Comments on: JBL On Time 400IHD High-Performance Speaker Dock with HD Digital Radio for iPod

By: Brian K. Doll

Brian K. Doll — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:11:46 +0000

This is a wonderful unit that has served me better than expected even though I did pick it up through Amazon for only $124 in September of 2009. I heard from the reviews that it was a bit user unfriendly but purchased it nevertheless and don’t regret it. The HD radio features are flawless and feature packed. Sound quality is up there with the Bose units and ease of use is sufficiently suitable. In other words, if you consider yourself a geek or tech savy this can be the perfect bedside radio for you, but if you don’t, go get an iluv and prepare to be luved. Otherwise pick yourself up one of these. None of the negatives that have been attributed to this product have seemed relevant to me. The remote works perfectly, even when under my pillow, and every function is easily used. This is a well designed and feature packed dock. I challenge anyone to find one better than it for the price I paid.

By: Jon Dough

Jon Dough — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:44:11 +0000

JBL should fire the design and marketing team for this product. Aside from the HD radio and nice sound, the unit is about as user unfriendly as it gets, especially considering the hefty price tag.

The buttons are small, confusing and hard to use. The display is absolutely hideous. The colors strain the eyes, the digits are too small and it is hard to read from an angle. The brightness/contrast controls do little to help.

Finally although claiming compatibility with the iPod Touch, all it can do is charge and play songs through the dock speakers - there is NO wake to iPod Touch and NO remote navigation of iPod Touch (read the fine print on the box and it leaves the Touch out of the list of iPods that it can "Sync" to).

I was so disgusted by this abysmal, overpriced product that JBL is going on my black list.

By: Rich P. Ravarino

Rich P. Ravarino — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:26:00 +0000

As a long time iPod owner and a former JBL owner I was disappointed to read all these negative reviews. I really wanted to buy this piece for myself. Let me repeat that, I DO NOT OWN THIS UNIT.

That said, I wouldn’t necessarily blame JBL for the compatibility issues with the iTouch and the iPhone. I think this is a failure of Apple. They changed the majority of their output settings with this last couple of generations. An example would be the change in the video standard output by the itouch, iphone and iPod classic. . . None of these will work with 5th generation iPod video cables.

I think there is more here than JBL getting sloppy. I don’t believe JBL would be this sloppy. I believe they trusted Apple to deliver and this is a failure of Apple.

Just my two cents though.

By: Barbra J. Rapacchietta

Barbra J. Rapacchietta — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:10:54 +0000

This was a gift for my daughter and we had a problem with the remote control so amazon shipped another one within 3 days!!! WOW! Awesome customer service! She loves her ipod dock and it has amazing sound and special features such as tagging for itunes (which she uses all the time!)

Oh and we didn’t have to pay to ship the other one back.

I will always do business with Amazon….a great company and very likable customer service staff!!! Love you guys!

By: E. Downey

E. Downey — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:12:46 +0000

I really can’t comment on this product since I bought it for my son who lives 1800 miles away. I selected it based on reviews I found on the web.