Tuesday February 10, 2009
Wake up to a new tune
The Altec Lansing Moondance Home M302 is another good reason to get out of bed.
By CHONG JINN XIUNG
FOR some people, waking up early has to be one of the more challenging aspects of life.
That’s what alarm clocks are for but if you’re still having trouble getting up early in the morning, perhaps waking up to the tune of your favourite song will make it a little easier.
Altec Lansing’s solution to getting your day off to a great start is its Moondance Home M302 clock radio with an iPod dock.
But is the Moondance Home just a glorified alarm clock with an iPod dock or is it more than that? Read on to find out.
Design and functionality
The clock radio is sleek and boxy, and is slightly wider than an average radio clock, and will look great in any home.
It also looks more plain and light on features compared with its larger cousin, the Moondance Glow.
Understandably, these two models are targeted at different markets with the former more suited in a bedroom or a study area while the later is meant for an area like the living room.
The speaker is compatible with most new iPods with the exception of the iPod shuffle.
The only disadvantage in using an iPod touch with the radio clock is that the videos are displayed vertically on the player.
The main controls for the Moondance Home is conveniently housed on top of the radio clock.
CONVENIENT: You’ll find all the essential buttons are on top of the speaker. These buttons can set the time, select the source of the music, adjust the volume and put the radio clock in snooze mode when the alarm goes off.
It is interesting that the Moondance Home has an option for two alarms, an excellent feature for those of us who simply can’t force ourselves out of bed.
The front panel is mostly made up of the speaker grille while the sole LCD screen shows the time, date and source of your music be it from a radio station, your iPod or another MP3 player connected via an 3.5mm jack located at the rear of the speaker.
Also, included in the package is a wireless remote that allows you to select songs, change the volume, adjust the time and alarm, and even set the Moondance Home to snooze if you are too lazy to walk over.
However, I found the overall interface for the clock radio quite limiting as it lacks full iPod navigation.
You don’t have a great deal of control over the iPod and you can only play, skip and pause a track.
My biggest gripe with the remote is that it is quite troublesome to select songs from different playlists on your iPod as you’ll need to do it on the player itself.
Sound quality
We tested a number of songs to find out how good the speakers held up against a variety of different music genres.
To be honest, we had low expectations because it had only a pair of stereo speakers and lacked a subwoofer.
Still, we were surprised at the clarity of the music produced by the radio clock, as it sounded good even with the volume turned all the way up.
For the most part, the speakers sounded decent when playing purely instrumental songs.
We also tried a couple of songs with powerful vocals such as Lenny Kravitz’s Are you Gonna go My Way?
The guitar-heavy rock song sounded pretty good on the speakers which could only mean that it is capable of handling different range of sounds.
The one factor that stopped us from enjoying the Moondance Home was the lack of any bass, which made most songs sound pretty flat.
However, the music became muddy once we played a song with four or more instruments playing concurrently.
Heavy rock songs with fast guitar rifts and a crooning vocalist sounded really bad as the music started to break up because it couldn’t simulate the full range of instruments.
On the up side, however, the radio clock does a decent job of playing audio and video podcasts.
So if you are not particularly fussy about the sound quality of your podcasts, the Moondance Home is a pretty decent radio clock.
Conclusion
Despite the flaws plaguing Altec Lansing Moondance Home M302, it’s still a good radio clock with an iPod dock that performs well and looks great.
While it may not be up there in terms of sound quality, it still functions well and its dual alarm function is bound to get any sleepy head off the bed.
It would have been great if the wireless remote offered better control over the iPod and the clock radio had more bass to put some “oomph” to the music.
All in all, the Moondance Home is still a decent clock radio for hooking up an iPod and it’s great to wake up to your favourite tunes.
Pros: Compact design; decent speakers; dual alarm mode.
Cons: Lacks bass; wireless remote offers limited control of iPod.
Moondance Home M302
(Altec Lansing)
Clock radio with iPod dock
Input: 3.5mm audio input
Additional feature: Wireless remote control
Dimensions (W X D X H) : 28 x 5.9 x 9cm
Price: RM475
Review unit courtesy of Ban Leong Technologies Sdn Bhd, (03) 7956-6300.
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