Music plays a big role in iOS. That’s why when Apple announced AirPlay, the crowd went wild. Playing music from my iOS device across the room? Amazing! The only problem was more than half the speakers out there didn’t support this AirPlay thing. We were back to having to buy additional Apple things. In this case, the AirPorts. That’s why Griffin is now claiming that “the good speakers miss you,” and indeed they do. Griffin wants to mend the relationship with Twenty, an amplifier that connects to your existing speakers and lets you stream AirPlay audio to them. The odd thing is, however, that you still need an AirPort Express base station. Makes you wonder what’s the difference. Well besides having a cool looking dock on the table.
Regardless, the Twenty is more convenient for small spaces than Apple’s method, and with a large stainless steel knob on top and a slim white frame, it should fit in nicely. The Twenty will come with a Toslink cable for connecting your AirPort’s optical port to the Twenty’s input and powering it. The amp is also said by Griffin to offer 20 watts per channel and can drive a powered subwoofer. In other words, it’s compatible with both a base and bass station – one of few. The set up is easy. Simply plug the base station into the Twenty and the Twenty to your speakers. Easy. As Griffin puts it,
The result is a zero-configuration audio set-up, streaming Apple Lossless sound from iTunes to the user’s speakers via a low-profile digital amplifier.
The device will definitely help in terms of functionality and space – a.k.a cable clutter. However, it will be interesting to see if it does much else. Griffin hasn’t said anything on pricing or shipping, but they have set up a launch page where you can sign up to be notified when the amp available.
