XtremeMac's Tango X2, the successor to their well-regarded but now discontinued Tango iPod speaker system (which I reviewed here last year), is a worthy successor, improved in many ways but still reasonably-priced. While I would argue with XtremeMac's billing it as, "the most full featured iPod home stereo system on the market," I have to admit it's a great sounding system with a respectable feature set for the price.

The original Tango was bigger in every dimension -- wider, deeper, and taller -- yet the more compact Tango X2 sounds as good or even better. It still sports a five speaker system with two full-range speakers, two tweeters, and a powered subwoofer. But the original Tango used a downward-firing subwoofer which I complained could, "cause vibration and rumble at higher listening levels, especially with bass-heavy rock, hip-hop, and rap tunes." The redesigned Tango X2's subwoofer no longer points downward. Instead, it's now rear-ported, which makes a big difference.

As a result, I didn't experience any of that vibration or rumble, even at high listening levels . In fact, I'd venture that the bass response was as good as any one-piece system in this price range that I've tested. Furthermore, since Tango X2 has both bass and treble controls, I was able to easily tailor the output to the type of music I was playing.

Another improvement I enjoyed was that this model includes an AM/FM radio, something the original Tango lacked. .

The only non-improvement I can think of is that the original Tango offered S-Video output so you could display video from a video iPod on a TV set; Tango X2 has no TV output. For what it's worth, that was a feature I thought was kind of neat, but one I never, ever used.

My only complaint is that there are three available presets for radio stations -- buttons labeled 1, 2, and 3 on the top of the unit . That's a good thing. The bad thing is that while you can tune the radio using the wireless remote, you can't use it to choose one of the presets. To do that you must walk over and press the appropriate button on the Tango X2.

Tango X2 is compatible with all dock connector iPod models 4th generation and later.

The Bottom Line

Tango X2 is one of the best sounding compact iPod speaker system we've tested at this price point and is definitely worthy of your consideration if you're in the market for such a system.