JBL On Time 400iHD Speaker Dock for iPod review

Two of the On Time 400iHD's features are of particular interest: the alarms and the HD radio. First, you can set and control up to four alarms, and you can choose a wake mode (iPod, FM, AM, or buzz) for each one individually should you desire. Also, alarms may be set to go off once, daily, only on weekdays, or only on weekends, which is a nice touch. As for the HD radio functionality, there's no denying it's pretty cool. An HD station can have two spots on its frequency (99.7 and 99.7-2, for example), which means you have a greater variety of content as the stations tend to play different content on each (R&B on one and classic hip-hop on the other, say). Also, HD radio sounds better, although we're not sure we'd say it's CD quality. The On Time 400iHD includes an HD scan button, which makes it easy to find stations in range. It has a couple of limitations, though: you can't set presets or wake up to the secondary (-2) frequencies.

Performance is a bit of a mixed bag for the JBL On Time 400iHD. First off, the buttons on the unit and on the remote are not always responsive. Also, audio quality in iPod mode is not as great as we would expect from a $300 unit. Overall, music sounds clear and reasonably warm, but bass and high-end sparkle are lacking. The unit could use some EQ enhancement options, if you ask us. On the plus side, radio reception is excellent, and HD radio sounds just great. Also, we love the RDS capability, which lets us see the artist and song name on the screen. The iTunes Tagging, whereby song information is saved to your iPod, then communicated to iTunes, works a treat as well, though there is a lag between the tags being stored and then being sent to the iPod. Also, not all songs have a one-click buying option in iTunes, instead sending you to an album page where you can look for the track.

In the end, we're willing to sacrifice the stellar sound quality--it is, after all, only a tabletop unit--for the alarm clock features and HD radio functionality. The fact that there just aren't many HD options in iPod speaker docks works in the On Time 400iHD's favor.