SiliconBeat

JBL On Stage 400P

I just swapped out the Altec-Lansing inMotion Max iPod speaker system I’ve been testing for JBL’s new On Stage 400P.

Like the inMotion Max, the 400P works with — and will charge — iPhones and iPods. But at the 400P has a different set of features than the inMotion Max.

Unlike the inMotion Max, the 400P doesn’t include and LCD display or an FM tuner (it does have an auxiliary port, though). It also doesn’t have a rechargeable battery pack, so unlike the Altec-Lansing device, it’s not portable. Nor does it have the inMotion’s “Expanded Sound Stage” technology, which is supposed to “fill a room with sound” (but which I found underwhelming in my tests).

But the 400P, at least at first glance, doesn’t need any tricks to make it sound better. It delivers nice, rich, robust sound that can fill up a room at even fairly low volume levels.

The 400P itself is fairly basic. It has three buttons: power and volume up and down. But the device includes a fairly sophisticated remote.

The remote controls that come with most iPod devices are pretty basic. They usually allow you to do little more than play, pause, fast-forward and reverse.

But the 400Ps remote gives you pretty much all the same controls you’d get from interacting directly with a standard iPod. While playing a particularly song, you can use the “menu” button to see all the songs on that album, go up another menu level to see and choose from all your albums or go up another level to browse your music by playlist, song, album or artist.

In my initial tests, there was a bit of a delay between pressing the button and going to the next song or album in a list. And I had to go through a list one by one, pressing the button each time; I couldn’t simply hold down the button to scroll quickly through them.

Still, it was nice to be able to navigate my music fairly easily from 5 or 10 feet away rather than on the iPhone itself.

And the JBL has a bigger drawback on first impression: It’s relatively pricey, costing about $250.

Update: One other negative initial impression: the power supply for the 400P is a brick! Considering that users probably won’t be transporting the 400P around a lot, that’s not a big deal, but the power supply is unsightly and does take up a decent amount of room on a counter.

Update II: After reading my post, a JBL representative pointed out that while the 400P lists for $250, you can actually find it in stores for much less than that. Amazon.com, for instance, is selling it for about $180. The representative said that Fry’s Electronics is carrying the 400P and has it priced at less than $200.