Altec Lansing MIX iMT800 review

The 80s was a curious decade. The music was synthesised clicks and bleeps, the movies were violent and shallow, and the fashions made men look like women and the women look like discarded Christmas decorations.

But even if its popular culture is best forgotten, its technology is fondly remembered. The 80s gave us the personal stereo and the ghetto blaster, and this unapologetically retro speaker system brings the descendants of these two concepts together, packing that most modern technology, the iPod dock, into an 80s-style boombox.

Portable power

The MIX iMT800 runs on batteries, as well as mains, and offers two auxiliary inputs alongside an iPod dock so you can connect up to three audio players.

It's loud enough to fill a decent-sized room and also has an FM radio with four presets.

Altec Lansing is known for speaker docks that sound bigger than they are, and this one's no exception. It gives a rounded sound, with its extensive driver set giving lots of top, middle and bottom.

As you'd expect from a boombox it's bass heavy, though if you find it swamps the mix, there's a user-controlled graphic equaliser.

Every instrument is defined, though the sound isn't shaped as well as it might be.

Not everyone will like the MIX iMT800's retro styling and bass-heavy sound, but if you miss your floorboard-shaking 80s ghetto blaster, you'll love it.

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