iHome iHM77 speakers

Why review a $49 speaker system like the iHome iHM77 when it’s not even iPhone/iPod-specific? That’s a good question, and one that deserves an answer before I dive into the review:



While most of the speaker systems we review here at iProng are in the $100-$300 price range, those users with no budget (or perhaps no appreciation for audio quality) can easily run down to the local discount electronics store and grab a generic-looking, oversized, pair of crappy-sounding speakers for ten or fifteen bucks and connect them to their iPhone or iPod. While we promise never to waste your time with the latter, there are in fact a number of speaker systems that manage to split the difference by sounding decent without breaking the bank. And out of respect for the current economic climate, we’re going to highlight the best products that fall in that category.



Last month I wrote about Altec Lansing’s comparatively diminutive Orbit M speaker, but now I’ve found that’s even smaller and sounds better: iHome’s iHM77 “capsule” speaker system. The name comes from the shape the iHM77 takes out of the box, but you soon find that the capsule splits in half to form a pair of tiny speakers, each of which can be twisted such that they pop up on a spring to stand about twice as tall. At about two inches in diameter and about two inches tall each, these speakers initially look like they’re too tiny to possibly sound any good – but that turns out to be the beauty of the product.

The iHM77 (the product really needs a more marketable name than that) speakers don’t sound great, mind you, but they do sound good, easily outclassing those $10-$15 “WalMart Special” generic speaker systems that can often be literally ten times as large as these tiny speakers are. And when I say that the iHM77 doesn’t provide as much bass as I’d like, that’s actually a compliment; speakers of this size don’t typically put out any bass at all.



To pin it down further, the iHM77 speakers sound embarrassingly better than the tiny speaker built into the iPhone itself, and easily sound better than the built-in speakers in any Mac or PC laptop, yet don’t measure up to the sound quality of iHome’s own iP27 portable iPhone/iPod alarm clock system. In other words, you’re not going to get the same audio quality as if you were to buy a full-fledged dockable iPhone/iPod speaker system, but for your $49 you’ll get your money’s worth.



The iHM77 does turn out to have one fundamental flaw in its design, which I confirmed with iHome: if the speakers are turned on while charging via USB, you’ll hear a low-level static hum which easily gets washed out by the audio coming out of the speakers – if in fact there is any audio coming out of the speakers. Let’s say you’ve got the speakers connected to your laptop for both audio and charging purposes, but you’re not listening to any music and the speakers are merely attached so you can hear your email chime or calendar alarm. That scenario doesn’t work because you’ll have to put up with the static filling the silences. While at first dismayed by this, I eventually concluded that it’s a non-issue for use with iPhone or iPod (since it’s unlikely you’d be using the speakers to listen to your iPhone while simultaneously charging them via your computer), and a minor hassle for use with your computer, as you essentially have to leave the speakers turned off while they’re charging. Not such a big deal, as I found that through moderate use the iHM77’s need to be charged about once a week and can be done overnight. And the way they condense into a single capsule for travel purposes is priceless.