Even as a munchkin bolting around on my grandparent’s farm, weeds licking at my calves, my life had its own soundtrack. That the sound came from the single anemic speaker of a heavy, D-cell burdened cassette-radio that loved to lunch on my Queen’s Greatest Hits tape didn’t matter — there was music in the grass, floating through the dust, on my shoes. It was awesome.
Flash forward to our MP3-laden, music-streaming days of wonder where, unexpectedly, Philips’ powerful, Bluetooth-equipped Fidelio DS8550 triggered that same feeling in me — which is pretty impressive, considering my expectations have evolved far, far beyond tinny speakers and misbehaving machinery. In fact, Philips has stuffed so much sound and so many clever features into the DS8550, it’s become my go-to gadget in a way that maybe no other sound accessory has before.
At $300, Philips is squaring off this particular Fidelio — which slots in just behind their top-of-the-line, $500 DS9000 — in the most fiercely competitive class of docks, against the likes of Bowers & Wilkins’ Zeppelin Mini and the Bose SoundDock Series II. Visually, it distinguishes itself from the pack. It looks a bit like a Tylenol capsule cut lengthways — in a good, clean, sharply dressed way. But while it’s certainly no vagabond, the Fidelio’s materials and finish don’t have quite the same feel of quality as some of it’s competitors.
Sound is impressively big and meaty; this dock is really a boombox in disguise. Bottom-end from the two down-firing bassports easily fills a large room with palpable lows and warm mids. While the highs are not quite as clear as some other docks in this range, they’re still sharp; there’s a slight dullness at the top end that’s really only noticeable when listening to passages exclusively composed of treble — and even then, it’s slight. Overall, the DS8550’s sound is dense, warm and colorful.
That warmth makes it perfect for a party, or outdoor use. I actually felt myself wanting to take the dock everywhere I went: onto the deck by the pool, out to the park, off to the fetch the mail — easy impulses to indulge due to the dock’s generous hidden handle and simple form-factor. Unplugged, the dock lasted a marathon eight hours on battery power, even with the volume cranked. It’ll even charge the docked device while the dock is running on battery power.
The DS8850 has to be one of the most flexible, accommodating docks in existence: of course it’ll dock an iPhone or iPod, but it’ll also accommodate an iPad. better yet, you can connect any of these via Bluetooth. Music streamed sounded almost as good as music played from a docked device; I had a hard time telling the difference. Bluetooth streaming also doesn’t seem to drain the battery much faster — testing resulted in about six hours instead of eight with Bluetooth on. A tri-colored LED indicator light on the front indicates remaining battery power. The dock is also cleverly equipped with a hinged, springloaded connector that’ll accommodate an iPhone with even moderately bulky cases (it’ll balk at something the thickness of, say, an Otterbox though).
Finally, the free Fidelio app provides some cool little app-enhanced functions for the dock: a clock, (hardly useful), a more precise battery indicator (not bad), a sleep timer (better) and a fully customizable, five-band equalizer with a dynamic bass switch (bingo).
Here’s the only real caveat: the unit’s remote needs some serious work. Range and activation angle are both very limited, and printing on the buttons is difficult to see under most conditions. Worst of all, the skip backward button on our test unit’s remote failed to work from unboxing. It was probably a fluke; still, that’s the first remote we’ve come across that shipped in a faulty state.
Even with its remote issues, the DS8550 is a stellar performer; a fantastic sounding, performance-oriented dock with features that clearly raise it above others in its class.
[xrr rating=90%]
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.
3 responses to “Philips’ Fidelio DS8550 Bluetooth iPad/iPhone Dock: The New Digital Boombox Champ [Review]”
What’s been your experience with this dock and bluetooth?
We have the dock here in our apartment – a small 50 sq/meters and it can’t seem to keep a steady bluetooth connection from the sofa in direct line of sight with the doc less than a meter away. Forget about streaming from the office which is 3 meters away and around a corner. This is true with 2 different iphones and 2 different macbook pros.
To be fair I have had poor performance with all Apple products and audio devices. I have had many different mono and stereo headsets, many different iphones and many different macs. They all have one thing in comment – AUDIO over bluetooth is mostly useless. Each of those bluetooth devices have worked perfectly with windows and/or Android. So I have been blaming Apple for this.
But this really has me wondering. Am I the only person who has issues with Apple and bluetooth? Problems like audio cutting in and out during music playback? I’ll skip the bluetooth mic issues for now since I am more concerned with getting good audio out of my Fidelio – which leaves me using it solely as a dock with amazing audio.