The poor: It's bigger than most iPod speakers and does not offer such extra features as Bluetooth.
The main point here: You'd be hard-pressed to find an iPhone/iPod speaker-dock system that performs in addition to Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod for $200.
Fluance may be not even close to a household name, but we were blown away through the value and performance ratios of its SX-HTB and AV-HTB 5 home entertainment speaker packages when we reviewed them here on CNET several years ago.
Now the Canadian company has entered the fiercely competitive iPhone/iPod speaker-dock market using the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod and managed to pull off the exact same feat, delivering a winning combination of excellent performance along with a distinct design for just $200.
Design
The Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod has stereo system. 6-inch soft dome tweeters mounted in the middle of its 5-inch woven fiberglass woofers. That's fairly exceptional. "Two-way" tweeter and woofer iPod speakers are rarely observed in this price range, and they usually have a lot smaller drivers. For example, Altec Lansing's Octiv 650 iPod speaker ($200) is definitely an above-average performer, but it doesn't have tweeters, Instead, it features two 3-inch "full-range" drivers, plus the bottom-firing 4-inch "subwoofer. " The Octiv 650A is smaller and about one-third the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod 's weight.
Built-in stereo 10 watt per channel amps supply the get-up-and-go for the speakers. Connectivity options beyond the actual multipin iPod dock include stereo RCA inputs, plus composite and S-Video outputs for routing iPod/iPhone images or videos to some TV. The top of the speaker has energy on/off, input selector, and volume up and down buttons directly while watching dock connector. The small plastic remote duplicates individuals controls and adds bass and treble controls which operate in 10, 2 dB steps, from -10 in order to +10. It's easy to fine-tune the sound for your liking. The remote can also navigate through your own iPod/iPhone's menu options.
The speaker comes with a two-year components and labor warranty.
Performance
As with most additional iPod speakers, the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod sounds best from 3 in order to 6 feet away. Listen from much farther than that and you'll start to notice its size and you won't get much stereo effect (the speakers are slightly more than 12 inches apart from center in order to center). However, listening close up the stereo system imaging is surprisingly good. There's a nice sense of spatial depth and image focus is very good.
The Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod 's size advantages over typical $200 iPod speakers are immediately obvious in the manner it sounds. Bass avoids the thick and puffed up sound we've heard from countless small docking loudspeakers. The bass is powerful but never overdone and pitch definition is great.
And clarity is what truly separates the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod from its competitors. Listening in order to She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and Michael. Ward), we were mightily impressed by the actual speaker's midrange detail; voices, strings and percussion just about all sound remarkably natural. It's also nice to have the choice of fine-tuning the sound with the bass as well as treble controls, and again few docking speakers offer that degree of adjustability. (A remote is included with the system).
We also used the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod as an audio bar speaker with our 32-inch Samsung LNT3242H TELEVISION. If anything, the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod sounded even better actively playing movies. The "Hanna" DVD, in which Saoirse Ronan plays a girl trained by her ex-CIA dad to end up being an assassin, sounded great. Dialog was clear, and also the realistic looking and sounding fight scenes packed the wallop. The only real downside to using the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod like a sound bar is its lack of stereo separation when you are listening from more than 6 feet away.
Summary
The Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone / iPod might be too big a speaker for a lot of, but it will be ideal for anyone looking for the best-sounding $200 iPod/iPhone speaker available on the market.
