Insound, the longtime online purveyor of music, sells almost entirely music and music magazines but occasionally you'll see the odd exception. One example is when Patrick McNamara, director of Insound, realized that 25 percent of its customers preferred vinyl in their purchases, so InSound began offering USB turntables. He said the company can't keep them in stock.
Today's Insound newsletter included another piece of hardware, Vers Audio's 2X wooden-surfaced iPod speaker dock. With one of those Class D amplifiers I loved so much in the Kuller Aux Out 400 bookshelf system, the system apparently cranks out more sound than you would imagine it capable of given its size, and uses less electricity than models without switching amplifiers do at equivalent volumes.
In another nod to the green movement, Vers uses screws instead of glue to make the whole thing easier for your grandkids to break down into recycling.
With adapters for any iPod in existence as well as the iPhone, thischerry wood-veneered speaker system has 2 3" speakers as well as dualsubwoofer reflex ports in the back for leaking onmidirectional low-endfrequencies around the room.
Apparently, 80 percent of what is madefrom plastic in other models is made from wood in this one. Vers liststhe frequency response as 60 Hz to 20 kHz, signal-to-noise response of90 dB, and the peak wattage per channel as 20 watts (although, again,
given that this uses a Class D amp, the wattage rating is deceptivelylow).
You won't get much stereo separation out of this model, but the samegoes for the majority of iPod speaker docks I see in offices and houses(I'm more of a 'dock it to the sound system' type, myself).
Back to Insound... their free MP3 section could be worth a look if you haven't scoured it lately.
