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Start with XtremeMac’s less expensive Tango TRX, which is part of a family of Tango speakers that dates back to an aesthetically cutting-edge 2006 model that was followed up by a stripped down semi-sequel called Tango Studio and a more direct follow-up called Tango X2. All of the Tango speakers have sold for $200 or less, and stood out from the pack more for their industrial design than sound quality.
Tango TRX is XtremeMac’s first wireless audio system, borrowing and remixing design elements from past models: there’s the fabric front grille of Tango Studio, a front-mounted volume knob akin to Tango X2’s, and a clean, slab-like design that vaguely recalls the original model, albeit with a decided shift in orientation and size. The mostly black TRX is taller than it is deep, a boxy wedge-like shape with embossed gray sides and sloping, open feet; orange accents are used for the volume knob and pinhole-sized power and source indicator light. Rather than centering its dock, Tango TRX places it off to the far left bottom side, while including five buttons—play/pause, bass, treble, source, and power—along the right side of the top surface. Only an aux-in port and power port are on the back, while a metallic grille on the bottom is there for the system’s bass driver; four other speakers fire forwards through the front grille.
Control of Tango TRX is handled through either an included Infrared remote control that works with any connected device, or with a free Tango TRX application that can be downloaded from the App Store. Interestingly, one of the app’s screens all but fully mimics the remote, with source, volume, track, play/pause, bass, and treble buttons, omitting only the power toggle on the Infrared unit. Both remotes work from 30-foot distances, though the dedicated one requires line-of-sight contact with Tango TRX’s IR receiver, while the app can be used anywhere within the 30-foot range. More interestingly, the app offers something that iPod fans have been dying to have integrated into their devices for years—a graphic equalizer, here with five presets and five tuning bands. It’s the sort of cool feature that a long-standing iPod accessory maker like XtremeMac would naturally think of including, even if the seemingly granular bands don’t really wind up making a difference in how TRX sounds. We played with the equalizers for a while and they didn’t seem to be actually changing Tango’s output; only the buttons on the unit’s top, in conjunction with the volume knob, really changed things.
The story with Soundfreaq’s SFQ-01 Sound Platform is somewhat similar, though Soundfreaq is new to the iPod/iPhone accessory world, and its implementation is at least a little different in almost every regard. Soundfreaq has designed a system that is hard to place in terms of visual style or theme—made predominantly from glossy black plastic, it has some of the starkest lines of any iPod or iPhone audio system released to date, yet each is offset by an accent of some sort that prevents the system from looking underthought. The front, for instance, is a black slab of fabric with a thin silver line above, and a thicker silver and black pedestal below. A dock sits at the center, with three swirled metallic sound tuning controls on the left, and concave track, volume, source, power, and pairing buttons on the right. Turn the system to the right and you’ll find a storage compartment for the included ten-button Infrared remote, illuminated with an orange light bar that’s paralleled on the similarly glossy but permanently closed left side. The back is vented, letting the system’s Kevlar-reinforced drivers breathe.
In short, when viewed from the front, both systems look like simplified, thoroughly modern all-in-ones that have orange accents, though Soundfreaq’s design is comparatively far less minimalist. There’s an orange text screen near the capacitive buttons to indicate, in a word, the name of the current audio source; it works with an included antenna cable to let you digitally tune FM radio stations, as well. Yet another light bar behind the iPod/iPhone dock glows or flashes on and off when audio’s playing. It’s not exactly classy, but it’s not horribly distracting or bad, either. Soundfreaq’s iOS application, SoundFreaq remote, essentially just combines the IR remote control’s features with bass and treble controls and a playlist-based playback mechanism for music. Both Tango TRX and SFQ-01 are more easily controlled through the native iPod or Music applications of Apple’s devices, though only the devices’ Infrared and app remotes can properly adjust the speakers’ volume; changes within Apple’s iPod and Music apps merely attenuate the volume of the output from the device, leaving the speakers at their prior levels.
However similar they might be in other regards, including wireless performance—both pair easily with iOS devices and play back music properly using Bluetooth—there are some significant sonic differences between the speakers that didn’t play out exactly as we’d expected. One surprise: Soundfreaq doesn’t spend much time discussing SFQ-01’s speakers, and only after digging did we discover that all the unit includes inside are twin 2.75” “full range drivers,” which as audio fans know is typically the kiss of death for $200 speakers—one driver per channel attempting to do everything from high treble to midrange to low bass is generally a recipe for disaster. But we were generally impressed by the quality of the drivers in SFQ-01: they’re not superstars, but given the price, they deliver more sparkle and a little bit more thump than might have been expected from the limited hardware. By all rights, the two speakers in SFQ-01 shouldn’t rival the five in Tango TRX, but they did. Further, we found that playing with SFQ-01’s equalization knobs yielded more meaningful bass improvements.
Though Tango TRX’s sound is on rough par with SFQ-01’s overall, they differ a little: TRX has a slightly warmer, less clear signature, while SFQ-01 sounds cleaner and does better with high-frequency sounds. Bass beats have a little more resonance in TRX, while voices stand out more from songs when played through SFQ-01. Neither system is audiophile-quality, but SFQ-01 sounds like it’s doing a little more with less, while TRX has a “just good enough” signature that wasn’t as impressive as we’d expected from a system with five speakers inside. At higher volumes, SFQ-01 preserves most of its sonic capabilities, while TRX’s drivers begin to show significant distortion. We would normally be more concerned about this at the $200 price point, but for a $180 speaker that packs an otherwise solid Bluetooth streaming feature, it’s not hugely objectionable.
Radio functionality is the final major feature that’s offered in SFQ-01 but not in Tango. A digital FM radio enables the system, with the aid of the aforementioned included antenna wire, to pull in signals that range from lightly staticy to surprisingly clear, complete with 20 selectable presets. We’d call the radio one of the better ones we’ve tested in iPod and iPhone speaker systems, and a very nice little feature for those who still enjoy listening to FM stations. AM tuning is not available.
All in all, both Tango TRX and the SFQ-01 Sound Platform offer nice collections of features that will appeal to users who want to enjoy docked or wireless audio from their Apple devices but don’t want to wait or pay a premium for AirPlay speakers. While each system’s remote control app could stand to improve at least a little, and the current iOS integrated music app volume controls will confuse some people, the underlying speaker units both offer solid sound and otherwise straightforward interfaces. Pick Tango TRX if you’re looking to enjoy a nice sound signature at normal listening levels and don’t need the FM radio; SFQ-01 is a little more expensive but justifies its price with strong radio tuning, slightly clearer-sounding audio, and superior high-volume performance. By today’s standards, they’re both worthy of our B+ rating and general recommendation, though we strongly suspect that the upcoming release of AirPlay-compatible wireless speakers will shake things up considerably.
A Note From the Editors of iLounge: Though all products and services reviewed by iLounge are "final," many companies now make changes to their offerings after publication of our reviews, which may or may not be reflected above. This iLounge article provides more information on this practice, known as revving.
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Will Infinity Blade evolve? The developers say yes. A section of the game’s menu system promises new items, enemies, and dungeons are going to be added “soon,” along with a Game Center-aided multiplayer mode. The latter feature will be extremely interesting to see implemented—will it be cooperative, competitive, or both?—but the first three could be great or nauseating. As impressive as this title is right now, we’re concerned that the developers may try to turn it into a cash machine with in-app purchases, such that the “red sword” will cost you 99 cents, and accessing the new dungeons might be a few dollars. The game doesn’t say whether the additions will be purchasable. Finding the right balance between free and paid upgrades is going to be tricky.
If anyone can pull that off, Epic and Chair seem like leading candidates. Releasing this game at a wholly reasonable $6 price point with full iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch compatibility was precisely the right move, rather than fragmenting purchasers into different platform-specific apps with different prices, and though the experience will differ somewhat from device to device because of hardware capabilities, Infinity Blade delivers a fully realized fighting adventure game in any case. It’s astonishing to consider how much better of an experience you get for the price here than with either the $5 Click Wheel iPod Games released years ago, or the split-version, higher-priced apps some developers are trying to sell today. Based on the quality of the game, the impressiveness of its technology, and the developers’ pricing thus far, Infinity Blade deserves to be the most successful game yet released for iOS devices. It receives our exceedingly rare flat A high recommendation, and is worthy of attention on literally any iOS device capable of playing it.