Audyssey South of Market Audio Dock Review (for iPhone, iPod, and iPad)

Jason Tsay Feb 23, 2011 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Accessories, Exclusive, Gadgets, Music, Okay Geek Review, Reviews, iPhone, iPod

Audyssey South of Market Audio Dock

Features

• Wireless music streaming via Bluetooth
• Computer connection to charge and sync with iTunes
• Built in speakerphone for answering calls
• Innovative audio technologies for rich sound
• iPhone app for customized sound and EQ

Review

The Audyssey Audio Dock comes packaged in a nice, colorful box covered with features and shots of the dock. The rear of the packaging explains where the name originates from - San Francisco’s South of Market district, reknowned for its museums and technology companies. Open up the box, and you’ll find two things - a box labeled “accessories” and two pieces of foam sandwiching a dock wrapped in plastic. The accessories include - a remote, a USB cable, two audio cables, a power cord, and manuals.

The second we pulled the Audio Dock out from its sheath, we were immediately stunned by the unique and modern design. Rather than being a boring flat rectangle, as many docks have been in the past,  this one feels extremely modern and artistic. Massive drivers (4 inch subwoofers and 3/4 tweeters), covered by large metal grills, are imbedded into both sides of the dock, meaning you’ll have to place the dock lengthwise on a surface to use it properly. We found that the 5 inch wide by 9 inch deep form factor actually suited our desk better than, say a Bose SoundDock’s horizontal orientation. Your device rests atop a small but sturdy arm jutting out of the front of the dock. When you plug in the dock, a vertical strip of white LED’s lights up on the front of the dock, indicating the volume. The volume can be adjusted either through the included remote or directly on the dock by clicking either side of the front of the docking area. Near the front of the top beams a similarly styled touch sensitive play/pause control. Ports/buttons on the back include a 3.5mm audio jack, microphone jack, USB port, power switch, and a Bluetooth pairing button. You can also use the bundled cables to connect an audio cable to your computer or other audio source, as well as the USB cable to sync and charge your iPhone.  The entire product feels quite premium and is well constructed of materials to reflect that.

After we finished drooling over the looks of the dock, we actually plugged in our test devices - an iPod Classic, iPod Touch, and iPhone. To say the least, we weren’t disappointed one bit. The first beats of Imma Be caused the floor under my feet to start shaking. Then the song quite literally roared to life and filled the entire room with Black Eyed Peas. Fast forward a couple hours later and we had burned through a couple of albums from our favorite artists. Be it Beethoven or Dr. Dre, this speaker dock performs admiringly. Of course, we did notice that tweaking some built in EQ settings on our ‘Pods did give the sound a boost. In fact, there is an iOS app made specifically for this dock to fine tune sound and balance the bass/treble. We’d also like to point out that the dock can be cranked up to very high volumes while maintaining its audio quality. 

What sets the Audio Dock apart from other typical iPhone/iPod docks is that you are given the option to stream music to the dock via Bluetooth rather than plugging in the actual device. Audio quality was much better than we anticipated for Bluetooth and the connection range is respectable. Of course, with Bluetooth comes the ability to make calls using the dock as a speakerphone, which more than adequately relayed our Skype calls. One of our favorite uses of the feature was playing games and outputting the sound wirelessly. Just about every type of game sounded better on the massive speakers than the dinky little buzzers on the mobile device. Of course, there was one more thing to be tested that would require the device to be in a horizontal orientation - movies. As we mentioned, Audyssey is known for making professional movie theater sound systems. Outputting Inception (brraaawwrrmmrmrm!) was equally impressive as Step Up 3 given the amount of special sound effects and music used in the two, respectively.

The App

We love it when a company takes the initiative and goes one step further than the competition. In this case, Audyssey paired a free to download iOS app with its dock. Upon entering the app, your sole option is “settings,” which leads to a menu of three items - dynamic volume, tone controls, and custom EQ. Dynamic volume further lets you choose from automatic, background listening, and off. Tone control presented us with three sliders to adjust bass. treble, and tilt for highs and lows. Custom EQ comprised of a graph with Gain (dB) on the y-axis and Frequency (Hz) on the x-axis, letting you draw your own audio curve. For those who know how to use the app, it’s a priceless component to optimizing audio on their docks. The rest of us should be perfectly fine with automatic tuning technologies Audyssey packs into the dock itself. 

Overall

It’s a rare occasion when great design is paired with equally impressive audio performance. At a price of $400, the Audyssey Audio Dock is no doubt also one of the more expensive iPhone compatible speaker solutions out there. In addition, some buyers might look at Apple’s upcoming AirPlay technology as a must have for speakers they purchase in the near future. But in terms of quality, sound, and features, this is one of the best, if not the best speaker dock out there. If the aforementioned AirPlay is not a big deal for you and money is no object, we don’t see why you don’t already own the Audyssey South of Market Audio Dock.

 

Pro’s

• Stunning looks
• Impressive sound
• Bluetooth streaming/docking hybrid

Con’s

• Definitely not cheap
• No AirPlay support

Price: $399.99
Where to buy them: Audyssey Amazon

Photos

This review was done by Jason Tsay, who was provided the South of Market Audio Dock by Audyssey.

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