has overemphasized bass, tinny treble sounds and lacks real volume.
3. Klipsch iGroove, $249.99: While this system is stylish and convenient, it's not very good at delivering high frequencies and big rock/hip-hop sounds. Turning the volume up to 10 doesn't help, either.
