While at NAMM last January, I had a meeting with the people from Samson Audio. While waiting for our appointment to begin, I had a chance to check out the StudioDock 3i.

I had almost forgotten that I tested it until I saw this announcement that the product was just released to the market.

Basically, it’s a set of speakers with an iPod dock that allows you to charge and play your iPod.

There are many speaker sets for the iPod, but I found this one to be superior in sound and range to any others that I’ve tried.

The sheer volume alone that you can generate, while still maintaining the integrity of the song (no mean feat for MP3 players, in general) is quite impressive. You can certainly maintain a groovy backyard party with one set of these speakers.

They’re retailing at about $150 on every site I’ve seen (Madison-local Full Compass has them for $149). If you’re looking for speakers for your iPod, I can’t recommend these strongly enough (well, given time… I probably could… but you get the point).