audio - page 4

Beats 1 is live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it’s a fantastic way to get your dose of what’s happening right now in urban music.

Problem is, just like the terrestrial radio that it uses as its model, Beats 1 doesn’t have an archived recording of its shows. If you want to hear a specific DJ or interview, you have to tune in.

There are ways, however, of recording the audio stream with varying degrees of “free” and “easy.” Two of them involve some technical know how while the third will require you to drop some cash. Check it out.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple 52 patents today, including a notable patent for a new hearing aid technology that would make the iPhone an even better device for the hearing impaired.

You may have noticed recently that the Facebook app makes sounds. Like a post? Chirp. Refresh the news feed? Swoosh. It’s like your iPhone got suddenly chatty and wants you to know that you’re tapping on the screen with every blip and bloop.

Surely you’d like to turn these things off. You could just mute your whole iPhone with the sound toggle button, but if you want to have other audio come through, like video, music, or (gasp) phone calls, you can dip into your Facebook app settings and soon experience the bliss of a blip-free Facebook browsing experience.

Here’s how.

I’ve pretty much become a full-time texter these days, using Apple’s Messages app on my Mac and iPhone to send iMessages (to friends and contacts who use iOS or OS X) as well as regular text messages (to people outside the Apple ecosystem).

iOS 8 brings great new changes to the mobile version of the Messages app, some of which might not be immediately apparent. Here’s a look at the new features and how best to use them.

Have you been looking for in-ear headphones that look and sound good? This Cult of Mac Deals offer brings you modern design that you can hear.

The New Spark Hi-Def In-Ear Headphones deliver full, resonating bass, intense mid-range, and clear, defined treble sure to bring a smile to any audiophile’s face. With precision acoustics, unique, modern design, and precise ergonomic fit, these headphones come ready to play and your going to love what you hear! And the pricing – only $37.99 – can’t be beat!

Have you ever been browsing the internet, opening new tabs, and blithely going about your business when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, an ad begins blaring at you from one of your various tabbed windows?

This can happen in Safari or Chrome (or any other browser, really), but Chrome has a new feature that will let you find the guilty, noisy culprit and shut it down.

Arcam, the UK high-end audio company, has a little nugget to tempt audiophiles. It’s called the miniBlink, and it’s a “hi-def” Bluetooth audio adapter with a proper built-in DAC. What? Don’t fret. It just means you can beam Bluetooth audio to your stereo without it sounding crappy.

I’ve had a chance to test a number of headphones throughout the past year, and have grown more fond of the more traditional “over-ear” headphones during that time. As a regular podcaster – and as the person who edits those podcasts – having little to no bleed from outside sources has become increasingly important.

That said, I don’t want to spend a fortune on headphones, either. I want decent sound quality, the ability to wear them for a couple of hours comfortably, and compact portability. The Atlas Carbon Headphones by MEElectronics offer all three, which is rare. I was provided with a set to put through the paces, and was very happy with the results. (And Cult of Mac Deals just so happens to have the Atlas Carbon Headphones for 35% off the regular price – just $65 – during a very limited time offer. This promotion, however, is available only to continental USA customers.)

Every time I see someone wearing over-ear headphones out in public, I can’t help but think of the scene in the “Starsky & Hutch” film where Ben Stiller is running along the beach listening to “Old Days” by Chicago. There’s something odd about over-ear headphones being worn not only in that situation – but really in any public situation. To me, earbuds or in-ear headphones work best in public. And that’s not because of sound quality. It’s because they are a lot more discreet.

That said, if you’re up to wearing over-ear headphones anytime and anywhere, then Cult of Mac Deals is offering Hammo Stereo Headphones for 43% off the regular price for a limited time.

Speaker design seems to be drifting further toward the minimalist end of things, at least aesthetically. If that’s true, brand-new San Francisco-based NudeAudio has walked pretty far down this path, as evidenced by their just-introduced, four-model speaker lineup.

One of my favorite new features of the Podcasts app in iOS, on iPhone or iPad, is the ability to stream episodes directly, rather than have to download them. It’s made me much more independent and willing to try out new podcasts; I simply don’t have to subscribe to ones that don’t catch my fancy, then delete and move all the downloaded files.

To the uninitiated, though, the difference between streaming and downloading is a tricky one. Here’s how it all works, and how to either download or stream podcast episodes as you decide which is best for you.

I’ve got plenty of headphones lying around the house — and I mean a lot.

I’ve got some in-ear style ones, earbud style ones (which generally came from a variety of iDevices), and a couple of pairs — “over ear” headphones — that cover my ears completely. The thing about headphones is that each type is suited for certain activities better than others, which means that having several pairs available isn’t a bad thing at all…especially if you’re into being productive like me and want to have as little friction as possible going from task to task (or, in this case, from audio-related task to audio-related task).

The in-ear and earbud style headphones are my “daily drivers”. They’re the ones I use for everyday activity, mainly because they take up very little space in any sort of carrying bag I’ve got and they just seem so…disposable. But I’ll use the earbuds more often for exercising (running, for example) than the in-ear ones because they are less likely to fall out while I’m being active. My earbuds and in-ear headphones can be found in various spots throughout the house, that way they can be grabbed quickly – no matter what I plan to use them for.

At work, I use a big Acer monitor connected to my Macbook Air via an HDMI dongle from Moshi and an HDMI cable. For quite some time, I was content with having the sound come out of the Macbook Air, which I have set up just to the left of the big monitor as a second screen.

But the other day, since I have the huge TV in my office, the rest of the staff came in to preview a promotional video we’d done for our agency. The tinny sound of my Macbook Air speakers wasn’t enough. I wanted to hear it out of the TV.

This is what I did.

SpeakingPhoto is a new social photography app that lets you connect in real-time with anyone you like, using photos and recorded audio to share your special moments. Competing with Vine, Snapchat, and Digisocial, SpeakingPhoto aims to be a nicer place to be; instead of the party-atmosphere of the latter two apps, this one wants to let you record and archive the “memories, notes, and stories behind milestone moments in your personal and professional lives.”

Pretty heady stuff for a photo sharing app, right?

If you’ve ever had a party with people in various rooms of your house, maybe even outside, Bem’s Wireless Speaker Trio was made just for you.

The Trio is a neat idea: connect your music source (iPhone, iPad, iPod) via Bluetooth to its base station, then move any of its three rechargeable satellite speakers anywhere in your home, up to 120 feet from the base, and they’ll fill that room with music from your iDevice or Mac.

But while Bem’s Wireless Trio is a great idea and was awesome when it worked, my tests brought to light some problems I just couldn’t ignore.

If you’re a true music aficionado your time has come to upgrade to one of the best-designed sets of headphones on the market. This Cult of Mac Deals offer features a headset that is designed specifically for anyone looking to enhance their audio experience.

If you’ve considered buying high-end headphones such as Beats by Dre, these ETZ Headphones from 3EIGHTY5 AUDIO have arguably better sound quality with more luxury and style for half the price – just $129!

Stitcher Radio for iOS has today been updated to add a nifty new “Topic Search” feature that helps listeners discover trending topics across more than 15,000 shows. The update also brings better episode management, improved Voiceover mode, performance improvements, and more.

Forget about lame-o portable Bluetooth speakers for your iDevices and take a look at this monster instead. It’s the PylePro soundbar, and it’ll sit up on your wall and blast 300 (three hundred) watts of sound into your living room.

Brace yourself. This promotion is only 3 days long, so be sure to snag this Cult of Mac Deals offer before it’s too late!

Thanks to Beats by Dre Studio Headphones, you can finally you experience music the way every music fan deserves. And you can experience it for 47% off the regular price. If you love your music, you can’t go wrong, as these headphones are going for just $158 for a very limited time.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – I love my Jambox, but I’m always perplexed why I can’t charge my iPhone using it. After all, it’s essentially a big battery brick with a speaker attached… why can’t I siphon some juice off the top?

The answer is that, in reality, the Jambox has a pretty tiny battery. It’s good for powering a speaker, but it would die pretty quick if you tried to juice an iPhone or (heaven!) an iPad with it. The JBL Charge, though, remedies that problem: it’s a great sounding Jambox-style speaker with a massive battery inside.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – We’re a big fan of wireless Bluetooth speakers like the Jambox, but let’s face it: for most people, they are both too expensive, and too much of a pain in the butt to remember to pair and unpair. When NFC sees broad adoption, the latter will change, and you’ll be able to play from a wireless speaker just by laying it on top of the device.

Why wait for NFC, though? RCA of all companies is here at CES with a super cool new speaker line called the Soundflow, and it can play music from any smartphone or tablet just by laying it on top of the speaker. Best of all? The technology is so cheap that for the price of one Jambox, you could buy five or six Soundflows.

High-end hifi people Naim announced a stylish new audio playback gadget designed to make listening to computer-based music as good as possible. Needless to say, you have to shell out serious money for this kind of serious sound.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When I videochatted over Skype with one of Belkin‘s PR people a few days ago, I told them I was dumbfounded at the sound coming from the tiny speakers built into the pre-production Thunderstorm case they sent me to play around with (the review notes I scrawled down actually read “pretty fucking amazed with this thing”). Nate, whose face I could see gazing at me from Belkin’s Los Angeles office, seemed stoic. “Invariably people have that same reaction… we call it ‘the thirty seconds of wow.’ ”

Automatica is a very clever take on in-car audio. It’s a USB stick which grabs new audio content whenever it is in range of a known Wi-Fi network, and it can be managed right from your iPhone via a custom web app.

This Cult of Mac Deal sounds great…literally!

The AFS1 Portable Bluetootk Speaker offers great sound – wherever and whenever you want it. You can easily sync this powerful little speaker to your tablet, phone, computer, or bluetooth compatible music player to enjoy stereo quality tunes anywhere. And for only $39 you’re gettinga deal that sounds great on a whole other level!