Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61105 in Consumer Electronics

Customer Reviews

Quality looks and sound....
I recently bought an ipod and dropped all my CDs onto the small neatly packaged 80GB of storage; incidentally I've started listening to music again that I forgot I even had. The next thing was to be able to amplify it so I could wrap up my old CD player and CDs and pack them away in the loft. The options for me were to plum for a Bose SoundDock type system or go for an amp that would plug into my existing speakers; I opted for the latter and decided to go for the Fatman Carbon.

Looks - great to look at, build quality is pretty good but being hyper critical some of the detailing could be improved - knobs and buttons, remote control etc. I doubt most people would be bothered by this though as it's not too bad. My kids have grown up now and so removing the valve cover doesn't pose a risk (they get v hot) and it's the valves that really give the system the wow factor (the main valve actually throbs to the rhythm of your music with a green hue). The black finish looks brilliant; it's also quite a petite bit of kit.

Sound quality - I had a Teac Reference 300 system with some KEF floor standing speakers. I unplugged the old system and plugged the new Fatman straight into my KEFs. I thought the sound quality was excellent especially after I had played with the bass and treble controls. There is a real richness to the sound and it picks out the detail in most music really well. I think it sounds better than my Teac to be honest, even though these are digital files. The power is 2 x 25 w per channel and this proved to be plenty for me; even when I wanted to blast out some tunes.

This has to be the way ahead for music in the home. Easy access to all your songs, stunning looking system and great sound quality. I'd recommend it to anyone.

DON'T BELEIVE THE HYPE! ITS BETTER THAN THAT!!!!
Wow wow wow is the opening i'd like to use in this reveiw and that does not justify how good this little beauty is. I am writing this reveiw and i'm just bursting with excitement that i have actually just bought something this good, i kid you not the sound this produces is absolutly divine. I actually had a budget of around £150-£200 for the speakers to go with this unit but after seeing the fatman fatboy speakers at £500 i totally blew my budget out into space and bought the full matching fatman system. Usally after an act of stupidity like this i always regret it, Wahoooooooooo! not this time..... I own a bose sounddock and was never really blown away with it so decided it was time for a change, this resulted in me trying nearly every dock out there including the B&W Zepplin which was very nice but i just think theres something about the sound from an all in one box that just does not measure up!.. I am no audiophile i own the bose and a denon mini seperates but the sound from this beats them both hands down. I like to listen to all types of music from romantic classical to Dj sasha and the sound in all forms will blow you away. Classical is superb, if you close your eyes you could beleive you were there and you can't help but just produce a huge smile of self satisfication. Dj sasha sounds out of this world packed with amazing detail and clear crisp sounds but with that little something extra that seems to be missing from digital music these days and thats the rich warmthness of sound that this produces which just intencifies the journey sasha takes you on, its just impossible not to let this warmthness produced by the valves grab you in a way thats hard to describe. I kid you not if you don't buy this you will forever regret it, its that good!... Why go on the forever search of buying and selling your docks in the hope of one day finding the one that will just stop you in your tracks as this will save you the time and money!
After owning for a week i was advised to purchase better speaker wire. I have never bought speaker wire and was more that happy with the sound of this, but my freind is an audiophile so i took on his advice. I bought the Qed silver anniversary XT terminated with Qed airloc banana plugs.... WOW! treat your fatman to this as the improvement is beyond words, even my freind says you would be hard pushed to beat the sound of the fatman without delving into the audiophile range and spending thousands

Hi-Fi Snobs shut up....
If like me you've been trying to find some way of listening to all those thousands of albums and singles on your iPod at home and have come horribly close to settling for some sort of all-in-one speaker dock system...STOP right now and check out the Fatman iTube. I read some hyper critical Hi-Fi trainspotters slagging this device off and saying that the valves couldn't possibly be adding to the sound, well if that's the case there must be some magic pixies inside coz it sounds (to my dumb uneducated ears) bloody great. If the valves aren't doing anything well then they still look pretty. The 1st thing that struck me when I got the iTube Carbon out of the box is it's far smaller than you might imagine from looking at the pics (which is a good thing) but it's lovely and heavy... you know, feels quality.When you stick your iPod into the dock a cute little blue light is emmited...ahhh, yummy.
Obviously just being able to have proper speakers at the required distance to enjoy stereo is a massive help but when I started playing an old favourite album ("Static and Silence by The Sundays as it goes...) I was delighted by the range of sound especially after a bit of treble and bass adjustment with the remote (which is perfectly nice looking in my opinion) The iTube comes with a selection of cables one of which enabled me to to take the line out from my DAB radio to Line 1 and now that also sounds big and rich and room fillingly lovely. Don't hesitate for another second, you won't find a better system for your Pod in this price range...buy it.