Some Shopping Tips For An Apple Docking Station

Many people like to use an iPod docking station for streaming music from their iPhone or iPod. The main reason for the popularity of an apple docking station is the fact that you don't have to connect your iPod to a pair of speakers via cable. When using a dock, your iPod can be plugged into a cradle directly and is charged with power at the same time. In this article, I'm going to highlight some of the benefits of iPod speaker docks and also discuss some alternative products.

The iPod is a great device when it comes to storing and managing music. However, even though it is a lot of fun to browse through your music library and play music over your headphones, when you are at home then most likely you will want to use a pair of speakers to listen to your tracks. That is where the iPod speaker dock comes in. These speaker docks essentially combine a pair of good-quality speakers as well as an audio amplifier which can drive the speakers with sufficient volume. What's more, all speaker docks which are designed for Apple devices have a cradle which accepts any Apple portable device via a docking connector.

This docking connector, in fact, is what sets Apple devices apart from other MP3 players. However, Apple recently has drastically changed this connector. The new docking connector is called "lightning" connector. As a result of this change, new Apple devices no longer plug into most of today's iPod speaker docks. In order to connect any new-generation Apple device such as 5-th-generation iPods into a dock that has the traditional 30-pin connector, you will need to get an adapter. There are a few docks on the market that already have this new lightning connector. However, be careful about purchasing one of these docks if you still have some older Apple devices. To ensure compatibility with older devices, it is still best to purchase a dock with a 30-pin connector and use an adapter to plug in newer devices.

Instead of physically plugging your iPod into a dock, it is also possible to use the wireless capability of your Apple device. Airplay and Bluetooth are two standards which are supported by most newer iPods and iPhones. Instead of purchasing a dock, you could instead get an Airplay-enabled speaker or Bluetooth wireless speaker. Both of these speakers are able to receive music via a wireless signal. The operating range of the signal is typically less than 100 feet and therefore you might not be able to transmit from your living room to other rooms in your house. To get more range, however, you can get a wireless iPod dock. These iPod docks have a built-in wireless transmitter. They differ from traditional docks in that the speakers are not integrated into the dock itself but are detached from the dock. The speakers pick up the wireless signal from the docking station. In most cases, the signal which is being sent by the dock is much stronger than the signal which is being sent directly from an iPod. As a result, these wireless docks can typically transmit for a distance of up to 500 feet.

By using one of these wireless docks, you no longer have to hire an installer to run long speaker wire. Also, you have a lot more flexibility in setting up and rearranging your speakers. Instead of getting a speaker dock, you could also investigate purchasing some active speakers. Active speakers already incorporate the power amplifier and therefore you can stream from the iPod by connecting the headphone output of your iPod to the line-level audio input of any active speaker.