audio

Spracht AURA BluNote Bluetooth Speaker & Speakerphone – stream your music from your phone

1 Comment / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Phones, Portable / By /

If you’ve managed the migration of your music from your MP3 player over to your phone, but would like to hear it from a speaker instead of through headphones, then this Bluetooth speaker may be just for you.

The Spracht AURA BluNote speaker lets you stream your music via Bluetooth from your phone. Includes bass boost and ‘stereo widening’ feature.

It stores up to 8 BT profiles, so your friends can pair their phones with it [wonder what happens when you try to compete to use it?!] It can also be used as a speakerphone.

Buy now!

More info from the manufacturer
Price: $92.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Mvix updates Ultio media player – Ultio Pro can now record with DVR

2 Comments / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Books, Music and Movies, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet / By /

mvix ultio pro mx-880hdMvixUSA has updated their flagship media center product, the Ultio, to now include DVR (digital video recording) capabilities. The Ultio Pro plays back Blu-ray quality 1080p hi-def video, photos, and music on your high-def TV via HDMI and stores it all on its internal hard drive which you can get as large as 2TB.

And now, the Pro can record video on the fly from your cable/satellite TV, your camcorder or from DVDs, instead of acting just as a repository. The Ultio Pro is a virtual Swiss Army knife of video, image and audio formats including: mp4, avi, iso, asf, wmv, flv, mkv, rm, ts, mpg, vob, mp3, wma, aac, ogg, flac, jpg, bmp and gif. To see the full list, download the Formats PDF from MvixUSA.

And of course, the Ultio Pro plays back media from your network and the Internet, including from your computer and from services liks Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and more.

Buy now!
Price: $169 without hard drive; $384 with 2TB drive. (You can buy the barebones version and insert whatever sized drive you’d like.)
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Record high quality audio with the Alesis ProTrack add-on for iPod

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Portable / By /

alesis protrack stereo recorder for ipodThe Alesis ProTrack Stereo Recorder for iPod is perfect if you’re a journalist or conduct interviews or like recording lectures/classes, but would rather not walk around with yet another gadget.

The Alesis ProTrack is a stereo recorder and you don’t need any additional cables, just plug it into your iPod. You can record 44.1kHz or 22kHz digital audio via its condenser microphones and what’s nice is that there’s an app for you to view the levels.

PS> If you’re a student who would like to record your class lectures, but don’t need this level of audio quality, you really need to take a look at the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen.

Buy now!

Price: $399.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Take your Home Theater/Gaming experience to the next level with BodySound Audio Furniture

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gaming & Toys, Gizmo of the Day / By /

Take your home theater seating and audio experience up to the next level with BodySound’s custom built fusion audio-seating furniture. BodySound Technologies builds fine seating like recliners, love seats, & couches finished in Italian leather that hides a 7-channel surround sound system.

bodysound recliner

Each seat comes with its own remote control that includes a number of presets, which you can change to suit your preferences. BodySound can also translate specific frequencies into certain low frequency vibrations again per your own tastes, which is great for movies and gaming.

BodySound seats are obviously not cheap, starting at $6000 for a basic recliner, but if you’re interested and there isn’t a dealer near you, BodySound will reimburse you up to $1000 if you came to their showroom in Minneapolis to try the chairs out.

Buy now!
Price: starting at $6000
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Netgear EVA2000 Digital Entertainer Live – MultiMedia Streaming Box

2 Comments / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet / By /

netgear eva2000Media Center/streaming multimedia boxes are always interesting, as there isn’t a gadget out there yet that does it all. Networking maker Netgear has stuck to their guns over the past few years and continued rolling out what they like to call Digital Entertainer boxes, the latest being the EVA2000 Digital Entertainer Live.

We reviewed one of their earlier products (the EVA700) and found a box with lots of potential, although it fell short at the time. The EVA2000 builds on that experience.

What you can expect with the EVA2000: play multimedia stored on your computers, USB or NAS devices on your TV, play multimedia from the Web/Internet including sources like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and even pay-per-view.

You can connect wirelessly but you need to get their wireless adapter (EVAW111); they really need to bundle that into the product. For the under $100 price tag, this could be a decent starter media streamer box.

Buy now!
Price: $84.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Review: Tenqa SP-109 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Reviews / By /

Tenqa SP109 Wireless Bluetooth SpeakerI had the pleasure of spending a recent long holiday weekend with Tenqa’s latest offering in the world of nearly cable free speaker solutions, the Tenqa SP-109 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker. (I say nearly because they do require a power cord, though Tenqa does have alternatives that do away with that as well.) There were two criteria that were particularly important to me when investigating a Bluetooth speaker system. First was Bluetooth range, I had fears that while I might not have any cables connecting my Bluetooth enabled music player to the speakers, there might be a pesky invisible tether keeping my phone all but docked next to the speakers. The second was audio quality, I don’t claim to be an audiophile but I have a developed enough of an ear to tell the difference between a *thud* and whatever that hollow noise that speakers often produce as a sad alternative to it.
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Review: Able Planet NC300 True Fidelity Noise-Canceling Headphones

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Recommended, Reviews / By /

Able Planet makes a variety of audio products mainly in the headphones and earphones category that employs some of their own technology. We reviewed one of their noise-canceling headphones, the True Fidelity NC300 with their LINX AUDIO technology. Here are the results of our testing.

Introduction
The NC300 are over-the-ear headphones with an adjustable and padded headband that uses powered noise-cancellation technology that runs on a single AA battery that inserts into one of the ear pieces. While we could give a completely ‘standalone’ review, audio being such a subjective topic, we decided instead to (in many categories of testing) compare it to our favorite noise-canceling headphones, the Audio Technica QuietPoint ATH-ANC7.
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Apple to buy music streaming service, LaLa

2 Comments / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Networking & Internet, News / By /

LaLa is a music streaming service that I’ve been toying with lately. I quite like the interface; they’ve done a great job with it. They also have an interesting business model in that they charge 10 cents for every song that you want to add to your ‘collection’, which you can then put into playlists. There are also free ways to listen to music as well and you can buy MP3 versions for  $0.89-0.99 in most cases.

Turns out that Apple likes what LaLa is doing and have decided to snap them up. I wonder whether this will be an autonomous subsidiary or integrated into iTunes in some manner. My guess would be for the latter.

Honestech VHS to DVD 4.0 – transfer VHS video tapes to DVD

3 Comments / Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day / By /

We reviewed Honestech’s VHS to DVD 3.0 product in depth last year and found a top-class product that quickly pays for itself if you have any amount of analog media to save. Well now, Honestech (Honest Technology) has an updated version, VHS to DVD 4.0 Deluxe.

The gist of the product is still the same: it has an A-to-D (analog to digital) converter box that attached to the your computer via USB 2.0. It accepts inputs via 3 RCA cables (1 video, 2 audio) and/or S-Video. This also means that this device is not just about VHS, but can handle pretty much any audio and/or video input that you can push out via one of those cable types. So get those VHS tapes out of mothballs and transfer them today!

In case you were considering v3.0, here’s (just some of) what you can find new in v4.0:

  • HDV camcorder as input
  • 16:9 widescreen
  • HD editing
  • Burn to Blu-Ray DVDs
  • Chapter menus
  • Higher resolutions up to 1920×1080
  • Handles WMA audio
  • Upload to YouTube

Buy now! (Price: $50)

(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

And if you’re looking for other possible VHS to DVD converters beside this one, take a look at our article with 3 other products or our article covering 2 all-in-one units.

Finis 3.1Gb waterproof MP3 player

1 Comment / Gizmo of the Day, Sports, Health & Fitness, Outdoors / By /

Here’s another water-related product from FINIS, a 3.1Gb MP3 player that can be submerged in water, so you can use it for swimming. The SwiMP3 player works like the Audio Bone Headphones and transmits the sound to your cheekbones by vibration. Sound strange, but it works surprisingly well.

The SwiMP3 plays MP3 and WMA files and has basic controls embedded in one of the sides.

Buy now!
Price: $121.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

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