Here’s a sleek speaker set that packs plenty of features— including an AM/FM tuner, a sleep timer, an iPod video-out, and a better-than-average remote— all at an affordable price. And when it comes to what really counts—namely, sound quality—the Pure-Fi Elite delivers.

Clad in slick black with metal speaker grilles, the Pure-Fi Elite looks as good as it sounds. It’s wide but surprisingly shallow, and you pop your iPod in the center just above its display. The remote is backlit and features six keys you can program to cue up your favorite iPod playlists or radio-station presets, but you can’t navigate the iPod’s menu system.

Compared with the Bose SoundDock, the Pure-Fi Elite has deeper bass extension. It also sounded smoother and more detailed than the SoundDock in the upper midrange. In fact, the Pure-Fi Elite excelled with just about any type of tune I threw at it.

A minor gripe: My test system didn’t always power on quickly. Sometimes I had to press the button three or four times before it did so, whether I used the remote or the front-panel buttons. I was also disappointed that the set doesn’t have an alarm clock, which, combined with its built-in clock and sleep timer, would have made it the perfect bedroom sound system.

The bottom line is that looks, punch, and price steal the show here. The Logitech Pure-Fi Elite turns heads and pumps out top-notch sound quality at an attractive price.

Logitech Pure-Fi Elite Review
$179 list
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