Items tagged with Audio
These days, it's hard to find a new vehicle on the showroom floor without iPod support. Even lower-end automobiles are opting to add USB sockets in order to support Apple's iPhone and/or iPod, and one look at the company's latest earnings report will help you understand why. But what if you opted not to trade in your...
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We've got to hand it to them--Jabra has outdone itself here in the design department. The company's new HALO Bluetooth headset is unlike any BT headset we've ever seen, with a slick over-the-head design that looks less like a traditional set of cans and more like some sort of space-wear. The headphones collapse down...
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Uh, okay? We have to say, we're all about taking risks, and we greatly appreciate it when companies deviate from the straight-and-narrow in order to take a chance. But it'll still take some time for us to get our minds around the latest two laptop speaker docks from Asus. The uBoom Series of compact notebook speakers...
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The greatest name in sound? The only name in sound? Yeah, something like that. Whatever Bose's slogan happens to be these days, the company is doing itself proud by introducing yet another glorified set of cans designed to help you tune out mortar fire and crumbling buildings, not to mention airplane noise and rowdy...
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As if Sony's week couldn't get any better, the company responsible for issuing a new, slimmer PlayStation 3 is also announcing a new audio product line that'll soon be gracing the shelves of Best Buy locations. The ALTUS range will initially consist of just a handful of kits, all of which are tied to the company's S-AIR wireless protocol in...
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iHome has been pushing out iPod and iPhone docks for as long as we can remember. The company has to have literally dozens of options ranging from bottom-end to fairly nice, some of which actually double as alarm clocks. The company's latest, however, is uniquely upscale, with sound from Bongiovi Acoustics and a design that'll have anyone swooning.The...
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Love 'em or hate 'em, Bose has been making music for years now, and it doesn't sound like the company is planning on slowing down anytime soon. While it has seemingly been quiet on the consumer electronics front of late (after it got done with all of its Apple-related wares), the outfit is introducing an all new system today that should catch...
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Done with Bose? Looking for something new to strap on your cranium? Audio-Technica has just the thing. The company--which is known for designing cutting-edge, high-end cans--has just issued its ATH-ANC7b QuietPoint active noise-canceling over-ear headphones. Sure, they're just improvements upon an earlier model, but aside from providing 85%...
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It's somewhat hard to believe, but Sony's iconic and downright legendary Walkman turned 30 this year. Three decades ago, Sony's craftsmanship propelled a bulky, one-trick audio player onto the portable scene, sparking a revolution that continues today. But 30 years after its introduction, the original Walkman has little revlence in the world...
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Two sound cards in a week -- could it be true? Believe it or not, yes. Just days after Asus introduced its Audiophile Xonar DS 7.1 7.1, the company has unveiled its Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim Sound Card. Described as the planet's first HDMI 1.3 audio card with true Blu-ray audio playback designed to fit HTPCs of all sizes, the card can actually bitstream...
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While not quite as exciting as Asus' bevy of new notebooks this morning, the newest card in the growing Xonar line will certainly tantalize those scouting an audiophile-level sound device. The Xonar DS 7.1 Channel Audio Card gets back to the basics by ditching the HDMI output on the Xonar HDAV1.3 and offering up the more traditional 3.5mm...
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MSI is busting out another bag of tricks today, deviating from its usual onslaught of notebooks and graphics cards to offer up a number of audio products. The appropriately named Syren series aims to deliver dream-worthy sound, and at least initially, the family will consist of the SyrenSound X-Fi high-end sound card, the SyrenPhone Gaming...
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Placing a product in the "audiophile" category automatically opens it up for scrutiny of the highest order. The new Asus Xonar Essence STX "headphone amp card for audiophiles" is Asus' latest in a line of audio card offerings that pretty much cover the spectrum of PC audio applications. Asus now offers audio cards designed for gaming to Home...
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These technology birthdays are always up for debate -- are we basing birthdays on the first prototype? The first shipping product? The first patent application? What? There's also no governmental agency to decide upon these highly important matters, so unfortunately, we're at the mercy of the party planners.On the plus side, this chaos usually...
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The Classics Deserve First-class Treatment ASUS Announces Xonar Essence STX PCI-e Audio Card with 124dB SNR Audio and Built-in Headphone Amplifier for Extraordinary Audio Performance Taipei, Taiwan, November 12, 2008 – Aimed as the culmination of searching for the very essence of sound, the new ASUS Xonar Essence STX range of audio cards delivers...
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It's hardly a game-changer, but it's pretty cool. Anyone who's looked at the comments on YouTube posts know that they are certainly not works of literary art. Well, if you heard your comment read back to you, would you still post it, with all its grammar and spelling errors? Perhaps not. YouTube has added an audio preview feature to its comments....
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Watch out MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis--there's a new digital audio format about to be introduced and it's creators are setting their sites on it becoming the new "de facto standard" for digital audio. The new format is called Music 2.0 and it will use MT9 as its file extension: "The distinctive feature of [the] MT9 format is that it...
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A few months ago, ASUS jumped into the audio card market with both feet with the introduction of their Xonar product line. One of the first models to market was the premium Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 sound card. The D2 boasted a superb retail package with all of the cabling, software and extras one would need thrown in,...
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Just a few years ago, if someone said that integrated audio would deliver great performance with many of the features of a full-blown add-in card, it might have raised an eyebrow or two. Today, however, thanks to vastly improved integrated technologies, today's integrated audio solutions are often more...
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We just got our hands on some very cool images from Edifer that we thought you'd all like to see. If you're unfamiliar with Edifer, they're a long time manufacturer of specialized speaker systems, based in China with a North American office in Vancouver, Canada. They actually won an honoree award at this year's Consumer Electronics...
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Not too far back, there was a time when it was inconceivable that a motherboard had anything other than a green or mustard colored PCB that had a few sockets for the CPU and DIMMs, maybe a hard drive connector or two, and a floppy drive connection. Keyboards and mice were typically PS/2 based, although a COM port sufficed...
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Glitchy playback in Windows? Yesterday Microsoft tried to give us an explanation of just what's happening, besides, say, the bloated Vista OS. Yesterday, Microsoft's program manager for sound in Windows Vista (what a great title!), Steve Ball, posted a blog entry explaining why audio playback sometimes gets glitchy in Windows. There's...
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