Ah, the lowly boombox. Certainly, a device that sits squarely centered in the domain of personal audio. Promising so many things: radio; aux inputs; a clock maybe. Unfortunately, boomboxes rarely deliver more than the glorious resonant tones of plastic.

Tivoli tries to buck the tide with their iSongBook. Let's see if they succeed.

Every iPod speaker manufacturer pays lip service to sound quality, but very, very few deliver on the promise. To be fair it's a huge challenge, cost constraints are very real, and the pressure to keep the speaker’s size down to an absolute minimum cannot be denied. The iPod certainly isn't the limiting factor, you can load it up with lossless or WAV files and have a bona-fide high-end sound source. Now NAD, a brand with a long history of making great sounding products is sure to shake things up with its first iPod speaker, the VISO 1 ($700). It's a doozy!