Donka's Mobile Rambles

With the increasing market for in home speaker solutions, finding the right system for your needs should prove easier than ever provided you are willing to invest a little time in research.
A popular design is to have a single unit that includes an iPod dock sandwiched between two speakers making it relatively compact and easy to move between rooms as required. The A303 from iRhythms is one such system and looks more polished with its black finish in person than it does in a picture. For iPod purists, this system is also available in white as the A302 model.
The feature set on the A303 is good for a speaker system covering all the main areas you will require; this will charge any dock enabled iPod, uses a remote control, and includes a 3.5mm line in for the Shuffle or other audio source.
Included in the box along with the user guide and power supply are various dock inserts to fit different iPods. I really like these inserts as they have a support that goes up the back of the iPod adding stability to the smaller iPods such as the nano where the back of the iPod would not normally sit flush against the main unit. Speaking of the nano, the new 2nd gen nano is the only device that is not properly supported by an included insert but thankfully the iRhythms supports Apple universal dock inserts which means the one that ships with your nano will work just fine.
The remote control that ships is Infrared but works very well with a straight line of sight for about six to seven metres, certainly enough to cover the distance of a medium sized room. The remote will control power on/off, volume, play/pause and skip/seek. Unfortunately, the iPod menu system is not supported so you still need some physical interaction with the iPod when it comes to teeing up the majority of your music unless you create a suitably large play list up front. It would be easier to do this via the remote control than fiddle with the click wheel while the iPod is docked or continually remove it so it is a shame this feature is missing.
From an audio stand point, I must admit to being very impressed with the A303. Due to the size of the unit, I wasn’t expecting a particularly powerful sound but was impressed right from first use with the room filling ability of this speaker system. It will easily satisfy the needs for music in any room in the house and doesn’t exhibit any obvious signs of distortion at comfortably high levels of music. Bass response was also very impressive which is a real bonus for many as this system relays the bass element of dance or rock music very well. That is not to say the system fails to deliver for other genres, far from it as I have been very impressed with the audio output across all musical styles, I just find that this is well tuned to deliver good but firm bass which is impressive in such a relatively small cabinet. Midrange and highs are equally well realised but perhaps doesn’t have the same impact as the unexpected low levels given the size of the unit. A small point I did notice though was some audible amplifier hiss during silent sections when you are very close to the speaker but this is never an issue when music is playing or you are any kind of distance from the system.
One area that left me a little surprised is that there is no quick way to power the device on from standby without the remote control. If you lost the remote control, you would need to switch the unit off at the back and then back on again or remove and reseat the iPod to play music from standby; not a problem though if you are careful with such a small remote and there is a handy storage slot on the back of the system to hold the remote when not in use. Volume controls are present on the system next to the iPod itself but adding a standby by button here would have made sense to me. The system doesn’t feature any additional connections for video or USB pass through which are things that I don’t consider necessary for a speaker system although they would still be a nice to have for some.

The iRhythms is well constructed and actually feels sturdier than it looks – presumably this helps to deliver its impressive sound. It is certainly not a bad looking unit either and even the power on light switches subtly from red to blue depending on the system’s state; a small but important factor when considering the A303 for a bedroom.
For those looking for a compact but very impressive sounding speaker system that can be controlled via remote and will also charge their iPod, the iRhythms really has to be very high on your list. I imagine the majority of households will find the A302/A303 to be a great addition and there really is nothing to mark against this system. Adding iPod menu support to the remote control would have brought this speaker system very close to perfection but currently it represents a great purchase.
More details can be found at the iRhythms website.