Radiopaq Sound Jacket

Radiopaq says its Sound Jacket "acts like a graphic equaliser thatautomatically adjusts itself continuously to best suit the music thatis being played". In other words, it means it can restore the detailand depth that's often lost during compression.

Snugly housingyour nano 4G without obscuring its controls or screen, it connectsthrough your iPod's dock connector and offers a port in its base so youcan charge and sync without removing it. Plug the earbuds into theSound Jacket and they offer controls to adjust the volume and the levelof influence. It's powered through the iPod, so no batteries arerequired.

Sound Jacket certainly does an excellent job inrevitalising harshly encoded MP3s. It makes for a warmer, richer andmore complete sound, especially regarding bass reproduction, which ismuch more to the fore when using the device (some might find it alittle too bass-saturated). But this increase in sound quality comes ata price.

The thin iPod nano is considerably bulkier when it'sslotted into the Sound Jacket, which is a significant drawbackconsidering its small form factor is one of the nano's main sellingpoints.

You can certainly kiss goodbye to third-partyperipherals such as carry cases, though it still fits most speaker setsbecause there's a dock adaptor on the bottom of the Radiopaq.

Asyou might expect, the Sound Jacket does a lot less for music that'sencoded at a higher bit-rate setting. So, surely encoding music at ahigher rate to start with makes more sense than spending £70 on a microamp that bulks up your nano?

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