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(More customer reviews)If you don't want to read my full review and just need to find a small speaker with great bass and a remote control that works with your iPhone and all iPods under $300 then this what you need to buy. Nothing comes close in that price range or size. And it's only $150, so it's easily the best value too; JBL could have charged well over $200 for this and it would still be the only one to buy. I was so impressed I decided to take 30 minutes and write a review.
I wanted something small with big sound (eg, good bass, which almost always sucks on small speakers). I wanted to be able to throw it in my suitcase if I travel. Usually Bose owns this space with their amazing engineering (I own a couple Bose products). I figured to get that kind of sound I was going to have to cough up $350-$500 for Bose's portable solution. Bose have two versions - one that uses AC power, and another with a built in rechargeable battery and it's $100 more. Nice units, and priced right. But when I was at Fry's, I stumbled onto this JBL. For $200-$300 less, this unit sounds almost as good, and is much smaller. Same footprint, but about 1/3 as tall. Nothing in the other 30+ units I tested came close to the sound to this unit in its size and NOTHING touches it under $300 for the sound it products. It also works with my iPhone which was a requirement. What this really means is you don't have to put it in "Airplane Mode" which turns off the phone to keep the interference from wrecking your listening enjoyment - which means you can still get calls when it's docked - it mutes the music and plays the ringtone though the speaker. Kind of funny, though, when the phone is in silent mode, it mutes the music and plays no ring tone- I would expect it to just show on the screen but not interrupt the music until you answer the call. This is the iPhone's fault I think, not this unit.
Another thing I like about this device is it seems to auto-equalize the volume of the music to each song so you aren't continually re-adjusting the volume. I don't know if the Bose units do this. Since every album is engineered at different levels, the annoying problem of some songs being loud and others quiet causing a constant readjustment seems to be solved. Very cool. I am guessing that JBL built a signal processing chip into this that does this, and also gets the bass/treble balance perfect and adjusts itself. It also seems to expand the stereo field to make the sound stage much bigger than this unit is, but not so much that it sounds weird. None of the other JBL units seemed to do this, so my hat is off to the signal processing in this unit.
The ten button remote control works great, but it's hard to read the buttons in low light, so I guess I'll have to memorize their position. You don't need the remote control to turn down the volume - the only two buttons on the front/top are volume up/down, so you can always get it quiet in a hurry if you can't find the remote.
Downsides: It has an Aux input - which I was looking forward to using it at my desk where my computer is to double as a computer speaker. When the Aux cable is plugged into my computer, it cuts the volume from the iPod in half, and limits the max volume of the unit quite a bit. Once the cable is unplugged (or the computer is turned off) the volume jumps up. This is a line balancing flaw that was apparently overlooked. Also, it is a bummer this does not have a USB port to connect to your PC. This would allow me to sync when docked, but I have to disconnect from this unit and plug into a separate USB cable to Sync. I would have paid more for this feature, at least another $25.
Oddly, the other JBL units I tested (the ones with a clock and other features) completely sucked in comparison to the sound of this unit. They got the sound right on this one and only this one. Bose gets it right every time, but JBL doesn't have the reputation for making small devices like this, so JBL had to price it this way to compete - take advantage of it.
JBL: if you read this, I'd like to see a version just like with these improvements:
1) Add a backlit LCD clock. Nothing fancy. No alarm necessary - the iPhone/iTouch has that. If it had a clock then I could throw away my bedside clock and use this. Your other unit with the clock/alarm sucks compared to this unit in sound, so just add a basic clock to this one.
2) Add a USB interface so I do not have to undock to sync with my PC.
3) Fix the level issue with the Aux input or remote it. As is, the Aux input is useless unless I didn't need the dock port, which is the only reason you would really buy this.
4) Add a battery option. You could sell the battery as a snap-on thing or separate thing so I can take this outside on the deck without a cord. I'd pay $50-$60 for this, when and if I need the feature (unlike the Bose setup which makes you spend over $100 up front). Heck even just a corded dongle with AA's that can replace the AC adapter would be a hack I could live with in this price range.
5) Improve the contrast on the button labels on the remote. Use different shapes for different controls so you can feel them without having to memorize them.
6) Add a wireless (or wired, but wireless would be better) subwoofer accessory to this and charge $150 for it. This would add the thumping deep bass (under 120 Hz) that would make this unit compete with a real home stereo and/or a higher end computer speaker setup. This would give you a setup for $300 that would sweep the market segment for sound and expandability.
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JBL On Stage 200ID High-Performance Speaker Dock for iPhone 1G and iPod (Black)
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