Music System Home Gen 2 Wi-Fi/AM/FM/Bluetooth Hi-Fi System (Black Ash/Black)

Bought direct from Tivoli on sale. I'd never owned a Tivoli product but reviews of their Model 1 radio were consistently great, and I love the retro look of it. I wanted a small all-in-one stereo with excellent sound quality for my office. I thought this would be perfect. I'm fond of the retro look, and the 2nd generation of this Tivoli system had just come out and was on sale from Tivoli direct. (Tivoli direct offers a substantial one-time discount if you sign up for their email subscription, which you can unsubscribe from after your purchase.). I bought the walnut/silver finish. In person, it looks as cool as it does in the photos. it's classy looking and well-made, with excellent build quality. I like the size of it - big enough that the speakers are far enough apart that you get stereo separation if you're not too far from the unit. And while $100-200 Bluetooth speaker units put out impressive volume, this Tivoli sounds a lot bigger. The unit has every imaginable input: bluetooth, Apple AirPlay and ChromeCast, aux audio in, optical, and probably one or two more that I'm forgetting at the moment. It has an AM/FM tuner and internet radio. It's easy to control the unit using the remote or pressing the buttons directly on the unit. But for me, there was a deal-breaker: The bass is way too loud and boomy. It just overpowers the sound. Don't get me wrong, I love bass and I avoid speakers with weak bass. But this unit's bass was ridiculous, to the point of ruining the experience for me. If you've ever had a portable speaker with a bass boost switch, this was like having a triple bass boost switch that you could never turn off. Other than the bass, the rest of the sound quality is good to very good, but not quite what I would expect at this price-point. You're paying a premium for the hip design and build quality, and I for one am happy to pay that premium for such a well put together piece of kit. But I just couldn't live with the ridiculous bass. I communicated with Tivoli customer service, who to their credit was very responsive. They had no suggestions for things I could try to fix the problem. So I returned it and got a full refund. (Tivoli to their credit made the return process easy for me.) I asked them to test out my unit once they received it and let me know whether there was anything wrong with it. If there was, I was going to buy another unit. But they said they tested it and it worked as intended. I'm not convinced that my unit wasn't defective. I read an online review by HiFi Pig (ignore the goofy name, it is a very respectable source of information about hifi gear) which said that bass was lacking and they recommended adding a subwoofer. A product you might consider instead is the Peachtree M24 powered speakers. They sound better than the Tivoli (even if the Tivoli's bass issue could be corrected). They cost a few hundred less. They are two separate speakers, so you can place them apart from each other to get a much wider stereo soundstage. They have lots of inputs like the Tivoli. They are gorgeous with a real wood finish. They pretty much tick all the boxes. They don't have the hip retro look of the Tivoli, but they're better in every other way.

Picked this for the connection options, style, and good reviews. The sound is disappointing for the price. There doesn't appear any option to change any sound settings except bass which didn't do much. It was supposed to replace an inexpensive Sangean WR-22 which sounds much better with just an aux jack plugged into a tablet.