iPad/iPhone > All Reviews > Hardware > Audio > Speakers > iHome iDM12 review

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 iHome iDM12 review

We weren’t expecting much from such a compact little speaker, but the iDM12 turns out to be cleverly designed and produces a surprisingly strong sound.

Manufacturer: iHome Audio
Pros: Impressive sound for such a small speaker, Clever design includes an iPad stand
Cons: Bass gets a bit out of control at times
Price: £59.99
We rate this 4 out of 5.Star rating:

We weren’t expecting much from such a compact little speaker, but the iDM12 turns out to be cleverly designed and produces a surprisingly strong sound.

The speaker’s design is quite distinctive, consisting of a simple cylinder that measures just 180mm long and will be really easy to carry around in a backpack or even a jacket pocket. The design is clever too, with a protective cover on the front of the speaker that pops off and unfolds to double up as an iPad stand.

There’s no dock built into the iDM12, but it uses Bluetooth to stream music from an iPhone, iPad or any other device that has Bluetooth. There’s also an AUX input on the back for wired connections, although this requires the special audio/charging cable provided by iHome rather than a standard audio cable. Battery life is good too, at around eight hours.

We were surprised by the sound that came from the iDM12 – it was louder than any other speaker of comparable size and weight, and the sound was quite full and satisfying too.

As always, though, bass turned out to be a weakness – although, ironically, that’s because the bass here is actually too strong. The iDM12 has a feature called SRS TruBass that boosts the bass output, and on lighter pop songs this does work quite well. However, the bass on tracks like Another One Bites The Dust and Can’t Get You Out Of My Head caused the entire body of the speaker to vibrate, forcing us to turn the volume down in order to keep things under control.

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Mon, 16 Jul 2012 iHome iDM12 review

We weren’t expecting much from such a compact little speaker, but the iDM12 turns out to be cleverly designed and produces a surprisingly strong sound.

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