Product Reviews

Despite its pedigree in producing iPod accessories, Griffin is a relative newcomer to the world of speaker docks, so it is keen to make an impression with the Amplifi.

It certainly achieves that: this large wooden box looks unlike any other iPod speaker dock we've seen and has a reassuringly robust and weighty feel to it.

The iPod dock sits on top of the box and supports every iPod from third-generation to iPod touch with the exception of the shuffle. There's also a 3.5mm line-in port on the back, to which you can attach anything with a line-out or headphone

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jack. On the front a large volume knob has an electric blue LED around it and doubles as an on/off switch.

Inside the box are two front-firing 2in neodymium drivers and a 5in downward firing sub-woofer. Griffin says that the enclosure has been acoustically tuned and that this, together with the bass reflex port on the underside of the Amplifi, is supposed to give it warm, rich tones and 'amazing frequency response'.

Sadly our tests failed to back up this claim. To our ears the sound quality was no more than satisfactory, even for a unit as well-priced as this one. There was a reasonable level of bass and we're thankful Griffin didn't fall into the trap of punching up the bass excessively to mask other failings. There's decent treble too. However, there is a noticeable gap in the mid-range that leaves the impression that the audio is rather thin and empty - anything but the warm, rich tones that Griffin lays claim to.

The credit card-sized remote control is fine but like all of these systems, if you want to do more than change volume or skip tracks, you'll have to use the iPod controls.

All in all, could do better.