I dont get why they dont sell this anymore. I brought it to a cabin weekend with my new class and it was such a hit. There of course wasnt a proper sound system in the remotely located cabin so this became our source of music for hanging out, playing cards, getting drunk and partying. It was a funny sight seeing 5-6 ipods lying on top of it at all times, of course everybody wanted to hear their own music from their own ipod.
one of the most underrated apple products ever, mine still works fine after all those years. Compared to the overpriced crap they sell nowadays it was a bargain
i have had that thing for about 4 years and the sound quality still amazing !! I'm glad i bought one of those things when they first came out ..!! they are around 1000 now on ebay !!
@Dgloo: True, I own a Zeppelin too and I do agree, I still think the Hi-Fi can hold it's own, even today. The build quality is unmatched ( I've dropped mine, had beer split on it, etc. and it still sounds as good as the day I bought it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you see one of these for sale... GET IT!
@technicoloris If only you knew what Panasonic (the former Matsushita Electric corp., also famous for brands names like Technics) have done before the 90s. Those products blow the iPod Hifi and any new 5.1 surround sound crap things away.
Not really their thing is it??? People make things for their products, they don't have to.... Apple provide the revolutionary products, others provide the accessories...
@Sminman86 LOL Bullshit! I've heard the iPod HiFi, it's not bad, but it's certainly not the same as the Zeppelin, the zeppelin has five drivers: two midrange, two silk dome tweeters for crisp highs and a woofer in the center.
At the time it may have seemed pricey, but Apple products have always carried a premium price. In hindsight, it was really designed to compete and surpass the comparably price Bose Sound dock, not as a substitute for a proper dedicated sound system. The problem was largely marketing. Apple should have never made the claim it was an audiophile product. It is however an astonishing good one box speaker solution. The one major design flaw was its lack of dedicated tweeters, so the top end is a bit soft at times. To be fair, Bose has a similar sonic characteristic. The real highlight is the bass production, which is very clean, even at high volume. In a sense it was ahead of its time, and the public perception was Apple should have stuck with what they do best: computers and digital source products, and not dabble in speaker technology. In retrospect, a joint venture between Apple and a reputable speaker manufacturer would have been a smarter move. I still think it's a competitive product, as Bose has largely kept making the same unit (Sound dock) with minimal improvements. As everyone knows, it was largely abandoned after a year or so on the market.
Steve had enough faith in the iPod hifi that he replaced his entire stereo system with that. That's showing of the incredible amount of faith Apple puts into their products.
The iPod Hi-Fi is easily comparable to a Zeppelin Speaker System. I have one and it can truly fill a room with lush clean sound. The soundstage is amazing. If you see an iPod-Hi-Fi on eBay or Craigslist, get it! A great device and nice collector item.
This one is an "Special Event" out on the Apple Campus. The usual "woohoo"-events is MacWorld and WWDC in the Moscone Center in San Fransisco. On this event it's just journalists, and they don't scream for anything...
This thing is the amazing, I have not heard anything that matches the sound of this thing!! Even the monster dock was no match for thie 5-6 year old product! I have 3!
Probably could have sold more units if Steve demo'd it on stage live. I remember when it came out, I was still a small kid, but I was really impressed by the bass and quality at the time, compared to the stereo we had at our home.
I don't feel a live demo at an unveiling event would have helped that much in the grand scheme of things. The iPod Hi-Fi was simply in a really awkward market and product type segment. I'd hate to say it was doomed to fail as that sounds like exaggerating things, but it's not far off, I think. It sounded good (still does, I bought one recently at a thrift store for 50€), had cool sleek design, and good yet flawed iPod integration and UI (the remote, like on regular iPod docks, can't be used to navigate the iPod's menus, for instance), but failed at its core premise: who and what was it meant for? The introductory price of $349 wasn't _that_ much when it comes to audio gear, but was likely too much for the average iPod user who had already dropped around 200~300 bucks for an iPod. They likely went for the cheaper speaker docks or hooked up their iPods to the audio systems they already had. And the audiophile demographic probably just sneered at even the idea of replacing their existing systems with some single white box. Those audiophile people, if using iPods, probably already had iPod docks for their setups. And to be honest, while sounding good, the iPod Hi-Fi got nothing on a 'proper' speaker setup. On top of it, it was no portable speaker dock either, more like transportable. The option of powering it with D cells was basically just a backup in case you somehow ended up in a place with no mains power with your Hi-Fi. I can't imagine many people entertaining the idea of dragging the thing out to the park or beach. No moisture or dust protection, susceptible to scratches & dents, and large and heavy (7.6kg with batteries).
Wow! Most of the comments are very old. Some are even more than 12 years ago. Those who are reading this, I just wanna say that you are lucky to find this comment. And that person is YOU, YES YOU!!! Right now there are 0 likes, the one that reading this, make this comment have 1 like. You have the chance to change to change this and prove me wrong. Trust me, I know that there are 0 likes but I may be wrong.
Ebay!! wanted to buy this long time ago.didn't have money.and when i get the money they stopped making this.actually the apple dealers in my country (sri lanka) were out of stock.and then the apple stopped makin'..went usa for college. searched it in ebay and bought it.... excellent product... superb sound,, love it..!!!!!
I bought MY iPod from the APPLE STORE....IN 2006....a MONTH after the hifi came out and i didnt even no it existed......but the bose is 300 and and this was 350 with better sound built wit the manufacuturer and people didnt buy it...thats messed up
If Apple continues this product all they need to do is add built-in wifi and an audio processor so you could use iphones/ipod touches to remote control it and the audio processor for streaming music directly from your laptop.
This wasn't a bad effort to lead the public to higher quality sound. Not audiophile quality, not by a long shot. But higher than a public led away from quality by CDs and later dazzled by free downloads had grown used to. Folks didn't care. Quantity, not quality, matters to them. In the land of the burger, music is just a commodity to be stuffed in with everything else. And I'll bet Steve didn't ditch his audiophile home system, either. ;-)
