- Works with iPhone & Made for iPod
- Integrated iPod dock with video output charges your iPod or iPhone
- Precision AM/FM stereo tuner
- Dual high performance 3˝-inch full-range speakers
- BassTrac audio processing for clean bass at all listening levels
Product Features |
Product Specifications
Brand NameBoston Acoustics
Color Namewhite
Product Details
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Product Description
The Duo-I Plus is an iPhone/iPod Dock with AM/FM Stereo Radio and Clock Functions. Option 1: listen to your favorite music and playlists while you charge your iPhone/iPod. Option 2: enjoy noise-free reception of even distant radio stations. The versatile Duo-i plus offers big-system sound that fits virtually anywhere — your family room, kitchen, office, or all of these and more. With dual alarms and Boston’s 360˚ S-n-o-o-o-o-o-z-e Bar, Duo-i plus also makes a great bedside radio — and you can be sure of waking up to the music that gets you going. The unique shape of Duo-i plus is one key to its exceptional performance. Left and right full-range speakers are isolated from each other in separate acoustic chambers for rich, distinct stereo sound. Another key is proprietary BassTrac audio processing for clean bass at all listening levels. The two technologies work together to deliver stunningly realistic reproduction of your favorite music — in any genre, anywhere.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
53 of 56 people found the following review helpful
By EasyTiger
I bought the Duo-i because I needed something for my bedroom that served three purposes: a radio for general listening, a quality iPod player, and a set of good-sounding, external speakers for my 19" TV.
Positives:
The radio produces surprisingly booming lows for its size, and exceptionally detailed high end. The clarity of the speakers is stunning. The radio can easily fill a room with sound. Besides an iPod dock on the top, the radio offers two auxiliary inputs for flexibility. I use the rear aux RCA inputs for my bedroom TV, and the front aux 1/8" input will come in handy if I ever want to run my other MP3 players through the radio. The auto-dimming display is a novel touch, too.
The BIIIIIG negative:
The radio has booming lows and very clear high end, but there's not nearly enough in between. Apparently Boston Acoustics tried too hard to give this radio a big sound, and, in the process, forgot that a radio this size still needs a natural midrange presence. The radio seems to lack terribly in the 600Hz-3kHz range. Music is reshaped to sound like it is being run through a smiley-faced graphic equalizer. And to top it off, there's no mid-range level control.
As a result of this deficiency, all music, whether from your iPod or FM radio, is affected. The average person on the street probably wouldn't notice, but a discerning listener (like me... an audio engineer by trade) would notice. If you listen to pop, rock, dance, R&B, modern country, etc. then it may not be such a big deal. But of you listen to jazz, big band, classical, ethnic, etc., then you will miss the warmth this radio cannot provide.
Weak midrange means that dialog in television/movie audio lacks clarity. In order to get acceptable sound when running my TV's audio through the Duo-i, I have to leave my TV's cheesy, little, internal speakers turned on. They compensate by providing some of the desired mid frequencies that the Duo-i lacks.
But the biggest victim, believe it or not, is AM radio. It's rendered absolutely useless. The Duo-i simply doesn't possess any of the midrange frequencies in the AM radio bandwidth. As a result, talk show hosts' voices are nothing but boomy and muffled, even with the treble all the way up and the bass all the way down.
The low end is too loud relative to the rest of the radio's sound, so I experimented by loosely plugging the rear bass ports with my fingers. The bass response suddenly tightened up and became more natural-sounding. So my radio's bass ports are now permanently corked. (I even wrote to Boston Acoustics and suggested they begin shipping their radios with a couple different sets of "port corks" for discerning listeners.)
Summary:
If you always listen to your stereo with a smiley-faced graphic EQ, and you're one of those people who can never get enough bass, you'll probably love this radio. But, if you're a discerning listener who prefers a more natural frequency response and/or listens to AM radio, the Duo-i is NOT the radio for you.
Positives:
The radio produces surprisingly booming lows for its size, and exceptionally detailed high end. The clarity of the speakers is stunning. The radio can easily fill a room with sound. Besides an iPod dock on the top, the radio offers two auxiliary inputs for flexibility. I use the rear aux RCA inputs for my bedroom TV, and the front aux 1/8" input will come in handy if I ever want to run my other MP3 players through the radio. The auto-dimming display is a novel touch, too.
The BIIIIIG negative:
The radio has booming lows and very clear high end, but there's not nearly enough in between. Apparently Boston Acoustics tried too hard to give this radio a big sound, and, in the process, forgot that a radio this size still needs a natural midrange presence. The radio seems to lack terribly in the 600Hz-3kHz range. Music is reshaped to sound like it is being run through a smiley-faced graphic equalizer. And to top it off, there's no mid-range level control.
As a result of this deficiency, all music, whether from your iPod or FM radio, is affected. The average person on the street probably wouldn't notice, but a discerning listener (like me... an audio engineer by trade) would notice. If you listen to pop, rock, dance, R&B, modern country, etc. then it may not be such a big deal. But of you listen to jazz, big band, classical, ethnic, etc., then you will miss the warmth this radio cannot provide.
Weak midrange means that dialog in television/movie audio lacks clarity. In order to get acceptable sound when running my TV's audio through the Duo-i, I have to leave my TV's cheesy, little, internal speakers turned on. They compensate by providing some of the desired mid frequencies that the Duo-i lacks.
But the biggest victim, believe it or not, is AM radio. It's rendered absolutely useless. The Duo-i simply doesn't possess any of the midrange frequencies in the AM radio bandwidth. As a result, talk show hosts' voices are nothing but boomy and muffled, even with the treble all the way up and the bass all the way down.
The low end is too loud relative to the rest of the radio's sound, so I experimented by loosely plugging the rear bass ports with my fingers. The bass response suddenly tightened up and became more natural-sounding. So my radio's bass ports are now permanently corked. (I even wrote to Boston Acoustics and suggested they begin shipping their radios with a couple different sets of "port corks" for discerning listeners.)
Summary:
If you always listen to your stereo with a smiley-faced graphic EQ, and you're one of those people who can never get enough bass, you'll probably love this radio. But, if you're a discerning listener who prefers a more natural frequency response and/or listens to AM radio, the Duo-i is NOT the radio for you.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By Brett R
Amazon Verified Purchase
I recently purchased this product for use with my iPhone 3GS. The sound quality is superb, rivaling that of Bose systems. The alarm clock feature works brilliantly and the remote is the icing on the cake. I really enjoy the touch-sensor 360 Snooze Bar, an intuitive design that keeps you from smacking the dock when you want to snooze. There is even a plug-in slot on the back for a sub woofer upgrade, just in case the bass isn't enough for you. Oh, and did I mention? The display automatically dims according to the lighting in your room, and you can adjust the overall brightness to suit your liking in the dark. Genius! If you want a nice dock for your iPod/iPhone with second-to-none sound quality, the functionality of an alarm clock, and state-of-the-art features, then I strongly recommend this product!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
My first impression of the Duo-I Plus surprised me -- it's impressively well-built, with a beautiful gloss finish, solid weight, stable rubber feet, and smooth rubberized knobs that don't wiggle (unlike a lot of competitor's clock radios). There is a nice long power cord with no "wall wart" power supply to deal with. It comes with a thin remote control, an FM antenna, a decent manual, and an assortment of iPod/iPhone dock adapters. The overall design is very well laid-out, with a recessed area on top to store the remote (in front of the ipod dock), plus a magnet on the back of the remote which allows you to stick it to the speaker grill. You can even special-order new grills in designer colors to match your decor. Even without the designer grills, it blends in very nicely in a bedroom or kitchen.
The first thing I did after unpacking the Duo-I Plus was to test it out in my living room with the iPod docked. The sound is truly remarkable for such a small stereo. Nice full bass and crisp highs. As some other reviewers have noted, there is not a whole lot of mid-range but the overall sound is still very balanced and natural. When I plugged in the FM antenna wire and tried the radio, I was surprised by the clarity of reception I got. Another nice touch for radio listeners is that the antenna jack can accept a coaxial TV cable for even better reception. There is also a wire clip for an AM antenna, though I don't listen to AM radio. On the front panel, there is an 1/8-inch auxiliary input and an 1/8-inch headphone jack; on the back, there is a stereo RCA second auxiliary input, a stereo RCA subwoofer output, and a single RCA video output. Pretty flexible for a clock radio!
Aside from five small radio station preset buttons and two small buttons for setting the alarms, all the stereo's functions are controlled using three digital rotary knobs; these knobs can also be pressed like a button to make selections. The largest knob in the middle turns the power on or off with a single press and controls the volume. The small mode knob on the left selects the input, as well as other functions: iPod, FM radio 1 (presets 1-5), FM radio 2 (presets 6-10), AM radio, Auxiliary 1 (front input), Auxiliary 2 (rear input), brightness, info, sleep, bass, treble, alarm 1 set, clock set, alarm 2 set; depressing the same mode knob will also cycle through all the available inputs. The small tuning knob on the right tunes the radio, changes mode values (brightness/info/sleep/bass/treble/alarm time/clock time), and skips ipod tracks backward or forward. The ability to skip iPod tracks with the tuning knob is wonderful, since it is often inconvenient to wake an iPod Touch or iPhone when it is docked. The remote control can skip tracks as well.
The small alarm buttons provide a quick way to change alarm settings without having to use the mode knob to select from a lengthy menu; there is a separate button for both alarm 1 and 2 -- a single press sets the respective alarm to alarm mode, music mode, or off; hold the button down and you can change the respective alarm times backward or forward using the rotary controller directly below it. Changing alarm times has never been easier! Unfortunately, you can only wake to whatever music and volume level was last playing. This is a serious oversight on the part of Boston Acoustics' design team. Like many people, I go to bed with relaxing music but like to wake up to something more energetic. This is not possible with the Duo-I Plus. The alarm sound fades in after a few seconds, which is nice. I also love the snooze bar -- just touch anywhere on the metal outer rim of the radio to sleep another ten minutes; hit the snooze bar repeatedly and it adds increments of five minutes to your snooze. I have not experienced any of the bugs with the snooze bar that other reviewers have reported.
The backlit display is probably the weakest part of the design of the Duo-I Plus. I wish Boston Acoustics had chosen a color besides cool-blue. Many reviewers found the display too bright even at the lowest dimmed setting. There is however a fix for this that is not mentioned in the owner's manual. If you unplug the unit and plug it back in while holding down the alarm 2 button, you can adjust the dimming sensitivity using the tuning knob. This allows you to turn the display completely off if you wish. The down side to this is that it makes it difficult to make selections using the mode knob because you can't see what you're controlling. The auto-dimming sensor, while wonderful for sleeping, only makes this problem worse. I still have not found a happy-medium that is dim enough for sleeping yet bright enough to control easily.
The other controls are fairly self-explanatory: info mode chooses what to display when the unit is idle; sleep mode activates a sleep timer in five minute increments up to 90 minutes; bass and treble EQ's the sound, plus or minus 7 steps. It's unfortunate that there is no midrange control since the midrange could really use a boost, but overall the controls are very usable. I have to say that, while I love the concept of the simple three-dial face, in practice it is a bit cumbersome to use. There are simply too many menu items, which makes navigating through them tedious. Setting the alarms, on the other hand, couldn't be any easier.
I have to say that despite a couple nit-picks, the design team at Boston Acoustics got <almost> everything right. I absolutely love my Duo-I Plus. Unfortunately, I ended up sending it back. Why? The unit I bought was used, probably an older model, and it would play but not charge my 4th generation iPod Touch. I doubt those who buy new units will experience that problem. In any event, if you're looking for the perfect clock radio, you will not be disappointed with the Duo-I Plus.
UPDATE: After sending my unit away for repairs, it now charges my 4th Gen. iPod Touch without any problems. Unfortunately, now the snooze bar doesn't work right. Sometimes, the snooze bar doesn't respond at all when I touch it; other times, it "snoozes" itself, incrementing all the way up to an hour for no reason at all. As a result, I don't trust the alarm to get me out of bed on time. Other comments after owning this for six months... The knob controls are the most annoying part of the interface. Trying to set the sleep timer function takes several precise knob turns, and if you miss the "sleep" setting (which is easy to do in dim lighting) you end up changing the input (FM/AM/aux) inadvertently. Very annoying when you do this every single night! Also, some users have complained of a low humming when the unit is on with no music playing, and I have noticed this as well. Overall, I really wanted to like this clock radio because of the sound quality, but for day-to-day use, it really falls short.
The first thing I did after unpacking the Duo-I Plus was to test it out in my living room with the iPod docked. The sound is truly remarkable for such a small stereo. Nice full bass and crisp highs. As some other reviewers have noted, there is not a whole lot of mid-range but the overall sound is still very balanced and natural. When I plugged in the FM antenna wire and tried the radio, I was surprised by the clarity of reception I got. Another nice touch for radio listeners is that the antenna jack can accept a coaxial TV cable for even better reception. There is also a wire clip for an AM antenna, though I don't listen to AM radio. On the front panel, there is an 1/8-inch auxiliary input and an 1/8-inch headphone jack; on the back, there is a stereo RCA second auxiliary input, a stereo RCA subwoofer output, and a single RCA video output. Pretty flexible for a clock radio!
Aside from five small radio station preset buttons and two small buttons for setting the alarms, all the stereo's functions are controlled using three digital rotary knobs; these knobs can also be pressed like a button to make selections. The largest knob in the middle turns the power on or off with a single press and controls the volume. The small mode knob on the left selects the input, as well as other functions: iPod, FM radio 1 (presets 1-5), FM radio 2 (presets 6-10), AM radio, Auxiliary 1 (front input), Auxiliary 2 (rear input), brightness, info, sleep, bass, treble, alarm 1 set, clock set, alarm 2 set; depressing the same mode knob will also cycle through all the available inputs. The small tuning knob on the right tunes the radio, changes mode values (brightness/info/sleep/bass/treble/alarm time/clock time), and skips ipod tracks backward or forward. The ability to skip iPod tracks with the tuning knob is wonderful, since it is often inconvenient to wake an iPod Touch or iPhone when it is docked. The remote control can skip tracks as well.
The small alarm buttons provide a quick way to change alarm settings without having to use the mode knob to select from a lengthy menu; there is a separate button for both alarm 1 and 2 -- a single press sets the respective alarm to alarm mode, music mode, or off; hold the button down and you can change the respective alarm times backward or forward using the rotary controller directly below it. Changing alarm times has never been easier! Unfortunately, you can only wake to whatever music and volume level was last playing. This is a serious oversight on the part of Boston Acoustics' design team. Like many people, I go to bed with relaxing music but like to wake up to something more energetic. This is not possible with the Duo-I Plus. The alarm sound fades in after a few seconds, which is nice. I also love the snooze bar -- just touch anywhere on the metal outer rim of the radio to sleep another ten minutes; hit the snooze bar repeatedly and it adds increments of five minutes to your snooze. I have not experienced any of the bugs with the snooze bar that other reviewers have reported.
The backlit display is probably the weakest part of the design of the Duo-I Plus. I wish Boston Acoustics had chosen a color besides cool-blue. Many reviewers found the display too bright even at the lowest dimmed setting. There is however a fix for this that is not mentioned in the owner's manual. If you unplug the unit and plug it back in while holding down the alarm 2 button, you can adjust the dimming sensitivity using the tuning knob. This allows you to turn the display completely off if you wish. The down side to this is that it makes it difficult to make selections using the mode knob because you can't see what you're controlling. The auto-dimming sensor, while wonderful for sleeping, only makes this problem worse. I still have not found a happy-medium that is dim enough for sleeping yet bright enough to control easily.
The other controls are fairly self-explanatory: info mode chooses what to display when the unit is idle; sleep mode activates a sleep timer in five minute increments up to 90 minutes; bass and treble EQ's the sound, plus or minus 7 steps. It's unfortunate that there is no midrange control since the midrange could really use a boost, but overall the controls are very usable. I have to say that, while I love the concept of the simple three-dial face, in practice it is a bit cumbersome to use. There are simply too many menu items, which makes navigating through them tedious. Setting the alarms, on the other hand, couldn't be any easier.
I have to say that despite a couple nit-picks, the design team at Boston Acoustics got <almost> everything right. I absolutely love my Duo-I Plus. Unfortunately, I ended up sending it back. Why? The unit I bought was used, probably an older model, and it would play but not charge my 4th generation iPod Touch. I doubt those who buy new units will experience that problem. In any event, if you're looking for the perfect clock radio, you will not be disappointed with the Duo-I Plus.
UPDATE: After sending my unit away for repairs, it now charges my 4th Gen. iPod Touch without any problems. Unfortunately, now the snooze bar doesn't work right. Sometimes, the snooze bar doesn't respond at all when I touch it; other times, it "snoozes" itself, incrementing all the way up to an hour for no reason at all. As a result, I don't trust the alarm to get me out of bed on time. Other comments after owning this for six months... The knob controls are the most annoying part of the interface. Trying to set the sleep timer function takes several precise knob turns, and if you miss the "sleep" setting (which is easy to do in dim lighting) you end up changing the input (FM/AM/aux) inadvertently. Very annoying when you do this every single night! Also, some users have complained of a low humming when the unit is on with no music playing, and I have noticed this as well. Overall, I really wanted to like this clock radio because of the sound quality, but for day-to-day use, it really falls short.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Do Not Buy This Product...
The Good
Sound quality is very good once you turn it up loud enough to mask the buzzing noise.
The Bad
1) With your alarm, you have to wake up to the last... Read more
Sound quality is very good once you turn it up loud enough to mask the buzzing noise.
The Bad
1) With your alarm, you have to wake up to the last... Read more
Published 22 days ago by Glenn Honiball
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horrible Product
My husband gave me this for Christmas. When I finally had time to set it up, the snooze did not work. It would go from 10 to 60 minutes. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Katie Dale
1.0 out of 5 stars
Run from the Dim Blue display and poor quality
The sound is good and the unit apperance is nice. Thats about it, the sleep function quit working some of the time. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ken Shaw
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good sound, decent reception, flaky features
I own a prior version of this radio without the iPod player, so I make no comment about that. But I have owned the radio for several years and have had some problems which I'll... Read more
Published 3 months ago by pnc
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, Solid Audio
For the price, this unit produces high end sound. I've had this system for a few years now and have found good use between the kitchen counter and my bedroom dresser. Read more
Published 4 months ago by M. Massaro
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Sound, needs more features
I purchased this as an alternative to a $500 Bose. It looks good and has very good sound quality but is only adaptable to iphones or ipods. Read more
Published 12 months ago by capewkend
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sounds better than the previous Bose Wave Clock Radio
Nice sound that is better than my previous Bose Wave radio that lasted over ten years. The Bose was boomy in the bass where the Boston Duo seems more balanced. Read more
Published 18 months ago by SC430 Pilot
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great sound - weak tuner
We purchased the Boston Acoustics radio for our kitchen when our Cambridge Soundworks radio died. The sound is wonderful but the tuner is much weaker than the Cambridge. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Lucille A. Parnes
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly Versatile
I bought this clock radio for myself. I am really enjoying the big sound that you get from this little beauty. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Lumen5
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good small radio
This is a good sounding small radio that will work well in a smaller area such as the cabin of a small boat. Read more
Published 21 months ago by T. Trimmer
