LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — In a world grown tired of identical iPod speaker systems, TDK has dared to think different.
Here at CES the company debuted three iPod boomboxes that dispense with the ubiquitous speaker dock in favor of a simple USB port at the back. That means the boomboxes are still iPod/iPhone compatible (via the standard USB cable), but aren’t dominated by a dock on top or up front.
So why dispense with the dock?
“The iPod really dictates the design,” explained TDK spokesman Tren Blankenship. “You have to put it front and center. Losing the iPod allowed us to make something nice and clean.”
They sure are nice and clean, featuring nothing but speakers, dials and small LCD panels on their austere black facias. They look great — big and heavy and very distinctive. True boomboxes. They are very well made.
The line features the massive $499 Three Speaker Boombox that’s capable of filling CES’ massive halls with sound. “We had it playing when we were setting up,” Blankenship said.”It filled 26,000-square-feet. We had it playing all day. It was crazy.”
There’s also a Two Speaker Boombox ($399) with a thick leather carrying strap that weighs about 20lbs; and a Sound Cube ($299) that’s the most portable system in the line. It’s rounded out by a pair of turntables, one with a USB port ($399) and one without ($299).
Plugging the iPod in via a cable actually makes it easier to control. It can be picked up and held in the user’s hand, rather than sitting at an awkward angle in a dock.
The USB port can also be used to play music off of flash drives or hard drives. There’s also a 1/4-inch instrument stereo input and RCA jacks.
The line was designed in conjunction with Portland-based design house Ziba.
Remember TDK, the ’80s tape manufacturer? It was famous for the awesome TV ad of Pete Murphy from Bauhaus getting his hair blown back while listening to Night on Bear Mountain on a badass stereo.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
8 responses to “TDK Debuts Awesome iPod Boomboxes Without Ubiquitous Docks [CES 2011]”
That was a Maxell ad you are referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…