A Pal for Your Pod
Wires aren't dead just yet. While there's much to be excited about in the brave new world of wireless digital audio, the tried and true patch cord is still the most reliable (not to mention affordable) way to get music off your iPod or Mac and out into the air where it can be enjoyed. Connecting a 3G iPod to your home stereo through the line-out jack on the dock is the easiest way to great sound at home, but what about when you want to take the music with you on a picnic, to a party, or just out to the hammock in the backyard? The success of the iPod has spawned a handful of portable, wire-connected speaker systems designed specifically for use with it. I took a look at the Altec Lansing InMotion system a few months ago. The inMotions shined when it came to design, portability, and usability, but still might leave a little something to be desired in the ears of the on-the-go audiophile.

Renowned for their Henry Kloss-designed Model One radios, the gang at Tivoli Audio has sent over their "new" iPAL portable audio system for our scrutiny and your consideration. The quotes around "new" are because while the iPAL is a fresh addition to the Tivoli catalog, it's really just the "old" PAL with an iPod white/silver face lift and an "i" at the front of its name. The "i"'s etymology should be obvious from the new look, and the PAL stands for Portable Audio Laboratory.

Tivoli took the award-winning concept behind the Model One, shrunk it a little and wrapped it in a weather resistant case complete with rechargable batteries and called it the PAL. PAL is a single-speaker AM/FM radio with aux-in and headphone-out jacks available in a wide range of colors in addition to the iPAL, which is a really cute little number. Measuring 6.25" tall x 3.6875" wide x 3.875" deep and weighing 2 lbs., iPAL is imminently portable and smartly designed. I really like the modern/retro fusion that certain designers are adopting in nods to both the analog past and digital future, and iPAL's got it in spades. The front face is simply arranged, with two big circles (analog tuning dial and speaker) at top and bottom and two smaller circles (function and volume knobs) to the left and right. The matte silver metal on iPod-white plastic front face looks snazzy on the silver-grey housing of the unit, and iPAL coordinates very nicely with the white of an iPod or iBook.

Kind of makes you wonder what color Apple's going to pick for their next trend-shaping new gadget, come to think of it...

Retro Looks, Time-Tested Performance
The big chrome tuning knob isn't a trendy retro gimmick, but rather the same geared-down 5:1 tuning dial found on the Model One. Tivoli claims the system allows for easy, ultra-precise radio tuning, and I'd have to agree with that. If you listen to the radio much, especially in a crowded market like the New York City spectrum I tested iPAL in, you'll come to love Tivoli's analog dial. Sure, it's nice to see your station frequency from across the room on a bright LED readout, but it's even more fun to tune in those weaker stations you sometimes can't get on an average digital tuner. The rotating, telescoping FM antenna performed well (as did the internal AM antenna), and folds back into a molded slot on the back of the unit for handy storage.

iPAL includes an 1/8" stereo patch cable suitable for connecting your iPod's headphone or line-out jack to the radio's Aux In (located on the back). There is no Aux setting on iPal's AM/FM/Power Off function knob; when something is plugged into the Aux port, iPAL automatically switches over to that audio source. I found this kind of neat and kind of annoying at the same time -- it's nice to have one less control to fiddle with, but if you're going to leave iPAL set up in one place for awhile, it'd also be nice to leave the aux cable plugged in whether you're using the radio or an external source. A nice design touch is the inclusion of rubber plugs for both the aux and headphone jacks to keep rain, sand, and other non-electronic friendly elements away from your PAL.

A single green LED provides power and battery status information. Tivoli claims the "environmentally-friendly rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride battery pack has no memory" and can last up to 14 hours on a charge, depending on how high you crank the volume up. I ran the PAL for several hours, left it overnight, ran it for several hours again the next day, and it still worked for me a few days later -- good enough for me for me. An AC adapter is included.

Okay, okay ... How's it Sound?
I've literally never heard a portable monoaural radio sound as good as the iPAL. This little wonder produced rich bass, clean midrange, and clear highs from both the radio and external sources. Considering it's overall size and the fact that I was only listening to a single, 2.5" driver, I have to say I was as amazed with it as all those people quoted on the Tivoli website. The dilemma here is that iPAL is not a stereo system -- it's a single-speaker, mono system. For AM radio or spoken word recordings that's fine, but I'm really used to listening to music in stereo, and while iPAL produces a wonderful single-channel sound, I missed that stereo separation.

The more I've come to rely on my Mac and iPod as audio sources, the more conscious I've become of listening for differences in compression schemes, bitrates, and other quirks of digital audio. So I tested iPAL with a variety of material ranging from CDs and DVDs to high-quality AAC and low-bitrate mp3 files. But the source material isn't the issue here -- iPAL can handle whatever you throw at it, and it handles it with clarity and grace, with enough power to fill an office or bedroom with distortion-free music ... but in mono.

To PAL or not to PAL?
My iPAL shipped with a note from my contact at Tivioli mentioning how he liked to use his PAL: In the garage, in the yard, on weekend camping trips ... you get the idea. The PAL line was meant to be taken with you. It's small, rechargable, and pretty immune to the bumps, bruises, and occasional splashes of beverages and rainwater that come with being a portable radio. And, again, it sounds better than any single-speaker radio I've ever heard. But as an iPod-specific speaker system, I kept wanting stereo. I'd close my eyes and imagine I was listening to a two-speaker setup, but it didn't work: no stereo. I plugged headphones into the headphone jack and, Behold, stereo! But I can plug headphones straight into my iPod, so that didn't really help things. Finally, I drew the objective conclusion that iPAL's one speaker reproduces music better than the two speakers found in inMotion and other portable stereo setups I've tried -- it's true, in my opinion -- but I still found my ears searching for that separation you can't get out of one speaker.

$129 for a portable radio isn't cheap, but iPAL's sound is really pretty incredible when you consider just how small it is. No single-unit stereo is going to create a wide-enough separation to rival two speakers spread across space to create that magic triangle with a listener's ears, so the issue here may well come down to portability. If you're in the market for a top-notch, great-looking portable radio with rechargable batteries and an aux-in when you want it, it's hard to beat the PALs. The chrome and white iPAL is very cool looking, but don't be afraid to mix a little blue or green (or brown or yellow or...) in with all of those white gadgets you suddenly are finding yourself surrounded by. But if you listen to music with a critical ear and want a small, powered system for your iPod, Mac, or other stereo signal, you might want to think twice about making iPAL your iPOD's new best friend.

Lucky for you, Tivoli makes a stereo version of the Model One radio iPAL is based upon ... cleverly enough, it's called the Model Two.

iPAL and the full palette of PAL systems are available direct from Tivoli as well as Amazon and other retailers for $129.

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Noah Kravitz runs the Technology and Culture blog Threebase.com. He is an educator, musician, and writer who calls Brooklyn, NY home and the author of the forthcoming book, Teaching and Learning with Technology.