News

A big balloon for making iPods sound good!

by Alun Taylor | posted on 27 January 2009

Review MP3 player speaker rigs aren't exactly rare these days, but they have an annoying habit of falling into two categories. On the one hand, you have the 'sounds great but blow me its expensive' devices such as B&W's Zeppelin Zeppelin

On the other, you have nasty little 80-quid plastic boxes that have all the audio fidelity of two empty baked bean cans tied together with a length of string and the visual appeal of a breeze block.

Whither the middle ground? Well, right here with the Luna 5, reckons manufacturer Edifier, creator of the very fine MP300 Plus set of 2.1-channel laptop speakers.

When we saw the Luna 5 on the Edifier stand at the Consumer Electronics Show, we were mightily impressed both with its styling and build quality and we're happy to say that after a prolonged poke and fiddle with the finished item, we continue to be impressed.

Standing at 490mm tall, 370mm wide and 240mm deep, the 4kg Luna 5 may not be exactly small, but its form is one of the more space-efficient ways to package a reasonable numbers of speakers - in this case a 14.6cm woofer, two 7cm mid-range and two 6.3cm tweeters - into one unit.

The semi-circular iPod dock at the front is attached to the main unit by an articulated, “floating” connector that isolates the dock, and any hard disk-based iPods sitting thereon, from the low frequency vibration cause by the woofer.

The black lacquer finish of the main unit has a deep and lustrous shine, and we looked in vain for any rough edges or mould seams. The brushed metal surround of the dock housing adds the finishing touches to a device that should look right at home in any front room or study.

Set into the top of the dock are six red-lit, touch-sensitive buttons to switch the device on; control the volume; change the input between the dock, audio input ports and the on-board FM radio; and skip forward and back; and tune the radio. There's also a retro-looking red LED display set into the dock surface to show the volume, FM frequency, bass and treble levels and input source.

The remote control supplied with the Luna 5 is a big old lump of a device for something that only has the usual portfolio of navigation – for iPods and iPhones – and sound controls, and no screen.

But like the Luna 5 itself, it's solid and well made with nicely sprung buttons. And, being on the large side, at least it won't be easily lost down the side of the sofa. Edifier bundles the Luna 5 with no fewer than 12 iPod dock adapters along with a blanking plate so no matter what you own, be it the most antediluvian iPod or the latest shiny 2G Touch, you should be able to sit it comfortably on the Luna 5. You can also plug in any device with an output jack, Edifier supplying 3.5mm to RCA, 2.5mm to 3.5mm jack-to-jack, and 3.5mm to 2.5mm jack-to-socket adaptor cables.

Unfortunately, using the Luna 5's 2.5mm audio-in involves prying open the rubber cover on the front of the dock which looks a bit scruffy and isn't perhaps the most elegant solution to the problem, especially on a device that's otherwise the epitome of elegance. Better to have tucked the jack away around the back.

Design and build aside, it's when you switch the thing on and crank up the volume that the Luna 5 shines. To begin with, there is no lack of volume, with the 32W sub-woofer and 20W combined output from the other four speakers making more than enough racket to fill even a large room.

Of course, volume makes no odds if everything sounds like a barrel of bolts being put through a car crusher. This, however, was far from the case, the Luna 5 leaving us nothing if not impressed.

Kicking off our test with Rachid Taha's Made in Medina album – it's the one with the music from Black Hawk Down on it – we were thoroughly impressed by the Luna 5's ability to balance the driving bass and tight percussion of tracks like En Retard and Barra Barra. Puccini arias, Bruckner's ninth symphony and a variety of rock tracks - all were delivered with aplomb, with not the slightest hint of distortion or break up, even at maximum volume.

For a set of speakers mounted so close together, stereo separation - or at least the impression thereof - was not at all bad either.

The bottom line is, for something of its size and cost, the Luna 5 really does produce a most remarkably fine, detailed and coherent sound.

The only real failing the Luna 5 has has nothing to do with sound per se. It's the lack of a socket for an external aerial for the non-RDS radio. As it is, the Luna5 works just fine in areas with a strong FM signal, but away from them reception is frankly pretty poor. Typical of Edifier's attention to detail: when you switch the Luna 5 off the volume quickly runs down the scale to zero rather than just cutting off abruptly - a nice, if peripheral design touch.

Verdict When it comes to sound quality, the Luna5 is very close to the current big boy on the block, the B&W Zeppelin, but – to our eyes at least – it looks better and only costs half the price.