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With the new iPod 5.5G out, time once again to look at the best accessories for home where you need some sort of dock to listen to music and in the car where you need a way to plug your iPod in. Here again from ilounge are the recommendations which basically says the Athena iVoice is best for large setups, the Altec Lansing inMotion iM7 is the best boom box size and the Logic3 i-Station7 is the best super portable for being on the road. If you are looking for truly stationary speakers than the Harmon Kardon Sounds stick II sound good and look great at $170 to get although for best value, the $70 JBL Creature II’s are really hard to beat.

For in the car performance, not much has changed, the Ten Technology Flexible Dock ($50 from the apple.com site) is the best holder and the Sony SCA-9 Cassette Adapter can be had from Buy.com for $9.

Athena Technologies iVoice Wall Mountable Speaker

Though there’s no question in our minds that the best all-in-one iPod speaker for the dollar is Altec Lansing’s inMotion iM7 (iLounge rating: A-) $200 street, sales of Bose’s SoundDock have eclipsed the iM7’s by a wide margin, owing equally to Bose’s marketing strength, the SoundDock’s simple design, and its good-enough-for-most-listeners sound quality. What Athena has done with iVoice is to quite nearly replicate the SoundDock’s sound signature, feature set, and simplicity at a $100 lower price point, adding a few bonuses in the process.

nIf you don’t need a full blown system, then the Logic3 Station 7 docking station is a good choice for a portable system at $100.

PC Magazine has a slightly different view of the world judging by the Editors Choice winners and they appear to do more technical testing, here are their favorites:

• “Think Outside BoomTube H2O1 review by PC Magazine Think Outside BoomTube H201 looks like the Apple Hifi, but according to PC Magazine, this $150 portable sounds much better. It is round and has dual subwoofers (if you can call 2.2 inch drivers subwoofers).
• Apple iPod Hi-Fi. Super expensive at $350 so way too much for me.
• Saitek A-250. Super alien design. $130 direct, it sounds OK, with a 3” subwoofer underneath and it connects wirelessly with a proprietary 2.4GHz connection. Not much bass though.

• Klipsch Pro Media Ultra 2.0. Klipsch is a great brand name and it sounds good, but without a subwoofer, its a bit thin at the low end.