AktiMate Mini active iPod speakers

Product Name: AktiMate Mini active iPod speakers
Product Type: Active speakers with integrated iPod dock
Price: $650
Reviewed By:
Magazine: Geare May/June 2008
Distributor: Epoz Pty Ltd
Who Sells What/Website: AktiMate

The AktiMate Minis have everything going for them — simplicity, heritage and performance. And they’re even Australian.

Wot, no interconnects?

The AktiMates are active stereo speakers — that is, they have amplification built into the left speaker, so they require no external amplifier. You connect the left speaker to the right, plug in the mains lead and put your iPod in the top dock, having chosen the correct iPod tray from the selection provided. Et fini. No stack of separates, no trailing iPod dock, no ugly flashing mini system console. Just a pair of 30cm-high piano-gloss speakers (white or black, red to come), one mains lead, one speaker cable. It’s an impressively simple set-up.

You operate things using a small remote control — although the active speaker also has a depressable knob at bottom right for volume (a Burr-Brown digital volume control) and power on/off. The speed with which the system leaps into life is marvellous — it allows your iPod to recall its exact song position, and your finger has barely left the power button before the song restarts with a gentle fade. And if you had been previously listening at the slightly crazy levels that the AktiMates’ abilities encourage, they don’t restart with such aggression but at a reasonable mid-level volume. So not only fast but well planned as well.

You can expand on their simplicity by using the two auxiliary inputs — one RCA phono pair and a stereo minijack. There is no switch between these inputs and the iPod dock; they play simultaneously, so you can listen to, say, iPod and computer audio at the same time. There’s also a composite video output (for iPod video to a screen) and an RCA stereo pair for audio out (to a subwoofer, suggests Epoz, though heaven knows why you’d need one; or you could run a second pair of AktiMates off this output). There’s also a USB power socket to recharge a non-Apple MP3 player.

Solid foundations

What of heritage? For an active iPod speaker? Thanks to company and family connections, some of the speaker technology here originates from Epos (including the 25mm metal-dome tweeter and 13cm polypropylene woofer), while the internal 40W amplification was tuned up by none other than Mike Creek of Creek Audio, whose wisdom in making cracking but unexorbitantly-priced amp circuits is well proven not only through Creek but also through his work with Cambridge Audio and others. Mike Creek has overseen both Creek Audio and Epos in the UK since 1999, and since 2005 their distribution in Australia has been handled by Epoz (Oz, geddit?) under a close relationship with the UK companies. The AktiMate Minis are the first product created by Epoz itself, drawing on Mike’s expertise and the heritage of both companies.

Woof

Which goes some way to explaining the performance. These are exceptional speakers at this price, dynamic as all hell, firing on all cylinders, capable of slamming beats and rich phat electronic bass reproduction, yet still layered through with subtleties. Everything sounds pacy, energetic and alive. One suspects the AktiMate Minis are tuned slightly to impress with the full-on beats and driving rhythms some might consider the mainstay of youthful iPod users. But their full, massive but open sound is equally enjoyable with vocal or jazz music. On a burst of Brubeck the AktiMates utterly nailed the piano, bass (particularly) and sax of Blue Rondo a la Turk while keeping the left-channel ride cymbal still spaciously portrayed in its airy open acoustic.

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And as for volume, the lack of a display means you’re never sure when you’ll reach the top — but in our general listening (and we like it loud) we never did. We took it up there a few times, but were almost scared by the AktiMates’ ability to keep on going. (If these are called the Minis, we await non- Mini AktiMates with some trepidation...)

Conclusion

Consider the youth of today heading off to college. Computer, iPod, AktiMates, and they’re done. Consider the cluttered office with no room to shelve a whole hi-fi system — iPod, AktiMates, and you’re done. And you can’t even call them a small-room solution — they’re powerful enough to pump party levels in a fairly large space (here perhaps the subwoofer option might add useful support). We enjoyed them best at near-field distance, either side of our computer.

We are lost to find a criticism here — only that the dock looks a tiny bit silly sticking out of such a nicely-finished speaker, and that certain remote-control combinations caused our iPod nano to reboot. But for this performance we’re happy to get used to that. This is simply a blinder of a product.

VERDICT

AKTIMATE MINI ACTIVE iPOD SPEAKERS $650

THE TECH

Tweeter: 25mm metal dome, neodymium magnet Woofer: 130mm polypropylene, shielded magnet Impedance: 4 ohms Quoted frequency response: 50Hz-22kHz ±1.5dB Power: 40W Class A-B internal amplifier Transformer: 120W toroidal Inputs: 1 x RCA stereo; 1 x minijack; iPod dock Outputs: 1 x RCA stereo; video output; USB 5V power Dimensions: 300 x 185 x 210mm Weight: 12kg MYM: Epoz Pty Ltd

Positive

Powerful hi-fi sound Simplicity of set-up Great value for the performance

Negative

Nowt

Who Sells What: AktiMate