Review: Five Music Player Systems for the iPhone and iPod

One of the season’s hottest selling gifts this year are gadgets that boost and play music from iPhones.

Up until now, they’ve been hard to find, as most just worked with the iPod. But I got my hands on five of the slickest iPhone music players out there. Most also recharge your iPhone/iPod while in the dock or cradle.

At $299 is the Yamaha Speaker Dock for iPod and iPhone – the Yamaha PDX-60, which connects to your iPhone or iPod touch or most of the newer iPods either through a dock at the top of the unit, or wirelessly. You slip the iPhone into this little wireless transmitter and it streams the music. This unit puts out surprisingly robust and powerful, high quality sound.

Between all five of the units I tested, the Yamaha was my favorite, for best sound, compact good looks and functionality.

The NAO Symphony Music Station from Cignias is reakly full featured.  It works with iPhones, iPods and BlackBerries. You can dock your device and use a remote to control the music. Or, out of the dock, connect via BlueTooth or a wi-fi connection. There are free apps for both the BlackBerry and the iPhone that let you stream your music over wi-fi, too. The Symphony Music Player costs $299.

I found it difficult to set up for streaming on my home network with my iPhone, even though I downloaded the iPhone app and followed the instructions. Several times, without success. BlueTooth was a little easier, but you need to have your iPhone within a dozen feet or so of the unit to stay connected.

Then, there’s the huge Altec Lansing inMotion MIX iMT800 Portable Digital Boom Box for iPhone and iPod, a portable boom box, FM radio and iPhone player that pumps out huge sound, at home with AC or on the road, powered by D-cells. This baby is big, like you’d expect from a boom box. But great for the beach, picnics and tailgating.

It really puts out a lot of sound. The quality was great, too. It’s just that the unit is big and not very decor friendly in the home.

A hundred bucks cheaper then the others, at $199, is the JVC-NX-PN10. It doesn’t have wi-fi or Bluetooth but it takes the iPhone and an iPod… two at once, charging them and letting you play music through either one. But… it is also an alarm clock and an FM radio player. The sound is excellent, too.

It has a rather irritating hunk of plastic that serves no real purpose that I can tell other than to be illuminated blue. Maybe the JVC people think it looks cool. I think not.

Still too expensive? Then try the Griffin AirCurve Acoustic Amplifier for iPhone . Needs no power. It has no speakers, either. It amplifies the sound of your iPhone acoustically. You place your iPhone on this plastic stand and it collects the sound from the built-in speaker of your iPhone, amplifies it by about 10 decibels and projects it into the room. Cost? $20.

It’s rather a tinny, anemic sound but, for $20 bucks, what do you expect?

You can see my video of each of them by clicking the arrow in the player below.