On our desk this week - 6

Acoustic Authority iRhythms A-303 speakers

With the recent announcement of the iPod HiFi, you might be forgiven for thinking that it was Game Over for third party manufacturers. Not so: the official Apple product is not only very expensive (US$349), but our initial testing has found it really lacking in sound quality, with audio being heavily dominated by the midrange and reliant on synthetic graphic equaliser settings to get anything near to acceptable.

Enter Acoustic Authority: its iRhythms A-303 speakers claim to offer the best sound quality for the price of any of the iPod dock/speaker combos. Of course, the thing about iPod accessories is that not only do they have to work well, they have to look good too. These speakers are available in either black or white, to match whichever colour your iPod is.

Along with the speakers, you get a remote control (which can control the volume and track) and some plastic dock inserts which allow you to connect up all the various size of iPods, including the Mini, Shuffle, Nano and all the generations of the large iPod.

It's nice and curvy, and functionally, it works exactly as you'd expect. But, the crucial question is, how does it sound?

It is undoubtedly the best iPod speaker set that we've had a chance to listen to. We've got three or four different sets in the office here, and this blew them all away - and for less money than most of the others, too.

This speaker set isn't what you'd call bassy. We've noticed that one characteristic of cheap speakers is that they increase the low end to provider a warmer sound, one that masks the lack of clarity in the mid-range. This isn't the case here: the sound is well balanced. There is plenty of punch at the high-end, and also mid-range clarity.

We also find that many cheap sets sound better as they get louder and more current is fed into the components, whereas they lose quality at low volumes. Here, we actually found the reverse is true, which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. Cranking up the volume a lot caused us to hit the limits of what the set was capable of, but the speakers sounded better at lower and more average volumes.

One of the things we noticed was that these iRhythms really show up the limits of the iPod itself. It's not got the best audio components and whilst it isn't bad, it certainly isn't great. Standard compression in MP3s also really shows up on this device if you listen carefully. We found the sound quality an order of magnitude better listening to lossless AAC music rather than 192K MP3. We also found sound quality really improved when we hooked up a Sony ATRAC player to the AUX input of the speakers (yes, we know that's like heresy...)

All in all, these are great speakers that look stylish, sound very good and come in at a decent price. If you're looking for a set of speakers for your iPod, whether its for the kitchen, your bedroom or even your living room, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend these above all competitors.

Name: Acoustic Authority iRhythm A-303speakers
Buy it from: Scan at the end of March
Cost: £125
Verdict: Brilliant sound quality, iPod-class looks, great price.