When your iPod is in the drawer, it'll draw power from the iH36 and recharge itself. One intriguing aspect of the unit is that you can retract the drawer with your iPod inside, and it will completely disappear into the iH36 while continuing to play. However, once it's hidden, you can't control it with either the buttons on the iH36 or the remote, which is too bad. Another gripe, this one bigger: you can't navigate your iPod's menus using the remote. It offers some basic control, such as skipping forward and back through songs, but that's about it. Finally, on a more minor level, there's no way to adjust the bass and treble, as well as the brightness/contrast of the LCD (that said, we were able to read the time from a good 10 to 12 feet away with minimal eyestrain.
As for sound quality, the iH36 acquitted itself well enough, though it suffers from some of the same shortcomings that other moderately priced iPod speakers do. Most noticeably, it's bass-challenged--any music with a modest level of bass just sounds thin. At higher volumes, some vibration in the speakers essentially reaches the level of distortion; it was quite evident when we cranked the Counting Crows' tune "Colorblind," for example. Acoustic-guitar and vocal-heavy songs such as Johnny Cash's rendition of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," the iH36 came through better.
What's lacking on the iHome iH36? While it's clearly designed for iPods--and the Shuffle port is a nice touch--we would've liked to see an auxiliary line-in function. That would essentially guarantee compatibility with any audio device with a headphone jack, not just iPods. Also, for a product designed to mount above a counter, a light on the underside would've been a welcome and practical addition.
Those quibbles aside, the iH36 sounds fine and should fill small to moderate-size kitchens with decent sound. We haven't done much testing of kitchen audio systems in the past, but from the limited we've time we've spent with Sony's $100 offering, the ICF-CD553RM , which doesn't have an iPod slot but does play CDs, the SDI iHome iH36 more than holds its own. It may not be a bargain at its list price of $150, but if you can find it discounted slightly, it's an attractive option for anyone wants an out-of-the way iPod audio system for the kitchen.
What You'll Pay
- Set Price Alert
