Sony pairs a powerful remote with a sexy iPod speaker dock

nas-z200ioYou have to give it up to the Sony engineers and designers behind these two, new iPod docks. Both new audio systems are swanky as hell and the one pictured above with the large remote almost seems worthy of it’s $1000 USD price tag – almost.
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Sony is on to something here. Users are suppose to dock their iPods into the NAS-Z200iO player and then everything, including playlist and track selection, is controlled via the impressive remote. Not only can the glorified boombox play tracks off an iPod, USB drive and CD, but it can also stream media via a locally-networked DLNA server with, once again, the media list and playback controlled from the remote.

So basically I’m getting excited over a speaker dock with a fancy-pants remote. Well, yeah. The remote is finally becoming more than a playback control device and is turning into an interactive library selection tool. I do know that you can do the same thing with a computer and an iPhone/iPod, but there are probably a good amount of rich folks still out there that will pay the 600 Euro (or $1000 USD) for an out-of-the box solution as this. Too bad it’s shipping exclusively to Europe starting in September.

The CMT-Z1000iR is nearly the same audio system sans the swanky remote. It has the same 20W x 2 speaker setup and the same input capabilities but is shipping this month for a little bit less. How much less? Sony didn’t say.