Pioneer Elite Music Tap Dock Tech Review

The Pioneer Elite Music Tap sound dock allows you to hear and watch your music through Airplay, meaning you won’t have to connect your iPod or iPhone. Candace Bailey and Kevin Pereira take a look at the sound dock for its official Gadget Pr0n review.

Find the full review from Gadget Pron on Attack of the Show after the cut.

What You Need To Know

• The Pioneer Elite Music Tape promises a seamless way to listen to music with support for Apple's AirPlay and DLNA networking.
• The high price point puts the device a big above mid range for iPod docks.
• The design features a digital clock.
• You can physically dock your iPod or iPhone with the slide out dock.
• There are function buttons on the top that are redundant.
• For example, there are two redundant shortcuts to Bluetooth and Air Jam.
• Air Jam is Pioneer's own app that allows you to connect up to four different iOS devices and create party playlists.
• The app is cool but usually the more features we see crammed into docks, the more difficult they are to set up.
• Calling this set-up difficult would be an understatement.
• Essentially everything is done from the remote and the display.
• There's a 2.5" full color display, which is actually a nice touch on a sound dock.
• The color is excellent but the menus are ridiculous.
• For example, if you want to change the network connection, you have to jump into the menu, select the networking, change it and then restart the device.
• The Elite Music Tap is one of the slowest devices we have ever seen from off to on and ready.
• It took us a solid 45 minutes to get set up on here.
• Part of what make the process take so long was the unresponsive 36 button remote.
• The "Enter" button would only register every 4th or 5th press.
• The Elite model of the Music Tape means it has Bluetooth, which costs an extra $79.
• The Bluetooth was the easiest function to set up.
• We tried pairing multiple phones to it and every time we were able to connect on the first try.
• The sound was pretty good.
• There are twin 20W speakers and the sound reproduction was actually better than expected.
• The distance between the speakers delivered a stereo listening experience from a distance up to about 10 feet.
• The sound quality was still very good further away from the unit.
• We did find that the sound did distort pretty badly when the unit was turned up about 36 on its 50 increments of volume.
• Overall, we found the sound to be good for its size.

Price

• $379

Rating

• 2 Seals of Approval out of 5. (How do we rate gadgets?)
• The sound is good for its price range.
• The menu and set up difficulty hold this system back from a higher rating.

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