JBL Radial Black (Euro/UK PSU) Mac/Win

I spent weeks looking at several speaker systems for my ipod, after trying just about everything including the apple hifi and the bose idoc, i finally plumped for the JBL radial. The sound quality is excellent, they look good, even if slightly odd, and the remote gives you full control of your ipod. If I was being ultra critical, there is very slight vibration when played at super loud volume, but I mean very loud. All in all I am pleased with the decision I at long last have made.

I bought the JBL Radial after auditioning a wide range of MP3 speakers (Bose Sounddock: good but overpriced & limited connection options; Apple ipod hifi: most powerful but very muddy at low volumes; Audica MPS1: clear sound but limited bass and expensive; Jamo i300: good bass but lack of clarity; Logitech Audiostation: good user-definable sound but fiddly & too many bad customer reviews).

Compared to the competition, it offered the best general sound - warm with clear vocals, strong bass & good separation given its size. And that's compared with other systems mentioned above that are sometimes £50-£100 more expensive. Only fault is that the bass can sound thuddy at high volumes, though (as another reviewer said) this might be due to my music being encoded at only 160kbps. And putting the 'bass reducer' on the ipod's EQ settings at high volumes more or less resolves this problem.

Remote control is by far the best I've come across too - pressing the mode button enables you to not only do normal play/pause/skip track/volume but to also go through different levels of the ipod's menu!

So, overall, highly recommended!

With it's unusual donut-shaped design, I was expecting this system to look much better than it sounded. However, when I first heard it, I was blown away. The sound is phenomenal. The bass is very solid, and the detail of the treble is great wherever you stand.

The only bad thing about the JBL Radial is that it has a big ugly power brick attached to it, which kind of spoils the look. Plus there is no iPod dock connector on the back, which means you can't leave your iPod in it, and have it sync with your Mac/PC.