Zagg’s new Boost speaker, sold under the iFrogz brand, appears to amplify music using nothing but magic. Just place your iPhone (or any other device with a speaker) on top and it will boost the sound. No wires, no Bluetooth, no nothing. The music just issues forth from a pair of 2-watt speakers.
Zooka bills itself as a wireless speaker bar for any of your sound-producing gadgets, but one look will tell you the truth: it’s made for iPads and skinny MacBooks. The Zooka is a silicone cylinder which can work alone, but which also has a slot into which you can slide the edge of your favorite Apple device.
Everyone was jamming in the little corner where House of Marley was stashed during the official press event at CES, and a big part of that was due to their Bag of Rhythm dock — the Marley PR people carried it around slung on their shoulders, and it just rocked, man.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Or maybe it’s that they’re pretending even less. The amount of bling at the Monster “booth” — it was actually more of a compound, complete with a super-secret inner sanctum — would make Snooki (who was at the show) blush. Their three newly released headphones seemed far more focused on fashion than sound; even Monster founder Nole Lee’s Segway (was it a Segway?) rolled around on gold-rimmed wheels. Then there were the booth fashion shows…
ddd
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — The last Altec Lansing dock we reviewed, the Bluetooth-equipped InMotion Air, left us with a weird taste — it was just too funky. AL’s new LIVE 5000 more than makes up for this: It looks *really* stunning up close — and sounds fantastic to boot.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 — One trend we weren’t expecting to see at CES was the enormous amount of ultra-portable speakers every company is trying to sell. The type that look like a soda can cut in half that pops up to reveal a speaker that has the magical “unparalleled sound quality” all their makers brag about. For over twenty years Behringer has produced professional audio products, but have only recently decided to enter the consumer space. So what does a high-quality audio company do to make themselves stand out in a market saturated with mediocre speaker products? Make a really really nice ultra-portable speaker? WRONG! They go and create the biggest iPod Dock ever that makes those minature docks look miserably insignificant.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – According to maker iDevices, who made news last year with an odd Bluetooth cooking thermometer called the iGrill, the iShower’s entire raison d’être is to remove the “oh crap!” factor of dropping your iOS device into the shower, sink or toilet when all you want to do is listen to some tunes.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – Professional audio and music equipment maker Behringer wants to sell you an iPhone sound bar, but if that doesn’t interest you, they’ve got 49 other new just-announced-at-CES consumer electronic products that just might.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Last night the Cult of Mac staff was given a sneak peek at the latest and greatest products at the CES Unveiled event. Here is a small sample of what was shown.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – One of the challenges facing audiophiles these days is keeping their cherished old speakers while still taking advantage of your iPhone, iPad or Mac’s advanced AirStream capability. The Griffin Twenty is a sleek new accessory that lets you keep your old warm, room-filling speakers and make them AirPlay-compatible. And it looks damn nice to boot.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Fish and chips and Jony Ive may remain Britain’s most favorite imports among Cult staffers, but maybe Pure’s new Contour 200i Air will get close.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Go to House of Marley’s booth at CES and the first thing you’ll see is Bob Marley’s sell-out son mugging and aping for the press with not a care in the world, artlessly singing along to the lyrics of his father’s songs.
It can be embarrassing, not just for spiritual rastafarians but for any person who appreciates legacy and finds himself cringing in embarrassment at the betrayal of what they might think to be a grander, less capitalistic ideal. That said, as silly as you might think the motif of House of Marley’s gadgets (“Stereo for stoners”), it’s hard not to admire their design or construction. These are sound systems that are trying to make a point.
Seems like there’s been an explosion of small, portable, Bluetooth speakers onto store shelves this last year — the most popular or well-known of which is probably the Jawbone JamBox — from the advance notices we’ve seen, in a few weeks the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas will herald a whole new crop of the little tribbles.
Monster’s take on the concept is the Monster iClarityHD Precision Micro Bluetooth Speaker 100 ($100). And like pretty much everything the company puts out, the iClarity is bassy and L-O-U-D.
After the critical success of Audyssey’s South of Market dock last year, Audyssey eventually released their next product, the Lower East Side Media Speakers ($250), in October of this year.
This time, Audyssey has dropped the radical approach to design it used for the SOMA dock — with its unusual, back-to-back speaker configuration — in favor of a much more conventional, yet still attractive, form. Audyssey left three things unchanged though: Like the SOMA, the LES speakers exhibit a good deal of quality, and incorporate what Audyssey calls their “Smart Speaker” technology. And like the SOMA, these speakers are a bit pricier than their contemporaries. So the question is: Do they deliver?
The HiddenRadio Bluetooth Speaker is the latest project to be setting Kickstarter on fire, and it’s no wonder why. Just look at it! It’s like Jony Ive designed a speaker in his spare time, and decided to throw it up on Kickstarter just for the hell of it.
This Kickstarter project combines an iPad case with a speaker, hiding the speaker in the case’s front cover. Or rather, the speaker is the front cover.
Sometimes all it takes is a little tweaking to turn a decent gadget into one that makes the corners of your mouth curl up in a grin every time it’s pulled out and powered up.
That’s exactly what happened with the Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad ($150), a portable six-speakered dock based off Logitech’s S715i dock, which we reviewed earlier this year.
Introducing your friends to the hottest new bands on your iPod isn’t much fun when you have to share one set of headphones. According to a newly-surfaced Apple patent, however, this may be a thing of the past, because future iPods could feature integrated speakers so that everyone can enjoy your music on the subway.
I could tell what Sonos and its PR firm thought about the product as I walked in.
Festooned over a thousand square feet of penthouse atop one of San Francisco’s finest boutique hotels were samovars of fresh coffee, pitchers of fresh-squeezed juices and a banquet table overflowing with edibles under picture windows filled with panoramic views of Union Square and the San Francisco skyline. The layout was also outfitted, front-to-back, in a couple thousand dollars worth of Sonos gear — including the subject of this review, the Sonos Play:3 ($299).
Our story so far: For the better part of a decade, Orb Audio proceeds to build a stellar reputation for high-end home audio with their award-winning, modular systems based around the iconic spherical speaker for which the outfit is named.
But then the iPod and its iDevice cousins sneak into a rapidly-growing number of pockets, creating a massive, swollen market that’s eager to be introduced to high-end audio, yet yearns for a more compact, less complex setup than the traditional high-end home audio layout. And what about all those computer users stuck with tinny PC speakers? Surely they deserve siren-like audio too.
So the company comes up with a solution: Take a pair of the celebrated spheres, marry them to a tiny amplifier and call it the Orb Audio Mini-T Amplifier and Speaker Package ($299): bam, instant Orb Audio experience for your iDevice or Mac!
No, not quite.
Nothing says “hey baby, how you doin’ ” quite like expensive, cutting edge-technology wrapped in luxurious wool. Libratone’s new AirPlay-equipped Live and Lounge speakers don’t just say it, they sing it. With a European accent.
Popular accessory maker Twelve South has announced the “BassJump 2” USB subwoofer for Mac. Packing 8 more decibels of crystal clear sound and a sleek, aluminum build that Apple would be proud of, the BassJump 2 is an excellent Mac accessory for music lovers.
The BassJump 2 works with the Mac’s built-in audio to enhance the user’s listening experience with deeper and richer sounds.
The latest piece of full-on AirPlay sound hardware is from the sonic wizards over at Los Angeles-based Audyssey.
Yeah, the Lower East Side Audio Dock Air ($399) looks more like a Lego brick than the outfit’s svelte South of Market dock we raved about earlier this year — but the new, six-speaker dock is filled with audio-techno-jargon like “passive bass radiators” and “Smart Speaker technology,” which is probably English for “this will blow you away, dude.” And of course, don’t forget the AirPlay.
Do you find the iPhone 4 is a little too quiet for you? I certainly do, especially in crowded places. But thankfully, the speaker on the new iPhone 4S is significantly louder than its predecessor, as demonstrated in this video.
We think this is pretty cool — the iHome iDM15 ($99) is a set of Bluetooth-equipped stereo speakers that include a microphone so they can be used as a speakerphone.
