Customer Reviews

iHome iH80 Speaker System for iPod (Black)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I received one for a birthday present and was very disappointed. The sound is muffled and not at all what I would expect for the price, not even close. Maybe it sounds better with the companion, add-on speaker, but my advice...don't buy this without listening first.

I bought this for myself (from TJ Maxx, actually...) and It's actually pretty good! I wanted something that had good sound, that was loud enough to fill a good size room (20' x 20') and portable. I didn't need a clock. I paid a lot more at TJ (59.99), but the sound is pretty hearty, plenty of bass and treble, goes loud without distortion, and also goes very very quiet (good for baby's room). I have the 80g ipod classic.

I picked up this from amazon for $40. I was concerned about sound quality b/c some reviews noted it sounded muddled. But I really just wanted a deal and had a pretty limited purpose in mind (put in bathroom to use while getting ready in the morning/in the shower).

The truth is out of the box the sound is pretty bad. It sounds muddled like you put a pillow over it. Guitars, vocals, all just sounded, well, muffled. But luckily it allows you to adjust the bass and treble--by putting the treble up a few clicks I found the sound was a lot more clear. I also adusted my source audio equalizer to increase the high ranges and that helped too. After these adjustments, it actually sounds good. Like a normal speaker should. I wouldn't say the sound is super sharp or finely textured, but it's good enough. I don't know why it comes out of the box with such unusual settings.

The problem is that once you unplug the thing for a while the treble reverts back to the original settings. So now i keep the remote right on top to increase it every day (you can only adjust bass and treble by the remote). But for my limited purposes it's fine. It's small and cheap.

Overall, if you are in the market for a single mp3 speaker system for your home, I don't think this would be your choice.

I just got this home today and I am blown away. I currently have the standard iHome and a nano ipod. I wanted this for my classic ipod that is on the way. The sound is fantastic. If I didn't know better I would think it was Bose. I love the remote you don't have to touch the ipod. Cool backlit controls too. I do not know what the other person got maybe a defective one but mine is great. I highly recommend it. Charges the ipod and can work on batteries or AC. Cannot believe the deal either. The regular iHome was $99 and it is good. But $29.99 WOW!

Don't wait a minute longer this is a great deal. :)

I love this stereo. If you like surround sound this is not the item for you. It works well for a bedroom or a studio. The remote is small and you can adjust the treble and bass very easily so it sounds the way you like it. The nice thing is you can use it with any size ipod. This is a Great purchase for $30.

I was hesitant to order this based on the poor review, but the price was so excellent and the other reviewer liked it so I took a chance. The speaker works well and came with many pages of instructions and tips, but none were needed as it was pretty much a "plug and play" deal. The sound is what I was hoping for based on the wattage. I'm very glad I purchased it. If you're looking for Bose, buy Bose, but this is great for the money.

This speaker system is so compact, sleek, and has great base. I only paid $29.00 and my only regret is that I only purchased one. Now that I bought one, my friends and family want one too!!! Normally sold in stores for $90, finding this item on Amazon really saved me some money. The remote control is perfect for us lazy people who would rather have a million remotes then walk across the room to push a button. Another feature that is cool is that it is also a charging dock. My ipod is always dead because I forget to charge it but now I just put it on the iH80B when I get home and it is always ready for me. People are surprised that all that crystal clear music is coming from my little black speaker. It is a must for any ipod user and even though it is not a Bose sound system, I think my $29 couldn't have been spent better! Did I mention it is a no-brainer too, idiot proof!!!

I got this item when it went on special in the "Today's Deals" email. (which if you haven't subscribed to that, it is a MUST DO!) Because it was such an unbelievable deal, I couldn't pass it up. I put one on my desk at my office and one in a bedroom. I have an 80 GB iPod, 30 GB iPod, and an iPhone. They give you a small plastic piece to put around the plug to fit the different size iPods, but I have found that it is just as easy to leave that off. The plug is a nice snug fit. I use my iPhone in it the most. Right when I plug it in, if I was previously listening to a podcast, it will automatically turn on the machine and put me back to the place I left off last. It also automatically asks me (everytime I plug in my phone) if I would like to have my phone disabled during playback to prevent that annoying interference you get when a cell phone is too close to a speaker or radio. You still have the ability to scroll through your phone while playback is taking place. Also, the remote that comes with it works perfectly with all my gadgets. If you hit the MENU button it will bring up the list screen that allows you to choose video, music, podcast...and you use the arrow buttons to navigate, and then the ENTER button to select things. If you press the PLAY button it will automatically take you to the next song on your playlist, no matter what screen you are on. It took me a while to figure out why my music kept playing when I was scrolling through my podcasts, but it was because i kept pushing PLAY in the center instead of ENTER. the MUTE button works great, as does the PAUSE. When you hit the POWER button, it doesn't turn off my iPhone, it just turns the speaker off/on. The quality of sound is pretty good. I haven't cranked it up, but in an office environment, it is very loud, and the sound is great for my needs. I guess if you are trying to watch something in Dolby Digital Surround, this is NOT the item for you, but quite frankly, it sounds as good or better than most radios I hear. It is pretty compact, not so much in a portable sense, but it fits nicely on my desk and takes up little space. It is very light weight. Oh, and I also like that the remote also has a base and treble adjustment too. The buttons on the top of the speaker are lit in Blue and when you adjust the volume, it blinks so you know it is doing something. Also it blinks when you are muted. I don't know how it works with other brand name items, but it seems to work PERFECTLY with "iAnything!"

I was lucky enough to snag this as a gold box deal at around 30 dollars and I would probably even pay upwards of 50 dollars for it.

It has the capability of becoming much louder then one would expect from a speaker this size , about the size of a adult bowling ball. In my basement, with the speaker pumped up to practically the max I could still make out the music on the second floor of my frame house.

Granted it is primarily for docking an Ipod, you can use the wire that comes with it to hook up anything that has a headphone jack to feed its music into the speaker. If you were to do that then you lose some features of the remote mainly the ability to move around in your playlist.

Two things I didn't know before I purchased it were, there is a microphone jack in the back, so you can actually have a inexpensive but still fun portable karaoke machine. The other being you can buy a second speaker (not this same one) and attach it to this one. I spent a few minutes looking for the secondary speaker on Amazon but could not locate it, but I did find it on the ihome website.

Hope my review helped you in your purchase.

I wanted to use the iH80B not only as a charging station and speaker for my iPod, but also as the primary speaker system for my computer (via the included 3.5" aux in jack). It's compact and the attractive form factor make this a natural use for it. The problem is that this device was designed with portability in mind, and as a result it contains battery saving features that cannot be disabled.

For example, even when the unit is plugged into an AC adapter it will turn itself off after a short period if it does not receive any audio input. This is problematic for me because I have it connected to my computer as a speaker system. So every time I fire up iTunes or some other audio application, I have to manually turn the thing on.

The other problem is that the 3.5" jack has a sensor in it that is not very accurate. Audio will only be enabled when it detects an incoming signal, and that signal has to be fairly strong. Almost every time I need to listen to something from my computer, I have to go into the settings and turn up the sound just to get it to realize that it needs to enable audio out.

On the back of the unit there is a switch that allows you to turn off the remote to save power. So, why didn't they just have a switch for setting the thing to AC or DC? Or, better yet, make the thing automatically turn off the the power saving features when it was plugged into the adapter? It's a terrible design flaw.

All that being said, the sound is decent and if you intend to use it only as an iPod speaker, and you need portability, you may find the iH80B entirely adequate. I own two other iHome systems and I can never say enough good things about them. It's a shame that this one does not meet my expectations.