IPad Accessories: iPad Mantis Speakers by Vestalife

Posted Dec 28, 2010 at 7:50PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: iPad Accessories Tags: apple, Speakers

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The new Mantis system is 25% bigger to accommodate the iPad. They are truly a sight to behold. Retaining their distinctive wing-style speaker system, these speakers would look right at home in an artist’s loft or a design exhibition. Available in the established Mantis colors of metallic red, black or silver, the speaker dock boasts a soft hue and black chrome features. It looks stunning…. But how does it sound? As the iPad Mantis is bigger it pumps out more wattage and Vestalife boast better all-round acoustics. As in the older iPod version, it has a down-facing subwoofer, producing (as Vestalife describe) “uptown style and downtown sound”… whatever that means. In reality it describes a constant bass thump that probably hits the mark with younger users. For grown-ups and the more discerning, however, it just gets annoying. Turn the volume up past mid-range and bass distortion becomes unbearable. It’s all very well installing a top-range sub-woofer into a device, but give it room to dance! The Mantis range has various connection options. These include a built-in USB port for synching, an auxiliary input and video out-jack. The digital amplifier is decent enough, until you go above mid-range as mentioned earlier. Its portability is greatly increased by the option of running the unit from 4 AA batteries, although how much listening time you get from this is debatable…. At around $200 the Mantis for iPad is EXPENSIVE, in spite of Vestalife’s claim that you are getting the quality of speakers of twice the price. I find that difficult to believe with the distortion issues. If you’re not ready to invest that kind of cash in a less-than-perfect sound system, you can always plug your iPad into your old iPod sound dock. All you need is a docked iPad, your iPod external speakers (eg Bose Sound Dock) and a male to male auxiliary jack cable. You can pick up the cable from any Apple store – plug it into the back of the iPad dock and the Bose Sound dock, chose your tunes and out comes the music. Simple!

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