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iHome iH5 iPod Clock Radio
Testing
Listening to music from my iPod nano through the iH5 was a pleasant experience, considering the limitations of the unit. iHome's claim of "distortion-free audio" from the labeling on the box did make me a little skeptical, but after cranking up the volume to the max and listening to a number of different songs, I have to admit that I was relatively surprised at the iH5's clarity. There isn't a speaker system on earth that is truly "distortion-free" but considering the size of the iH5's speakers and the fact that it's primarily a clock radio, it's close enough. Overall, the sound quality was about what I had expected; a little muddy in the mid to high range, and lacking any real bass, but at least the quality stayed about the same even at max volume. As an alarm clock, the iH5 has all the basic functions you'd expect from an alarm clock, although there are a few things worth mentioning. First of all, only one alarm can be set and you can't set it up to go off only on weekdays or weekends, so you'll have to manually turn it on/off depending on your schedule. The iH5 does have the capability to fade in/out while in alarm and sleep modes respectively, although I found that the "gradual" volume increase for the alarm was relatively quick and got quite loud within a matter of a few seconds. This "gradual alarm/sleep" feature works with both the radio and songs from your iPod. Waking to music on my nano worked just as advertised and didn't require any tinkering whatsoever (unlike the JBL OnTime). The alarm will resume playback of the song that was playing when the iPod was turned off. Radio reception on the iH5 was quite good as I was able to tune in all the major local stations. Unfortunately the iH5 doesn't support any radio presets so you'll have to tune manually any time you want to switch stations. The last station played will be retained even in a power outage as long as the backup batteries (2xAA) are installed in the device. If the iH5 is operating off of battery power only, the buzzer alarm will be used by default (even if the iPod is selected as the alarm) in order to conserve power. It probably goes without saying, but anytime an iPod is docked in the iH5 it will also be charging , assuming the iH5 isn't running off batteries, whether the iPod is in use or not.    iHome sent along their tiny optional remote ($20) with the iH5 review unit, which I found to be quite usable even from as far as 20 feet away. I couldn't get much farther away than that in my house, so the effective range might be even better than that. The remote can be used to turn the radio or iPod on and off, tune to different stations, skip tracks, control the volume, and also includes the snooze/dimmer button. You won't be able to navigate iPod menus with the remote, set the time, or do anything too fancy like that, but it definitely adds a bit more usefulness to the whole package, which is very welcome indeed.
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