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Lasonic i931 Reviews !!!

tpr - 2008-03-04 06:50

tpr - 2008-03-04 06:55

cit Pepino:



OK GUYS, HERE GOES MY FEEBLE ATTEMPT AT REVIEWING THE I931.first of all this is my first time looking at the round box,i only own the square version.great packaging.im comparing to the old trc-931.lighter in weight.smaller by a bit not as imtimidating looking.to me it has the feeling of an egg,even thou its big.its nice looking,and good to see a bbx come out of the box new for a change.OK,WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!THE SOUND.compared to the trc 931 no comparison,the trc has more bass and better sound than the i931.sorry fellas,but thats my honest opinion.we were short changed in the sound department.i do like the concealment of the ipod goes in like a cassette.i am going to say its an expensive novelty bbx.but lets hope for more improvements and more companies going for it.tforgive me this is my first review maybe someone else will be able to elaborate better than i can.

dkd - 2008-03-04 09:12

Thanks Pepino for a great first look at the i931. I’m new to this so some of my terminology my not be correct but I’ll give it the old college try. I received my order last night and have had a bit of time to see what this unit is all about. The joy getting the shipment in its pristine packaging made me feel like a kid again. It was well packed, with a ton of styrofoam peanuts free of charge Smile. The unit seems sturdy enough but it does feel a bit light and the plastic doesn’t have a high quality feel to it. It does look good though. I am consciously not calling the plastic cheap, just not high quality. The unit comes with 4 different sized plastic inserts for the ipod dock and I found one that fit my nano perfectly. The battery compartment door also conceals the storage compartment for the power cord which is permanently attached to the inside of this area. There is a notch on the side of the battery door that allows the cord to pass through. The unit also comes with a patch cord for the line out on the back, a remote control unit and a rolled poster of your new i931. Ok. Enough beating around the bush. Peppino was right about the sound. It plays loud and clear at pretty high volumes with no distortion but it’s like the “woofers” aren’t even trying to produce low frequencies. Almost like everything is crossed over and ready to go and all you need to do is add a sub. My first thought was of my old 3 speaker Magnivox with the sub smack dab in the middle and how this unit could use one. Pepino’s youtube video is a good example. It sounds good. Loud and clear except you are missing the high and low frequencies because of the video compression but in this case you’re not really missing the lows because they’re not really there. As I’ve stated in other posts, I’m really not a collector or and audiophile so I don’t have a lot of stuff to compare it to. It, in no way, shape or form compares sound wise to my Conion/Technisonic TC-999 and I really shouldn’t compare it to my JVC Kaboom but some how I still like this thing. It’s nice. Not high end audio nice but nice. Again I agree with Peppino in that this could be classified as an expensive novelty boombox. The radio tuner work pretty well with decent FM reception. The one telescoping antenna seems short to me. AM reception was poor. I’m not sure that I like some of the graphics on the face of the unit. It has a digital tuner which is fine but you have that big analog tuner graphic across the top that serves no purpose. I find it a bit distracting but I know it’s there for nostalgia reasons. The large silver dial on the right side is a volume control not a tuning dial. The unit has separate base and treble controls (-7 through + 7) kind of like a car audio receiver. The presets simply adjust these levels. Ex: ROCK = 2 base and 4 treble etc. I really do like the remote. It works really well with the ipod and so do the face plate controls. In the end I do give this a qualified thumbs up but I think Lasonic can do much better. They are to be commended for testing the water but their actions tell me that they don’t really expect to sell that many of these things. Think Lasonic! Think Teac! Give us a high quality box and we will buy it. Devoted fans will pay a premium for a good boombox. We would love to show off a new, quality (fancyipoddockshapedlikeaboombox) to everyone we know and the sales would follow. You don’t reenter a market by half assing it. Sorry about the mini rant guys. I know this is getting a bit long so I’ll sum it up by saying that even though I’m keeping the i931, I want these companies to understand that we want more. Pepino, if you agree or disagree with any of this please chime in.

pepino - 2008-03-04 12:12

i agree with your feelings and your review was right on.i hope they get good numbers(lasonic)and they go with it,and i hope other companies jump on the bandwagon.i would really wantto see a new generation of bbx carrying peeps,then ill show up with my oldie bbx and show off,lol.i do admit i havent stopped using it since i got it.i hope you enjoy it too.

tpr - 2008-03-07 12:30

cit: peter griffin:


Well, here is my brief review.
Hopefully I'm the first one to review it in Canada eh! Smile got it yesterday, my early 40th b-day gift Smile

Here it is with my ipod inserted.


As already mentioned, it is bass shy. But the highs are really nice. I set it to "loudness" and adjusted the bass to 7, and treble to 6. It's not too bad. No bass like the M70, but nice mid bass, and great highs. And it is still pretty loud. And the sound is much better with the ipod then fm radio.

I find the plastic looks cheap, but it does look tough. Mine already had a scratch on the protective coating, oh well. And what's the deal with all the decals on the box, they don't do anything. My old TRC935 has the same thing, though not as much.

The remote is awesome. You can control the ipod, and boombox with it. And I think someone was asking, you can fastforward and rewind the SD/MMC musicSmile

I might fiddle with it to see if I can fit the woofers from the 935 into the I931, maybe the will help the bass. Overall I'm pretty happy with Smile

Posts: 1537 | Location: T.O. Canada | Registered: Tue March 21 2006

tpr - 2008-03-10 07:24

cit vitalx:






Hi everyone!

I went to local Fry's Electronics store and bought one today for $199+tax. They had 2 in stock. One was the open box but they did not want to give me any discount on that so I went with unopened one.

Brought it home, opened it up - wish they did not put so much pop corn on top...

My first impression is more or less in line with others:

1. Plastic looks pretty cheap.
My box actually did not have a stright bottom and would wobble a bit if pushed...

2. Size wise it is comparable to M90/5350 but thinner.

3. Power cord is built in - I would prefer it is not.

4. Default settings on both bass and treble are low, so that had to be adjusted right away.

5. Comes with 5 adapters that suppose to work with multiple MP3 players. Interestingly enough, there was not one that would work with iPOD Nano which my daughter had, so we just plugged it in without any adapter.

6. MMC/SD slot is pretty slick - you can see the song titles on the display which is a big plus in comparison to my MobiBlue tape. However... a BIG minus is that when you press stop and thn play again it starts from the first song again!! That is really inconvenient!

7. Have not tried the USB slot.

8. With iPOD Nano - everything worked fine, though there was no way to select the particular song - you could only play them in sequence. You can Fast Forward and Rewind within the song with remote.

8. Sound wise - it seem to play differently with different media - which is kind of strange on one side. On another side, it may be due to different sound levels. I know that all my MMC/MobiBlue songs are adjusted to 89Db, where my daughter's iPOD and radio would typically be set to higher Db settings.
Bass is really not that bad. Of course it is not a Kaboom or M90 or 5350 but it has a decent bass. I don't have any other Lasonic to campare it to and someone was saying that M70 has more bass than this box - to me it was about the same. It seem to have a little air port on the front right under the ipod window and the way the plastic is molded leaves not many parts that can rattle on high volume.

Overall - I am pleased with this purchase.
I gave it as an early 17th birthday present to my daughter who was thrilled with it! That along made my day as she previously was pretty indifferent to my boombox collecting hobby Smile







available for $169 here.



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