TheCignias NAO Symphonylooks like any otheriPod dock . But it ’s not like any other iPod dock . Because it rain buckets medicine wirelessly and plays squeamish with BlackBerrys , too .
Cost
$ 299
The Verdict
The theoretic flexibility of theNAO Symphonyis impressive : you may pipe in music via the iPod dock , Bluetooth , Wi - Fi or the stock auxilliary port wine , and hold in it with apps for the iPhone or BlackBerry , along with the crap IR distant that ships with it .
The problem is that in practice , it ’s frustratingly splintered .
On the iPhone , you could only rain cats and dogs medicine over Bluetooth , but you in reality control it via Wi - Fi using the MusicNAO app . So you have to bounce between the iPhone ’s iPod app and the MusicNAO app — iPod is where you actually pick tracks and do the real controlling if you ’re stream music , but the MusicNAO is where you perform all of the place setting voodoo , and , um , master the volume . ( No , you ca n’t manipulate volume in the iPod app when it ’s link . )
The situation ’s in reality better on BlackBerrys , for the simple reason that you may in reality stream music over Wi - Fi and the setting and music direction are mostly centralized in a individual app . ( There ’s still a separate app if you ’re trying to remotely control an iPod plug into the Symphony ’s dock , for cause I ca n’t read . )
A individual LED in the pith of the speaker wall serve as your indicator for what ’s happening with the social unit — gullible means you ’re streaming over Wi - Fi , blue for Bluetooth , cherry-red for bad things . Otherwise , there ’s not much feedback going on , even in the apps , so I had more than a few juncture where I ’d start play music in one of the apps , but nothing would come out , and I would n’t be able to figure out why . So I ’d go “ WTF ? ” fiddle with the volume before turning it on and off a of twosome times , after which it would as if by magic spring to life , and blow out my auricle because I had turned the volume all the means up from the BlackBerry .
Bluetooth connections seemed to be more reliable in really bewilder medicine to pour , but in any Bluetooth scenario , I definitely had song that would rationalize out intermittently , despite being a simple 10 feet aside and in cable of sight . And not having medicine arrive out every time it ’s supposed to is beyond annoying .
Oh yeah , how does it go ? Um , fine — not great , not risky — like a typical ( not exchange premium ) iPod dock tends to sound . The angelic spot seemed to be in the in-between loud mountain chain , where the slight overcompensation in bass leveled out , and little crackle in the highs is smoothed out thanks to overall loudness . We ’re not talk about over elaborated or refined audio frequency here , but when you ’re just look to fill a room with sufficiently large sound and not too much distorted shape , it gets the caper done , mostly pleasantly .
But $ 300 is a mountain of clams , even for an iPod bobtail that works with your work phone .
An iPod docking facility that works with BlackBerrys
Tons of way to check it and pipe in music
The overall speech sound is just okay
$ 300 is pretty costly , even with the BlackBerry superpowers
Music would n’t play sometimes , for no discernible grounds
The app and wireless situation on the iPhone is kinda confusing , and there ’s two apps on the BlackBerry for grounds I ca n’t divine [ Cignias ]
AppleBlackBerryiPhoneiPod DocksMusicreview
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