Ultimate Wish List
I found a new product that I haven’t seen before this week. The Fatman iTube ValveDock for iPods by pro audio manufacturer TLA Audio:
Now….as soon as I saw this I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. For those of you not so audio inclined as myself, this is a tube amplifier for iPod, and a high quality one at that. Now, what makes a tube amp so great? It’s not quite clear why, but tubes make sound…well… great. Magic things happen when you add tubes to an amplifier. The sound thickens, and becomes way more rich than it would using a normal “transistor” amplifier. When tubes warm up they add flattering harmonics to an audio signal, which results in the awesome change in tone. This is why all of the great guitar amps are, and have always been made using tube technology, going all the way back to their origins in the 50’s!
Part of this handsome litle unit is amazingly ironic; since most people store heavily compressed lower quality MP3’s on their iPod owning an amp such as this could be slightly pointless. However, on mine I use a very high quality compression encoding, and sometimes when I get really anal I don’t compress at all (this takes up about 10X more memory for one song). However, even if you do compress your audio, this will make your iPod sound as good as it possibly can! It also has auxilliary inputs so if you are completely nuts about the iPod and it’s compression not being a true “audiophile” device you can connect a truly hi fi CD or record player. Also, while it ships with “reference monitor” passive speakers, many also upgrade to a higher quality speaker to best showcase the amplifier’s effect on the sound.
Plus….. It’s just so cool!!!!
It’s been offcially put on my “Ultimate Wish List” and while I realize I’ll probably never see one nor be able to justify the purchase at this point in my life, I can’t deny that it definitely calls my name!
can I ask how much it is?
A search on amazon.com yeilds several models for 400 to 500 bucks american, for anyone wondering. And no, I’m not expecting anyone to buy me one;) Also showing up on the search are a few similar producs from “Roth Audio” that also seem cool and at a lower price.. I’ll have to do some research. Don’t expect to see me with one in the near future though:)