Altec Lansing iMW725 inMotion Air Universal Wireless Speaker - Best mp3 speakers site, right here

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M. Erb (Syracuse, NY) –

  

  

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 8:09 Mins

This is an absolutely amazing speaker that just blows me away. I am completely enthralled with the capabilities that the speaker has. It is a wireless (or wired, your choice) speaker system with built-in, lithium-ion battery. It has a very pleasing sound quality coupled with a surprising amount of volume given the small size of the enclosure not to mention the light weight of the entire unit.

I absolutely love this speaker and will explain why.

I have been involved with music as a professional DJ since 1985. I listen to music incessantly. I’m always looking for less clutter in my life and with my equipment. To be able to have a speaker that is wireless is a big deal since it removes all the hassles that having wired connections involves. What’s brilliant about the design of this Altec Lansing inMotion speaker system is that it offers two types of wireless connectivity. Bluetooth and a USB transmitter dongle. Bluetooth wireless enables iPod, iPad, iPhone connectivity (or other compatible bluetooth devices to connect.) The other option, a USB transmitter dongle that can be plugged into any computer, laptop or desktop enables connectivity for non-bluetooth devices, or where you need greater range. But what good is a speaker if it doesn’t also sound great. This does sound great. It has a brightness and clarity this is very pleasing to my ears. Admittedly it is lacking in the bass area, but I found the sound to be balanced and the lack of “more” bass was not a negative for me.

Suddenly, I am able to have my iPhone play my music wirelessly using bluetooth to the Altec Lansing speaker. And since the speaker also has a built-in battery, I can take it anywhere. It’s not that big, only about 13 inches long, 4 inches high and 5 inches deep. It could easily fit in a small backpack. This means you could take it with you on a camping trip or into your office, upstairs, downstairs, into the backyard… wherever you want to take it. Once you begin to realize that you are no longer tethered by wires, it opens up an entirely huge number of options. As I’m writing this review, I have the speaker hooked up to my tiny, Sandisk Sansa mp3 player by a short mini-plug cable that runs from the headphone jack on the mp3 player to the Line In jack of the speaker. I could just as easily have my iPhone be the music source using bluetooth. The speaker has a very comfortable, built-in handle that lets you easily “grab-and-go.”

I was able to quickly and easily pair my PC laptop to the inMotion speaker using the USB Transmitter. It was also easy to connect my iMac using either bluetooth or the USB dongle to the inMotion speaker. And my iPhone via bluetooth was also flawlessly connected. I was easily able to switch between the different devices too, all it required was a re-pairing of each device since the speaker does not retain pairing information once you switch to anther device. This is not a big deal in my eyes since pairing is so easy to accomplish and takes but a button push and a few seconds.

Here is something else that makes this speaker so useful… there is a remote control that slips perfectly and securely into a slot on the back of the radio. The remote lets you not only launch the default music player on your PC laptop or desktop computer, it also lets you change tracks, pause, and adjust the volume. For instance I use iTunes for my music and to listen to Internet radio. When I’m listening to Internet Radio in iTunes, I can change stations by using the “|<<” and “>>|” buttons of the remote. These same buttons let you skip through music tracks. There is also a mute button, a power on/off function and an ESS (expanded sound stage) button that adds a spatial quality to the sound if you choose. Unfortunately, and one of the very few cons for the device, there is no indicator showing whether ESS is engaged either on the remote or the main speaker unit. But you can “hear” whether it is, so not a big deal.

For Mac users, the “Launch” function of the remote is not useable. You have to manually launch your music app. You will also need to modify your Sound > Output preferences to specify the “inMotion Air” when you are using bluetooth or the USB Dongle. But otherwise the remote works on a Mac in all other regards. I do not have a UNIX or Linux computer to test how it works on that operating system.

The sound quality is quite remarkable for such a compact speaker. There is a clarity and openness to the sound that is quite nice. Whereas some systems sound muffled, this was not muffled in any way whatsoever. There is a lack of deep bass, as is to be expected in something of this size and purpose, but overall the sound was balanced and had enough bass to satisfy my critical ears. There is no adjustment for Bass or Treble on the speaker, but you are usually able to adjust that on the source if need be. I must also say that given the…

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C. Fernandes (Columbia, MD United States) –

  

I have quite a mixed reaction to this product. When I first got it, I was surprised by how light the speaker was. It was very easy to setup and to pair my Blackberry with this speaker via blue-tooth. When I played the music…..I was blown away! The sound was beautiful. It was really clear and with enough bass that my wife and I were both very impressed. My wife loves bass while I prefer more treble and clarity. It’s really impressive that we were both very satisfied with the sound!

But onto the bad news. This comes with a USB transmitter that you plug into your computer so that you can play songs from your PC on the speaker. For me (I use Windows XP) drivers installed automatically and everything seemed to be set up okay. Except that the USB transmitter couldn’t pair with the speaker. I tried it again and again, and on different PCs, power-cycling, etc. But as of today it’s still not working. I find that amazing since it’s the transmitter that they ship with the product. I don’t think they even tested it! And like others, I’ve tried emailing customer support many times with no response. It has been 16 days now with nothing more than automated responses indicating that someone will contact me within 3 business days!

If I hear back from customer support, I’ll update my review. But till then, I just wanted to share that the sound is really fantastic. But the USB transmitter they shipped didn’t work, and there’s practically no customer support on this product right now.

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S. Lionel (NH USA) –

  

  

  

The Altec-Lansing iMW725 inMotion speaker is a handsome dark-gray parallelogram of a box. The front and back sides are sloped and there is a deep recess in the back for a handle that makes it easy to carry around. While it can be connected via a standard stereo miniplug, it’s the Bluetooth wireless that really makes it so versatile.

The Altec-Lansing paired easily with both my iPhone 3GS and my iPad 2, though you must repeat the pairing process if you switch devices, first telling the latest device to “forget” the Altec-Lansing if it had paired before. The audio quality over Bluetooth was very good, considering the size of the box. Bass wasn’t window-rattling, but the sound was clear, undistorted, and it could play quite loud. It is said to be able to connect up to 10 meters (33 feet) “open air”. In my house, it got to about 20-25 feet before breaking up, but still had some connectivity at 30 feet.

Also included is a Class 1 Bluetooth dongle that plugs into a USB port on a computer (PC or Mac). This is rated up to 100 meters (333 feet). I had some breakup at about 40 feet through two walls on the same level as the dongle (which has a swing-up antenna), but when I went upstairs, even further away, it was fine. The inMotion automatically pairs with the dongle if it is active, even if it had been paired with something else before, but if not, there is a pair button on the dongle.

The controls on the box itself are power, Pair/Source-select, volume up and down, previous and next track and pause. There is also a nifty remote control that slides securely into a recess in the back – this has the same functions (except Pair – it does have a source button), and adds mute. Another remote button is labeled ESS – this supposedly activates an “Expanded Sound Stage” circuit, but I could not detect any difference. There’s no indication on the box if “ESS” is enabled or not. The last button, Launch, will bring up the default music player on a Windows system (Mac users must do this manually.) The remote is infrared, so you have to point it at the box for best results.

There is an internal lithium-ion battery which is said to last for up to six hours. I had to give up after three hours of relatively loud playing and it was still going strong. A switch behind the remote storage slot can disconnect the battery in case you plan on storing the speaker unpowered for a prolonged time.

In addition to the minijack input on the speaker itself, there’s another one on the USB dongle. You can connect a second set of powered speakers to this to get another “zone”.

I have just a couple of minor quibbles with the inMotion speaker. First, I would like to see a similar storage slot for the USB dongle so it doesn’t get lost. Second, the internal battery is not user-replaceable. It should last several years if not abused, but once it fails you have to junk the speaker (or find a way to disassemble it and locate a compatible battery elsewhere – there are no exposed screws so this may be difficult.)

I have read other reviews indicating that the speaker stopped working after a couple of months. I’ve now [December 2011] had the unit for four months and it is still working fine for me.

I have not auditioned other similar wireless speakers, but I can say that, based on my experience so far, the Altec-Lansing inMotion is a winner.

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