This radio is an excellent product, whether one means to use it as a radio in the strict sense, as a near-high-fidelity midget-sized amplifier-speaker combination linked to a CD or an MP3 player or to a computer's audio output, or as a classically simple and attractively glowing box of tubes to lighten and warm a room of an evening. The only way I can't imagine anyone using it is as an iPod docking station. The other reviewers aside, how many iPod users could there be in the entire world who are also devotees of tube amplification applied, not to a megabuck, megawatt amp powering a pair of fifty-grand electrostatic-panel-cum-vented-port-subwoofer speaker systems, but to a tabletop radio that doesn't even sport a clock, let alone an alarm or two, and has no buttons and no presets and has to be tuned by hand with a single dial that serves the needs of both AM and FM? No, really, how many?? Impracticality, thy name is AV100.
Mind you, I did say I truly liked it, and I do. It's simply that I feel amazingly lucky to have gotten this well-designed, well-made, quite cheap contraption that seems designed for someone whose design tastes are antiquarian verging on Luddite, whose listening tastes run to serious music, and whose audio tastes once ran to champagne but who, now having fallen on terribly hard times, must resign himself to living in a studio apartment in a building with hyperthin walls where, should he disturb the neighbors with Ockeghem or Webern, they would terminally disturb him right back with rap or grunge rock.
One thing unmentioned by the other reviewers is that this unit needs a month or more of break-in time before it begins performing even close to its best. Straight out of the box, the sound one gets from the AV100, whether it is tuned to a strong FM signal or reproducing a well-engineered CD, is heavy on the bottom, masked on the top, and recessed in the middle. At first I was immensely disappointed overall, the only pleasing aspect of the unit's sound being the lack of the boxy quality that had persuaded me to shop for a replacement for my Cambridge SoundWorks CD-clock radio unit. After about three weeks of use, however, the sound became more forward, the low end began losing heaviness, and the top started to open up. These qualities become more prominent as day follows day. What was good becomes ever better. This once, at least, patience is rewarded--just as you will be should you purchase this fine component.
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The previous sentence concludes the review proper. What follows is a hypothetical final exam in an advanced marketing course at Wharton or Harvard Business School. The exam embodies one man's attempt to explain how this utterly quixotic product ever found its way to market.
"Imagine that you are the head of marketing at a firm that makes audio-video products, some of which were once pretty good. The firm has been having a difficult time of late, however, what with the overall bad economy compounding the errors of the concept and design staff. To make matters worse, the company is now owned by a large Asian-based conglomerate whose income derives in the main from the sales of beer and contraceptive devices. The board of the conglomerate has little or no interest in anything above and beyond making a quick buck, with especial emphasis on 'quick.' No one really objects to quality, but no one particularly seeks it out, the perception being that producing a high-quality product usually takes time and seldom yields a decent return on investment.
"Now picture your frequent antagonist within the corporate structure: the chief of R&D--a tired, frustrated, balding, divorced man in his early sixties, a man once respected and admired within the audiophile community for developing amplifiers and speakers that were of exceptionally high quality without being prohibitively expensive. Never particularly market savvy, he is now a member of a species as dead as the dodo, and since he can't afford to quit and despises himself for developing slick garbage for his new masters (of whom you are one), he applies alcohol--liberally and as often as possible.
"One Friday in mid-December, your annual five-figure bonus check arrives, as usual. Also as usual, you and several of your colleagues in senior management celebrate the event by spending the evening in the sort of lubricious indulgence associated with a Spitzer or a Kennedy. Previous similar evenings having proved themselves consequence-free, you enjoy yourself thoroughly in the company of several expensive tarts.
"On Monday morning, you receive a large manila envelope from R&D in the interoffice mail. Upon opening it, imagine your surprise in discovering that it contains several photos of you entering the Hyatt Grand Cathouse with two delectably curvaceous companions, to neither of whom you are married and neither of whom is the mother of your four children. The placement of your hands and theirs in one photo might cause even a world-weary eyebrow to rise, let alone a wifely one. Also in the envelope is a handwritten note that reads as follows: 'There's more. Let's talk later.' The note is signed, 'Fred from R&D.'
"The week isn't starting well, is it? The fact that your wife might clean you out in a divorce settlement is bad enough, but worse still is the fact that the CEO of the parent conglomerate--a Harvard-educated gentleman of Han Chinese ethnicity and Tadjik nationality--recently converted to a hard-shell Baptist denomination. If these photos--and what if these are only the iceberg's tip?--were to reach him, you would quickly find yourself being escorted out of the building by several armed guards. Your future job choices would be too grim to contemplate.
"When you meet Fred--whose suit, as usual, badly needs pressing--you are surprised, indeed amazed, to discover that he doesn't plan on blackmailing you, at least not in the ordinary sense. He turns out to be a decent enough sort, quite a moral fellow in his way, despite the fact that he hates your guts and blames you--not without reason!--for compelling him to prostitute his talents to earn his bread. He intends to use the opportunity Fate has given him to punish you in a manner that accords with your 'crimes.'
"These are Fred's terms: allow him to develop a product that will fit his peculiar needs, tastes, and straitened circumstances--needs, desires, and circumstances shared by perhaps a hundred other people in the world. The product, though of high intrinsic quality, will have virtually no appeal to anyone else, living or dead, however, and will strike a sane marketing or sales executive as daylight madness. You will then be obliged to use all your wiles, all your savvy, all your hard-won connections, to get management to manufacture and sell the product to a baffled and incredulous world. Whither your career after you succeed in getting the product to market--indeed, whether you still have a career at all--is no concern of Fred's. The only thing clear is that, short of murdering him, your one chance of keeping your life from falling to ruin lies in accepting Fred's terms.
"In four to seven thousand words, devise a credible scenario for Fred's being in the right place at the right time to take the photos (presumably using a cell phone or other handheld device), describe the impractical product that Fred might develop, and outline the strategy, if any, to market that product that you and your colleagues come up with. (Extra credit will be given students who refrain from using print and televised ads with scantily clad well-endowed young women.) Since your marketing campaign will certainly fail to sell the product and hence cost your company several million dollars overall, also list at least the critical documents in a paper trail that will demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt to your corporate masters that your principal subordinate was entirely responsible for this farrago.
"You have three hours to complete the examination. The use of print and online resources during the examination is both permitted and encouraged."Get more detail about
Acoustic Research Tabletop Radio with Docking Station for iPod and MP3 Players.
