Bayan Audio – Bayan 7 iPod Speaker Dock Review

Performance

To test the Bayan 7 Speaker Dock we are using an Apple iPhone 4 and iPad 2 that will stream audio over our network, on top of an android smartphone and our main rig that will be connected via the 3.5mm audio jack. A range of music genres and pod-casts will be played  to test the speakers and sub. Throughout this process we will also be monitoring it’s usability and any issues that may crop up in testing.

First up is the Apple device testing. For this we connected both a iPhone 4 (in picture above) and then connected an iPad 2  round the back using the USB port for power and the 3.5mm jack for the audio. As soon as the devices were hooked up they started charging (with the power off on the speaker dock), oddly, we also heard a loud “pop” that came from the main speaker, which only seemed to occur when the power to the main unit was off and you connected an audio device.

When we turned the power on to the unit, the iPhone instantly switched to music and started playing a couple of songs already on the phone, at first this was a negative point to us, as the volume is determined by the iPhone’s level – which was set to max! So one complaint from our neighbouring business later, we started up the Bayan 7 the second time round, with the volume at a respectable level. First up we played through a few house tunes (Vibrasphere), which sounded amazing on the Bayan 7. The sound was clear, crisp, deep. The dock had great low, mid and high tones and the bass was more than sufficient. We found this to be the case with pretty much every genre of music, from pop to dubstep, it took what we threw at it, with continuously flawless playback. One small point to note, the bass is not great when cranked up to the max, it lacks a certain kick to it that all the bass addicts out there are so keen to have.

Switching between the the different devices was very straight forward, by simply pressing the “iPod 1”, “iPod 2” or the “Tablet” button on the remote. If you change between the devices, the previous one pauses whilst the new devices starts playing, so you can simply change back to the original device and continue playing. We can see the benefits of having the dual docking system, especially if one has a partner that has a different taste in music to you, although we can see arguments occurring over which device to play from. The playback through the 3.5mm jack means any device with an audio out port can be used with this speaker dock, so whilst it’s primarily aimed at Apple device users, it is still usable with most of the other media devices out there. At one point we hooked it up to the PC and had a quick blast of Battlefield3, which sounded great, albeit only in stereo, but the bass certainly gave it a realistic edge.

A nice feature to see on the Bayan 7 is the option to switch between voice and music, depending on what you are listening to. By switching to the voice setting, audio containing a lot of talking, such as podcasts and radio, make the voices much clearer and cleaner to listen to.

The one thing the Bayan 7 is lacking in, is some sort of display to show the volume, bass and treble levels. Currently you have to go by guesswork as to what the levels are currently set at. With an RRP of almost £300, we were slightly taken aback as to why Bayan Audio haven’t included this. The Bayan 7 is also lacking in any wireless functionality, i.e. it’s not possible to stream your music directly to it, you have to use homeshare on your iPod/iPhone instead, but then you have to have the PC with itunes on whenever you want to listen to your music. There is an optional addon to the unit that does allow wireless streaming, but should it not be included for the price tag?

Now it’s time for us to summarise how the Bayan 7 has performed. Read on after the jump to hear our final thoughts.