dragoon101's Full Review: Kensington Stereo Dock (33164) Docking Station for...
This review is for the Kensington Stereo Dock (owned by ACCO Brands). This unit has since been updated with a more recent model called the Entertainment Dock 500. That version now allows you to output video from your iPod and provides a remote that uses RF technology rather than IR.
Included
This unit comes with the following:
- Dock
- Remote control
- Stereo cable (1/8" male to 2-RCA Stereo)
- Power adapter
Great Solution for Work / Home
If you are looking for a simple iPod dock that allows you to listen to your iPod through your home entertainment system, shelf system, or other existing system, this is a great choice. I personally don't use my iPod for any video purposes and even if I did, I don't know that watching them on my TV would be all that important to me. I have 2 of these docks: one in my office at work and one in my home. This allows me to just grab my iPod and go without fiddling with cables and things.
Dock
There really isn't much to it. The base unit has an IR receiver on the front and a place to put rest your iPod. The dock's iPod connecting port is simply a large recess that appears to accommodate all iPods that have a dock connector port. It does not come with individual brackets to size the port down to your specific iPod model. Frankly, I'm not sure that is really necessary in the first place.
When the dock is powered (plugged into the wall), the Kensington logo lights up to tell you it is active and powered. I'm not sure that this is really necessary 100% of the time. It really only should be lit-up when the iPod is connected.
My iPod Video fits relatively snugly in the dock and it rests against the metal backrest which has a pair of rubber/plastic loops attached to it to avoid scratching the back of your iPod. That same metal backrest is formed to hold the remote control when not in use.
Remote Control
The remote is relatively small and has 5 depressible buttons on it:
1. (Back Track) (Hold for rewind)
2. (Skip track) (Hold for fast forward)
3. (Play/Pause)
4. (Volume Up)
5. (Volume Down)
While these buttons are useful, it could benefit by having a MENU button somewhere. The remote almost assumes you are using a playlist because there is no way to go back to the menu. On the other hand, it makes sense to not have a menu button because there's no display on the remote so you won't have any idea which menu you are navigating to. But, the lack of a display is yet another con.
The remote is also backlight when the buttons are depressed, which is a nice touch.
Sound Quality
Well, this is really all that matters, right? The sound quality is fairly decent from the dock. I didn't notice that the sound quality was any better than if I had used a 1/8" to RCA converter cable though.
The one very big point I need to make about this is that the volume level is very low. The volume dial on the iPod is disabled the minute you plug your iPod into the dock. But, the remote control's volume controls do work. Yet, even at the highest volume level, the volume level is very low. The reason why this makes a difference is because when you switch sources, the other sources are drastically louder and will either blow your speakers or scare the #$(Q out of you. For example, on my shelf system, with the iPod volume all the way up, I listen to the iPod/dock at around -34 db. By comparison, when I switch to CD's on the shelf system, the same relative volume level is achieved by setting the system's volume to -48db. I don't know how accurate that is, but that's about a 14db difference.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.