iPod Hi-Fi
The iPod Hi-Fi was announced in early 2006 and was Apple’s attempt of entering the home-stereo marketplace. It remained on sale for only 554 days before it was unceremoniously discontinued.
"Your stereo's really ready to move to an iPod based stereo”
- Steve Jobs at the Fun New Products keynote event.
The mid-2000s was the hay-day of the iPod and iPod accessories. In 2006 alone, nearly 40% of Apple’s revenue came from the iPod, with Apple selling almost 40 million units that year. And as the iPod exploded in popularity, an industry of accessories formed to take a slice of this booming industry! It was in this environment that Apple introduced its own iPod speaker system, the iPod Hi-Fi.
Steve Jobs announced Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi during a low key “fun new products” keynote address on February 28, 2006. The forty-minute keynote, which introduced the intel Mac mini, the iPod Leather Case, and the iPod Hi-Fi, positioned Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi as trying to take on the home speaker market. Steve’s two main contrasts were that on the one hand, most iPod speakers don’t offer home stereo quality, and those that do are prohibitively expensive. The iPod Hi-Fi, Steve argued, provided an audio quality that was “absolutely competitive” to these top-tier home stereos, but priced into the “iPod economy space” at $349.
Design
iLounge’s review of the iPod Hi-Fi described the design as “austere,” and I would agree that this is a very apt description of the device. The Hi-Fi is a solid 6.6kg block of dense white plastic (polycarbonate acrylonitrile butadiene styrene for the technical folks out there), measuring 43cm wide x 17.5cm deep x 16.7cm tall. The device also featured two moulded plastic handles on either side of the unit. At the front of the speaker was a detachable front grille that hid two 80mm mid-range drivers, a 130mm woofer, and an IR receiver. The top of the product has capacitive touch volume buttons and a 30-pin connector for docking your iPod into and included a range of adapters to fit the iPod model you were docking into the speaker. The back of the Hi-Fi included a universal power input, one aux port, and one of the most beautifully designed battery compartments into which you could insert six D-cell batteries, which cost 10$/half-dozen and added over a 1kg to the weight of the product.
Sound
Apple came out punching above its weight class when it claimed to offer audiophile sound quality at an “iPod economy” price point. Did it deliver? I can’t credibly speak to the nuances of assessing sound quality, so I’ll borrow [Wes Phillips’ description] of the Hi-Fi’s sound from Stereophile.com:
“the Hi-Fi sounded robust and detailed, it was capable of playing really loud, and it did reveal the differences between so-so recordings and good ones. Like any high-end rig, it sounded fantastic with really well-recorded source material... The Hi-Fi has deeper bass, a far more articulate midrange, and nonscreechy highs.”
Other reviewers had more critical takes about the iPod Hi-Fi’s sound quality, including Andrew Kim from Minimally Minimal who described the Hi-Fi’s sound as:
“I would characterize the sound from the Hi-Fi as “muffled”. The Hi-Fi doesn’t sound terrible per-say, but it certainly doesn’t live up to its name. The biggest issue with the Hi-Fi is its claustrophobic treble and muddy mids. It’s possible to muster up a bit more clarity by changing the tonal settings to “treble boost” but this compromises the bass. Stereo separation is also difficult to define and I personally found the sound stage to be lacking.”
My take? Sounds good (this is precisely why I borrowed comments from other blogs). I’d use the word balanced because, in my experience, the bass or treble of any recording never came to feel too dominant. The Hi-Fi is a device that fills a room with sound well, rather than being a go-to device for personal listening. For people who appreciated music but were far from calling themselves audiophiles, the Hi-Fi introduced an elevated listening experience (even with our measly 128kbps audio files), to serve as a stepping stone to considering more prosumer audio systems.
554 Days
Despite being introduced into a thriving iPod marketplace, the Hi-Fi was discontinued after just over 1.5 years. Apple’s official statement on the discontinuation stated:
“Apple has decided to focus priorities on the iPod and iPhone and will not be making more iPod Hi-Fi units. There are over 4,000 accessories in the iPod ecosystem and hundreds of speakers systems designed specifically for the iPod, which provide customers with a wide variety of options.”
In the end, it seemed that the market that the iPod Hi-Fi was targeting wasn’t robust enough to support its continued existence. The Hi-Fi’s blocky design was intended to reduce vibration to improve sound quality but looked garish when compared to the smaller, sleeker designs of some other third-party speakers. A sticker price of $349 was more than many customers were used to spending on iPod-based home speakers, especially with speakers like the iHome selling at the sub-$150 price point. The idea of an iPod replacing your home stereo never really caught on (sorry, Steve!), and at some point on September 05, 2007, the iPod Hi-Fi disappeared off Apple’s online store without so much as a sound.
External Articles:
Apple Press Release: Apple Announces iPod Hi-Fi
YouTube: iPod Hi-Fi Introduction
iLounge’s Review: Apple Computer iPod Hi-Fi Speaker System
