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Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/11/review_isteroid2_amp/

i-Steroid 2 valve amplifier and speakers

By Tony Smith
Published Tuesday 11th July 2006 13:09 GMT

Review The i-Steroid promises the warm sound quality you only get with old-style valve amplification, and there, clear for all to see, plugged in and powered up is the speaker set's single valve, glowing with sheer thermionic joy. The question is, does it make a difference to the sound, or is it simply there for show?

Sonic Gear i-Steroid 2

The i-Steroid comprises a central unit which contains the amplifier, power transformer, controls and a sub-woofer. Round the back are RCA stereo input and output jacks. The latter go out to the two satellite speakers which, like the main unit, are done up in white with grey trim, or black with red trim, depending on which model you select. The bundled cables, for the speakers and to hook up the iPod's dock, are gold-plated.

The central unit has four buttons mounted beneath a single circle of plastic designed to ape the iPod's clickwheel. Top and bottom we have the bass adjusters - pressing left or right lowers or raises the volume. In the centre is a fifth button which mutes the system.

The unit's just under 30cm high, but the upper third is entirely empty space: if you think of the i-Steroid as an iPod, the space is where you'd expect the screen to be. In fact, it's where the single valve is mounted, tucked under a transparent tripod-mounted hood that's illuminated from underneath with a trio of white LEDs build into the casing. The hood lifts off to allow you to reach in and unplug the valve should you need to, or if your curiosity gets the better of you.

Up-end the unit, and between the four thick, long rubber feet is the reflex port that guides the woofer's output out of the box, boosting the system's bass response on the way.

The satellite speakers are small, passive units with a pair of cones, the larger of the two exposed and coloured to match the main unit's hues. The satellites can pump out 16W apiece, while the sub-woofer runs to 18W. That's the i-Steroid 2's specification - the i-Steroid 1, which is the white model, has a 16W sub-woofer and a pair of 6W satellites.

The i-Steroid comes bundled with Sonic Gear's U100 iPod universal dock, coloured to match the main unit. There are five different colour-coordinated slot adaptors but none to fit a Nano, the iPod I was using for the test. The U100 has solid, weighty feel but you still have to hold it down while you remove your iPod. The circular unit has a two volume up and down buttons just in front of the iPod. At the back you'll find an AC adaptor port, stereo RCA output jacks, an S-video port to hook up a TV, and an iPod dock pass-through port so you can dock an iPod and connect to to a host computer.

Sonic Gear i-Steroid 2

The U100 has its own remote control - one of two in the package. In addition to the expected play/pause, volume track-skip, shuffle and track-repeat control buttons, there's a handy button to quickly trigger the player's backlight. Track selection is idiosyncratic: a pair of buttons cycle through any playlists you've set up on the iPod, and a second pair of buttons can then be used to step through the albums in a given playlist. It doesn't work the other way round, and there's no way to access the player's Music menu directly.

Having volume controls on the dock as well as the main speaker set means to have to adjust two sets of controls, even if it's only to apply a 'standard' setting to one of the two units. I would have preferred the dock to transmit at standard line-out level, leaving volume control to the amplifier. The first time I used the dock, I couldn't figure out why the sound was so quiet - both the iPod's volume and the speakers seemed to be set as high as they'd go. Then I realised the dock's output was set low.

Incidentally, the i-Steroid's own remote is coloured to match the speakers and replicates the main unit's five controls with five buttons of its own.

Sonic Gear i-Steroid 2

With the respective volume controls set correctly, the i-Steroid's sound quality isn't bad. The i-Steroid is able to pump out a big sound and I was able to push it up to max without any appreciable distortion - one of the other benefits of valve amplification. It's a room filler, certainly. The higher frequencies are present and correct, and the bass is solid, but I felt it was lacking a bit in the low to mid-range frequencies, above the sub-woofer but below the satellites' range. This was more noticeable the further I sat from the main unit.

Tastes vary, of course, and some listeners may prefer it. A lot depends too on the acoustics of the room the i-Steroid's going in, and its positioning in relation to walls and furniture.

Can I say the sound's better than I'd get off an equivalent solid-state amplifier? That's a tricky one. The sound is nicely rounded, but that could simply be down to good bass reproduction. I don't think it actually matters - what is important is that you like the sound a system produces, whatever technology it uses to generate that sound. By and large, I liked the sound the i-Steroid pumps out.

The downside of valve amplification, of course, is that you need to allow a short period for the valve to warm up to hear it. But since the i-Steroid works as soon as you turn it on - or if you take the valve out before turning on the power - I suspect there's a twin amplification system in there. The valve isn't simply for show - the sound is certainly better and beefier with the thing connected - but it's not the only contributor to the output. That suggests there are some transistors in there too, but as I say, so long as you like the sound, so what?

Sonic Gear i-Steroid 2 u100 remote

My big beef with the i-Steroid is its colour scheme. The white/grey look isn't so bad, but the black/red styling is one I don't like at all. Judging from the comments the unit received from other folk in the Reg Hardware office, not many other people do either.

Verdict

I'll leave the debate over the pros and cons of valve amplification to the audio nerds. What you need to know is that the i-Steroid 2 pumps out a big, clear sound, even at high volumes. It packs a punch and you can pick it up for as little as £160 - rather less than Apple's £229 iPod Hi-Fi, for example, or than similar products from better-known brands. ®

i-Steroid 2
SummaryYou may not like the iPod-like look, but the i-Steroid 2 can certainly pump up the volume...
Rating85%
Price£160-200
More infoSonic Gear's website (http://www.sonicgear.com.sg/pdetail.php?category=i-STEROID&idnye=7)