I’ve long been a sucker for certain audio brands. Here in Boston, there’s no shortage of original talent, including Bose, Cambridge SoundWorks, and Tivoli.

Nationally, Altec Lansing’s long history for producing superior sounding products makes them stand out. Even their cheaper products stand out. The audio system on my computer at home is still an Altec Lansing SoundBar. The SoundBar, from 2008, has lasted longer than my last three computers, and I have access to nearly every computer speaker system out there.

And I feel the same about Cambridge SoundWorks products, even since their buyout by Creative. SoundWorks’s Newton speakers are divine. The company’s compact radios sound excellent and rival other tiny sound systems that promise big sound.

That’s what pains me about the SoundWorks i525, an iPod docking radio/alarm clock. By itself, the audio quality and construction make it a great choice. That’s how we should base audio products, right? Sound. Construction.

Well not quite. The i525 was not designed with the iPhone in mind. It plays and charges the iPhone, but Cambridge Soundworks did not get the product certified by Apple. A warning pops up on my iPhone 4′s screen when I dock it with the i525, warning me that it’s not optimized for my phone.

The product is fully functional, but WiFi and cellular phone activity can cause audio distortion and interference.

“The SoundWorks i525 will charge and function with iPhone. The Optimization flag appears as we are not yet certified for iPhone support. The product is fully functional with iPhone; however,” said Maria Cataldo, a spokeswoman for Cambridge Soundworks. “Please note, since we are not yet certified ‘for use with an iPhone,’ the user is presented with a warning that the iPhone may cause interference with the radio and offers you the choice to enter Airplane Mode. If the user does not enter Airplane Mode, the phone will still operate normally, but may introduce some interference from the radio when communicating with cell towers.”

In the device’s defense, I ran it through a few hours of trials and did not encounter any audio distortion.

Should we judge the i525 by this? On one hand, no. The i525 outperforms many similarly priced bedside iPhone docks. At $149.99, it’s the cheapest radio ever produced by Cambridge SoundWorks. it has an AM/FM radio that gets clear reception, and the company’s proprietary Smart Volume feature normalizes volume levels between songs, so you don’t get one really loud song and one quiet song.

But on the other hand, the company really needs to get that certification thing taken care of. The dock needs to fully play nice with what’s docking on it.

When the Philips DC290 debuted at CES this year, there was some fanfare about the design on top of a promising feature set.

But the genre of iPod/iPhone docking alarm clocks is a saturated one. Today iHome alarm clocks are in every 3-star hotel. Surplus units are for sale for pennies on the dollar at T.J.Maxx stores.

Maybe bloated is the better word. Most of the iPod docks today are cheap, plastic junk.

And that’s why the Philips DC290 passes muster. It’s a relatively inexpensive dock being put out by a legitimate electronics company. It has a brushed aluminum finish and a remote control that works from more than a few feet away.

Testing out the DC290, there are a few quick flaws. The iPod/iPhone dock is set pretty deep, so it’s difficult to work within the touchscreen if you don’t feel like controlling the device with the dock. The bass is also way too high, so don’t even think about turning on the fake “Dynamic Bass Boost” feature. Audio tends to distort at the higher volume levels, and the thumping bass doesn’t help that much.

Beyond that, the device is solid. It has dual alarms and a gentle wake-up cycle that gradually raises the volume until you’re up and at ‘em.

You can also plug in any other audio device with a headphone-style input port.

The FM tuner isn’t very useful. The antenna is a thin piece of wire, and you can’t replace it with anything better. There also isn’t an AM tuner. I know we’re talking about an iPod device, but AM news radio is still big for waking up in major cities like New York and Boston.

The best part about the DC290 is the price. At just $99 — and surely to be on sale — you get a basic, good-sounding dock.

The iPort FS-2 is a multipurpose docking system compatible with all 30 pin dock connecting iPods.

The purpose of the product is to let you plug your iPod into both a stereo/home theater system and a computer in one fell swoop.

Now, it adds a decent amount of wires to your system, and I felt it would have been much more useful as a wireless product — letting you plug your iPod into the dock near your computer and beam music to the receiver end plugged into your stereo.

There are three situations where the iPort FS-2 is extremely useful. First, if you don’t have front A/V inputs on your home theater receiver, you can plug the iPort in the back and know it’s always there when you need it. Second, if you have a home theater PC used to sync songs on your iPod. Finally, it’s also useful if your household has more than one iPod — you can swap them back and forth and listen to your tunes on your home system.

I had preconceived reservations at first, but the iPort is one of the best A/V iPod docking solutions out there. It basically lets you plug all the audio and video wires into your receiver one time and forget it. Now all you have to do is drop any iPod in and you’re ready to go.

iPort created the product to allow users to plug into computers and receivers at the same time, but unless you have a computer a few feet from your stereo/receiver (or a laptop) I don’t see how that’s possible.

If you do have a computer or home theater PC nearby (and aren’t just playing music off that…) then it’s great.

The system supports A/V wires of up to 25 feet though, so you can definitely navigate across the room. The iPort company offers a bunch of in-wall solutions that go longer (up to 500 feet of audio in some cases), but this is their desktop variant, and it’s definitely a handy gadget.

Music and video are both crisp and clear. Give this one a shot.

Quick hits:

Developer: iPort
Platform: iPod
Launch Date: June 6, 2006

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars