XtremeMac Tango Bar USB Powered Speaker Preview

We're pretty sure getting your product into the Apple Store is sort of like hitting the lottery. If you have a product, regardless if it is Apple specific or not, if you can get it into the Apple Store, you've got it in front of a captive and highly motivated customer. Anything with the (perceived) Apple stamp of approval immediately gets extra weight with this sort of consumer. So we can't fault XtremeMac for focusing on Apple consumers both with their name and their marketing.

As you can see from the picture above, the Tango Bar from XtremeMac is designed with the iMac in mind. At 21" by 3" by 2", the Tango Bar fits perfectly under the 21" iMac. With a volume knob on the right side, a headphone out and a 3.5mm input, and even a subwoofer output, the Tango is a bit of an unexpected product. While we usually think of such "made for Apple" products to be more about aesthetics than performance, the subwoofer output took us by surprise

The backlit volume knob (illuminated in tango orange we're guessing) is really the only thing that makes this look like an Apple product to us. The entire unit is USB powered and fed - meaning all you need to do is plug it in to your computer and the Tango Bar gets both power and audio feed. There are stereo dome tweeters and midranges in the bar (no word on size/composition/placement) as well as dual passive radiators for extra bass. We prefer, in such a product, a sealed design rather than a ported one as placement will vary greatly from user to user. As long as the passive radiators are forward firing (rear firing would be silly), it should be a good design. Internal 10 watt amplifiers power the drivers.

But the fact is that the Tango Bar is a universal product. While it is buried at the bottom of the specifications list and the only computer shown with the Tango Bar is a Mac, the USB powered XtremeMac Tango Bar will work just fine with your PC. While we love to make fun of sound bars for their use in home theater, in an office, they actually make a lot more sense. Under a computer monitor, they are not taking up too much space you would actually use. Plus, with near-field listening, you are actually capable of getting fairly good stereo separation. 

Conclusion

The key here, of course, is price. For a buck less than a C-note, the XtremeMac Tango Bar is pretty much an impulse buy for those purchasing a new computer from the Apple Store (don't tell them we found it for just over $60 on Amazon). While they haven't published any sort of performance data, the passive radiators alone guarantee that consumers are going to be impressed with the sound. Will a dedicated Audioholic? No. But, then again, they will be much more willing to spend much more on desktop speakers. With an additional input for your non-iDevice MP3 player, and headphone and subwoofer outputs, the XtremeMac Tango Bar, at the very least, is giving users options. Having the Tango Bar both fed and powered by USB means that there is even the option of taking the speaker to a friends. How many desktop systems can make that claim?

For more information, please visit www.xtrememac.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.