If you own an A/V receiver from the likes of Denon, NAD, Onkyo, Marantz or a variety of other well-respected brands, you may have come across Audyssey before, as their sound optimizing technology can often be found inside.  This though, is their first physical product, an audio dock for the iPhone and iPod range.

The Audyssey Audio Dock: South of Market Edition, to give it its full title, may have a simple shape, but it hides a wealth of impressive technology.  There are two 4″ woofers behind the grills, which together with a pair of 3/4″ tweeters are powered by four amplifiers bringing the total power output to 200 watts.  Active crossovers, that have bi-amplification, keep the correct sounds going to the correct speakers.

However it wouldn’t be an Audyssey product without plenty of software tweaks to bring out the best sound possible, so we have Audyssey’s BassXT to get more bass from small speakers, Fast Slope Tone which isolates the treble and the bass for precise adjustment, Tilt for easy adjustment of both the bass and the treble with one control, plus their EQ, Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume too.  As the Audio Dock can be used as a speakerphone, Dynamic Voice uses noise-canceling microphones to provide clear-sounding conversations.

The dock itself charges and syncs your device and is compatible with the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, plus the iPod Touch first, second and third generation, the iPod Classic and the fourth and fifth generation iPod Nano.  A2DP Bluetooth is also present for wireless music streaming and can be used to connect other Bluetooth-enabled devices to the dock, as can a 3.5mm line-input socket.

If you want complete control over how your music sounds, then Audyssey’s iPhone app will let you create and save EQ curves that can then be implemented on your Audio Dock.  The app has yet to show up in the store, but we think this is a great addition and really shows Audyssey’s intentions of bringing high-end audio to the usually low-to-mid dock market.

So, the Audio Dock can wirelessly play music, sync your device, make and receive speakerphone calls even with Skype, has its own remote control and can have its sound endlessly tweaked; quite a feature list!  It’s not enormous either, at a touch over 4 kilograms and measuring 9″ x 9″ x 5″, however its price tag reflects all the technology inside, as it’ll be $399 when it goes on sale during Q4 this year.