The Dock Pack is a stylish iPod speaker system and dock from European audio manufacturer Scandyna Speakers. The dock and speakers are relatively compact, with attractive modern styling as shown in this photo:

As you can see, the design is strictly minimalist. Notice that neither the dock nor the speakers offer any knobs, switches, or buttons -- the system is controlled exclusively with the minimalist wireless remote shown here:

The dock is also strictly minimalist with no hidden frills on its backside. All you'll find are two speaker outputs, a power connection, and a line output for the (optional) subwoofer, as shown below:

The dock has a 2 x 15 watts RMS active amplifier Class T with frequency response of 20Hz - 20 KHz +-1.0 db. And the two-way speakers each house a 3.25-inch long throw bass/midrange speaker with a Kevlar piston along with a 3/4-inch dia free-mounted speaker for high frequencies.

So how does it sound? Pretty good. Quite decent. Better than OK, but not that much better. Overall, the system provides sweet, clean, undistorted, sparkling sound with excellent response in the middle and high frequencies. And unlike many similarly-priced iPod speaker systems that are all one piece, since these speakers can be placed freely and separated by as much as 10 or 12 feet, its stereo soundstage image is better than many. Alas, it falls short reproducing lower frequencies. If your source material is heavy on the bass you'll find it sounds somewhat anemic when played on this system. Even material that's not particularly bass-heavy can sound a little thin.

I'm sure adding an optional subwoofer would improve things immensely, but the suggested list price of $299 is already at the high end of the iPod docking speaker price spectrum. While a subwoofer might make this system sound a lot better, it would also push the price beyond reasonable (at least in my opinion).

In a nutshell, the price is the biggest problem with this system. If it were $100 cheaper, adding a subwoofer might make sense. But at $299 there are other attractive options worth considering. For example, the Logitech Pure-Fi Elite (reviewed here) and Cambridge Soundworks Radio 735i (reviewed here) both cost $299 and sound at least as good or better. And both systems offer additional niceties including FM radio with multiple station presets and a wireless remote with many more options than the Dock Pack. Or non-docking speaker systems like the Audioengine 5s (reviewed here) or Exo 2.1 Stereo Monitoring Speaker System (reviewed here) that cost slightly more but sound more than slightly better.

The Bottom Line

The Dock Pack is a decent enough iPod dock and speaker system but there are many other similarly-priced products that either sound better, offer more features, or both. If you like the modern styling and compactness of the Dock Pack, and don't mind the slightly anemic bass response, you'll probably like them a lot.