speakers - page 7

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.’ ”

And so it begins… iHome has kicked off the CES Lightning accessory announcements with a typically indigestible press release containing roughly one zillion new gadgets.

If you want to hear about the Bluetooth headphones and alarm clocks, and all the other stuff, then visit the link below. For the neat new do-everything iDL100 alarm dock, read on.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

Day 23 is here, and today, we’re talking about JamBox’s bulkier big bro: the Big JamBox.

Would you pay $53 for these Apple logo speakers? They’re beautiful right? Granny apple green cut in the precise shape of a famous Cupertino computer company’s logo. They’re mighty, just like Apple’s old mouse, except they probably got bass for days too, and I need me some bass cause I’m bossy.

We’re not exactly sure where you can purchase these stunning speakers, but we want them. According to Reddit you can find them at retail locations in Europe, and a Google search led us to this Direct Promotions website that let’s you purchase them in bulk. If you find out where to get them please let me know. My Jony Ive shrine needs some sitar music flowing from these holy speakers.

I’m pretty sure I have some speakers on my desk. I say “pretty sure” because, while I can hear them loud and clear, I haven’t been able to see them amongst the clutter for many months now. I’m just terrified of unplugging the little cable from my MacBook’s jack socket in case I can never listen to music again. Not that I can find my MacBook either.

But the UCubes might be the answer. First, they hook up via USB, sucking both sound and power out through the bus, meaning I can leave my existing speakers hooked up, just in case.

Second, they are so handsome that I might be inspired to do my annual spring clean a few months early to allow them full aesthetic access to my desk. Where by “spring clean” I mean “sweep everything but my computer into a box and start over.”

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

On day 18 we’re kicking out the jams with the Libratone Zipp.

Here’s how you start an e-mail pitch:

In your last post about the Braven 570, I loved how you said that someday you might stop writing about candy bar shaped speakers. Well, today is the day for a Bluetooth speaker that shaped like, well, paper.

That speaker is the CoverPlay Mojo, a skinny speaker that will snuggle into your luggage between your shirts, instead of needing to be jammed inside a shoe like all its stupid, oafish rivals.

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!

One day, I promise to stop writing about little candybar-shaped Bluetooth speakers, but today isn’t that day. After all, these things are so handy, and so excellent for their size that more choice has got to be better, right? Today’s offering comes from somebody we already know – Braven – and it has the dubious distinction of having appeared on the QVC shopping channel.

We’re very stingy with our five-star ratings, and it’s even more rare for us to slap all five onto a gadget.  So pay attention — because today we’re awarding the full five stars to the Logitech UE Boombox ($250), a portable, battery-equipped, eight-driver Bluetooth speaker that sounds absolutely astounding. In fact, the Boombox does a better job of rocking out than some non-portable, home systems costing much more.

Believe it or not, Black Friday has already come and gone. Pretty soon the Christmas season will begin, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.

Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.

From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts for people who are like, totally into their iPads. Totally.

Today’s 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!

Believe it or not, Black Friday has already come and gone. Pretty soon the Christmas season will begin, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.
Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.

From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts for the whining kids in your life.

It wasn’t until I’d written the name at least five times that I realized the Amplifiear isn’t called the “Amplifear” after all. That’s not to say I’m disappointed: I’d much rather have an acoustic amplifier for my iPad than a small, buzzing metal box that amplifies the terror in my heart until my emotions are torn into rags and my life becomes a fearful shuffle from corner to dark corner.

The Boombot REX is a ruggedized, wearable JamBox for outdoorsy types. It looks amazing – and even more so because it was invented by Bill and Ted.

The People People Speaker is a clever solution to a persistent, cruel and terrible first-world problem: big, ugly speakers eating up the visual space of your home. The answer isn’t to make the speaker smaller, but to make the speaker less visible.

Thus the almost invisible speaker was born.

JLab’s brand new Bouncer is a Big JamBox competitor with a Big Jambox competitor’s price-tag: $250 (the BJ is $300). Inevitable comparisons aside, this looks to be a decent portable patio speaker, and it certainly looks the part.

Take two gadgets into the shower? A spray-head and a Bluetooth speaker? Not me; I just want to shower, and listen, and go.

Yes, I’m fully aware that I just butchered my parody of the old Wash & Go ads, but it was for a very good cause. You see, the Moxie from Kohler is a shower-head with a built-in Bluetooth speaker. Yup! A shower speaker that is not only waterproof, but water-spurting.

There’s a point at which a cover becomes the main attraction. Iron Man’s suit is clearly a suit. But Ripley’s Power Loader? I’d argue that it’s a mini crane with a clever, human-shaped cockpit. And so it is with the ORA, which claims to be an iPad case but is in fact a miniature theater. A miniature theater into which the iPad can be clipped.

JBL has become the first accessory maker to announce a duo of Lightning-compatible speaker docks for Apple’s latest iOS devices. Priced at $99.95 and $199.95, the OnBeat Micro and the OnBeat Venue Lightning are both available to pre-order today.

You know what kids really love? They love it when they ask you to buy them something, and you cheap out and buy them a kids’ version, a cut-price imitation of the original. Oh yeah. They totally dig that.

And you know what else they love? Garish colors. “Cool” names. And extra-long battery life. Wait, they actually do like that last one…

We’ve seen waterproof Bluetooth speaker that replace your Jambox when you go to the beach, bit what about a waterproof case that lets you take your actual Jambox to the beach? That’s the Vault, a rugged, water-shrugging case which will keep any small, candy-bar-shaped speaker safe and dry wherever you take it.

The little Jambox speaker isn’t the loudest, or even the best-sounding portable speaker out there, but somehow it is the most popular, and it’s probably the most portable. And it’s certainly the most cute.

I have one and I love it. Sometimes, though, you just need more. And that’s the idea of the Big Jambox, the best-named product of the year. Is it just a bigger version of its little brother? Kinda, but not quite.

Apple may have just launched the EarPods, undoubtedly the Cupertino company’s best earphones yet, but it’s already hard at working on something better. In a new patent filing, Apple demonstrates its work towards a new set of headphones that would have built-in loudspeakers. The design allows you to quickly switch between headphones for personal use, and a set of speakers for sharing your favorite tracks with your friends.

Still looking for an iPhone 5 dock that isn’t just your iPhone 4 dock, a Lightning adapter and a cable tie? Me too. Or I was, until Chris Jung from Braeburn Acoustics mailed me about his cool-looking acoustic amplifying iPhone stand.