Logitech Wireless Music System for iPod

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About a year ago, I first heard the notion of wirelessly broadcasting music from an iPod to an audio system, in essence turning the iPod itself into a remote control. This concept was a response to the various competing remote controls for iPod that never quite got beyond Play, Pause and the forward and backward skipping of tracks. Instead of devising some weird, wild way to recreate the iPod interface, a wireless music streamer simply uses it.

Like most good ideas, there’s more than one party competing. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a chance to test both the Belkin TuneStage and the Logitech Wireless Music System, and because of superior sound quality and future-looking design, Logitech comes out the hands-down winner.

The idea is straightforward: you connect an adapter to the top of the iPod, cue up a song, and it automatically beams the music to its receiver, which is connected to your sound system. Since it’s not sending audio over FM like those in-car transmitters but rather a 2.4GHz Bluetooth signal, it can maintain a nice full sound at distances up to 30 feet. You can hear a little bit of digital hiss at the high end, but only when you’re nearby—near enough to just plug your iPod directly into your stereo. This is for the times when you are, say, working in the kitchen. You want full control over your tunes but can’t be hovering around the living-room sound system playing DJ.

If you read my review of Logitech’s wireless headphones for iPod, you’ll notice that the adapters are nearly identical. In fact, if you already own the wireless headphone system, you can save $70 and just pick up a receiver for $80. After fiddling with a few buttons, you’ll be able to use it for your home stereo and your headphones. You can also put receivers in different parts of the house, so as you walk from room to room your music follows. Since the adapter itself consists of only a stereo plug, like the ones on typical headphones, it can be used with any iPod—including the Shuffle, the Nano and the new video-capable edition—and even with other audio sources like a portable CD player or some satellite radios.

Although its sound quality was noticeably inferior, Belkin’s TuneStage did get one thing right—it drew juice from the iPod’s own battery, so its streaming adapter was smaller and didn’t need to be charged. The Logitech adapter’s universality has a drawback: it has its own battery, which must be charged. You get around 8 hours of life per charge, though, and you can charge it while playing, so it’s not the kiss of death.

Products like this will make it easier to use your iPod in the home, and control it the way you want to. It’s hard to imagine going back to the simple Play/Pause remote control. Just remember to keep those chargers handy.