iHome iH6

I got an iHome iH6 from the Apple store in the North Park mall on Friday. I've used my iBook as an alarm clock for a while with the Aurora program to set wake-up times etc. The only problem have been, that the sound is awful from the tiny speakers in the iBook.

The alarm clock at the hotel is one of the usual am/fm clock radios that not only sound awful, but also has trouble tuning a channel. not that I've been able to find any channel I wanted to listen to, but theoretically I still wouldn't use it as a way to listen to music.

I've been thinking about getting a DAB radio, that can also play some of my own MP3s, but they seem oblivious to the technology over here, so that was out of the question. I considered a range of different brands and models, but given that there isn't any computer or hifi store within walking distance of either downtown or the DART rail system, I ended up in one of the only places I knew would have something I might want; The Apple store.

Having checked the selection from my hotel room, I'd settled on either the iHome iH6 ($99) or the Luna ($149) depending on their sound etc. I got to the store, and found both clock radios available for testing, and played around with the controls as well as the sound of various types of music. The design of the Luna is much better than that of the iH6, but from what I could tell, the sound was about the same. It was hard to tell, as there was a bit of background noise and other people trying out iPod speakers, but given that both systems are fairly small it would be limited how much sound they would be able to generate anyway.

Having gone back and fourth between the two models, I decided that I wouldn't pay the extra $50 just for the design, and picked up an iH6. At that point something dawned on me. I'll primarily be using the unit in the UK, so I had to make sure that the power brick would be able to handle both 120v and 230v. Unfortunately the guy at the store couldn't tell me if it would be able to handle 230v, and he even tried to look it up on the web. Apparently this isn't something they specify in the US - my guess is that it's due to their usual ignorance of an outside world...

Anyway, I bought the iH6 unit, having decided that I'll probably be able to find a US->UK transformer once I get back to the UK (I've found that they're about 5 quid on eBay). Unpacking the unit confirmed my suspicion, as I dug out a huge power brick which could only handle 120v.

Besides the problem with the power brick, and the strange fact that it can only switch between the three US time zones (come on! how hard can it be to put in all time zones!), the iH6 performs fairly good. The sound is okay, considered the size of the speakers, but it doesn't do something like Linkin Park justice. It's possible to set up two different alarms, but for some reason alarm 1 can only be either iPod or buzzer, and alarm 2 can only be radio!?!. It seems wrong that you can't set both alarms to use the iPod, and are forced to change alarm 1 for a weekend setting, and then back again for a weekday setting. I know it's probably a kind of luxury to be able to manage two different alarms, compared to a regular clock radio, but since they've put it in there, why not give the user a choice? All in all, it's a nice unit, and i use it quite a bit now; both as a clock radio and as iPod speakers. Now I just need some more music and audio books on my iPod. There really isn't enough to fill more than an hour or two.