Review: Turns the Kindle Fire into a real sound machine
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2012
Note: I was given this product by the manufacturer in exchange for an honest review.I preordered my Kindle Fire, and it was delivered on the release date in November 2011. Since then, I've come to love my Fire, but one of the biggest inherent weakness of the Fire or any other tablet is the audio output. The speakers are very small, and the sound quality just isn't very good. I play music on my Fire every day, and I watch videos several times a week, so using a docking device with decent speakers was very appealing.Out of the box, it only took a couple of minutes to mount my Kindle Fire and check out the MatchStick with some music and videos. Connecting the Fire and using the controls was pretty intuitive, and the remote control was a nice touch that made adjusting the volume and treble/base controls very convenient. Hearing music and video sound on the bigger speakers of the dock was a completely new experience. I tried a couple of games that I knew had good sound effects, and they sounded great, too. I also frequently use the TuneIn internet radio app, and it's a much improved experience to listen with 16 watts of sound available.Note that to switch from portrait to landscape orientation was very simple, since the frame for the Fire rotates 90 degrees in either direction.Now a few words about sound output. I was impressed at the huge difference in sound volume and quality the MatchStick made compared to the Fire's built-in speakers. Having said that, I acknowledge that I am not a dedicated audiophile who insists on a high-end high-fidelity sound system. (Actually, I don't own an audio device with speakers bigger than about three inches in diameter, which is comparable to the MatchStick's speakers.) So to my ears, the sound was excellent, and for the first time with the Kindle Fire, I heard real stereophonic sounds with bass notes.Quality is defined as "meeting the user's expectations." Based on that criterion, I gave the MatchStick 5 stars, since it met my needs and expectations almost perfectly.