PLUS
Lets you play iTunes video on a big-screen TV
Very good picture and sound quality
Gorgeous cosmetics

MINUS
Very basic remote control

Everyone knows that Apple's iPod is the world's most popular portable music player; but it has uses beyond that. The iPhone and iPod Touch are widely used for portable gaming. And lots of people are using their iPods to watch TV and movies. Apple's Canadian iTunes store has thousands of movies and TV shows (quite a few in high-def) available for purchase or rental.

There are many excellent iPod speaker systems for people who want to play their digital music out loud. This new Pioneer system lets you do that; but it also lets you watch movies and TV shows that are stored on your iPod on a big-screen TV.

Priced at $499, the XW-NAS3 has to be one of the most stylish iPod speakers out there. The front of the sculpted white cabinet (a black version will be available next spring) is covered in black grille cloth, creating a modern, minimalist effect.

There are only a few basic controls on the system itself. On the top surface is a charging dock for your iPod, and in front of the dock, rocker controls for volume, on-off and input selection. The supplied remote too is very basic; it has on-off, play-pause, track-forward and backward, and input-selection buttons. For many operations, you'll have to use the controls on your iPod.

Sound is delivered by a pair of two-inch full-range drivers, each powered by a 15-watt amplifier, and a single downward-firing woofer, powered by a 30-watt amplifier. On the back are composite- and component-video outputs for connecting the system to a TV, a 3.5mm mini audio input jack for hooking up another sound source, and a jack for connecting an optional Bluetooth adapter.

With Pioneer's AS-BT100 adapter attached, you can stream music and control the system from an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch 2G. Pioneer did not supply the adapter for testing, so I was unable to assess this function.

But I listened to lots of music, and watched some video; and I liked what I saw and heard very much. All testing was done with content stored on a second-generation iPod Touch.

Starting with music, a recording of Brahms' Serenade No. 1 sounded very pleasant. Strings were nicely transparent, though slightly papery; bass was predictably a bit light. The piano sound on a recording of piano music by François Couperin played by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt was generally natural, though low mids were sometimes a bit tubby. Turning to female vocals, Norah Jones singing "Come Away with Me" sounded very good, despite a slightly cuppy colouration. The string bass intro on "So What" from Miles Davis Acoustic was a touch tubby, but the piano and brass sounded very natural. Keep this nitpicking in perspective: I did this listening wearing my critic's hat; when I took it off and just listened, I enjoyed this system very much.

To assess this product's performance on video content, I purchased a high-def episode of Law & Order and rented Terminator Salvation from the iTunes store, then transferred both programs from my MacBook Pro to my iPod Touch. I connected the Pioneer system to a Panasonic TC-P50V10 50-inch plasma HDTV using component-video cables, and put the player in the system's dock. In this setup, the Pioneer iPod sound system functioned as a compact audio system for the TV.

I was very impressed with what I saw and heard. To view the high-def episode of Law & Order in full-screen, I put the TV into zoom mode. Predictably, the picture was not as sharp and detailed as high-def episode played from my Rogers Cable high-def PVR, but it looked very good. There were no video artifacts, such smearing or jaggies. Dialog was very intelligible, and sound had good overall clarity. Bass, while not extremely deep, had decent impact.

Similarly, on Terminator Salvation, video was excellent: DVD-quality or very close. Again, there were no bothersome artifacts of any kind. The system filled my family room with medium-level sound without distress or harshness. While the dramatic music track and sound effects weren't as big and dramatic as you'd get with a full-fledged home-theatre sound system, they were very involving; and dialog was always intelligible.

Bottom line: as an audio device, the Pioneer XW-NAS3 is a very respectable performer. But its video capabilities are what set it apart; and in that respect, this is a groundbreaking product.

Article Tags:  pioneer, ipod, iphone, itunes, speaker, video, sound, audio, apple, nas3