The iH9 is a reasonably-priced, feature-laden bedside clock that sounds, looks and feels good enough to be worth $100. Sure, it wouldn’t monopolize the market, and displace XtremeMac’s more luxurious and more expensive Luna, but its price does prove a point, as does the product itself.

The iH9 comes equipped with 2 pre-installed AA batteries, three dock adapters, a newly massive wall power-adapter, an Infrared remote control, an auxiliary audio cable, AM and FM antennas, as well as, an 18-button remote. The controls include a full iPod track, repeat, shuffle, and navigation controls, access to all of iH9’s features. And a snooze button that is programmable to feature through 1-60 minute intervals. So if you need to snooze for an hour, and have your dreams interrupted again, voila!

Another interesting upgrade from the iH5, is iH9’s new face. iHome has replaced the black-on- light blue display with a high-contrast white-on-black display, that can be dimmed, and the new screen’s numbers are bigger than before, while its calendar date is now word-based and not numeral-based.

Another aspect is the cabinet that is almost identical to the iH5 but its twin metal speaker grilles now jut out a 1/4 inch more. It is still delivers good quality stereo-sound horizontally and can sit on a nightstand. Both the volume and setting dials are on the top, as well as a compilation of buttons, that are made from a matte plastic and are all illuminated in a light blue color. There are even fewer buttons. Exactly, 11 buttons that are easier to use, that are alongside the Universal iPod Dock.

Audio quality also improved significantly from the previous iH series. The equalizer settings still exist and it can enable you to choose your own settings of bass, treble, and balance adjustments. There is also a new mode called 3D that introduces faux spatialization that knocks around the treble and adds supplementary stereo separation into songs, which depends on the songs you listen to as it is. Sometimes it’s wonderful and sometimes it’s not. In fact, why don’t you just try it out for yourself?