Gear4 CDB-50 Portable Boom Box iPod Speaker System

Calling a next-gen ghetto blaster or a boom-box for the iPod generation, there is no doubt that the last Gear4 iPod speaker system looks like a revival of the kind of tape-based system mobile music you’ve found in rooms throughout the teenage years to 1980 – including mine! Of course, the glossy, piano-black finish is a little more class than the old, dark gray plastic favored at the time, and the sweeping lines and graceful curves are not straight lines and ribbed particular areas adopted by it as Sony, Sanyo and (if you were really unlucky) Alba, but you can certainly see where the inspiration for the CBD-50 must come.

I rather like the retro style. My better half said it looked like a purse, then asked if he was a duck-egg blue, which (I assume) means that it may be some overlap between the sexes call. Whatever your opinion, at least, not yet indistinguishable dock iPod speaker.Are not the CBD-50’s retro leanings limited to its design. Remember CDs? You know, the brilliant series of things that you slot in your PC so you can listen in Windows Media Player / Winamp / iTunes / Songbird transcode or through your MP3 player? Well, the CBD-50 can play. Always listen to honest to goodness analog FM radio? CBD-50 play that too, and there is no fancy pants digital presets, just a good old adjustment dial. You can even ditch cable and the power of the CBD-50 from eight hours – eight hours yes! – Of those whacking great C-batteries. Frankly, the last Gear4 seems to have one foot in the present and one foot firmly in the past. For some of us, this is not a bad thing.

The camera is fairly compact, about 40 cm wide, 22 cm high and 11cm deep, but heavier than it might seem a little less than 2.2 kg without the batteries installed. Build quality is fairly good considering the price, and while I do not think the arrival of a period of time in nature, without scratches, CBD-50 is not the kind of thing you ‘d be terrified to be taken in the garden or (heaven), the local park.

In terms of controls, Gear4 has kept things pretty simple. You will find a four-way input selector and a volume dial on the left side, the radio tuner and the band selector to the right, and dual controls for your iPod and the high-CD to forward, over the status of the LCD screen. At the top there is just the eject button on CD, a pull-up antenna and a bass control. [via trustedreviews]

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