Category: Audio

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the privilege of having my hands on one of the coolest looking Bluetooth speakers ever made, the Marshall Stanmore. But just because this speaker looks like a Marshall amp, does it sound good too?

Alpine has been making car stereos for the aftermarket for a number of years. The company has now announced that it will be bringing a new console unit to market later this fall that will allow you to add Apple CarPlay to your car.

There are plenty of wireless boombox solutions out there, but not all of them deliver great sound. I’ve heard some pretty lame sounds coming of the more affordable speakers, but if you’re looking for a wireless solution for your home, you might want to check out these new speakers from Microlab.

Nokia has unveiled a new Bluetooth portable speaker that is very small but promises big bass. The speaker is called the Nokia MD-12 and it is about the weight of an apple.

Logitech has rolled out a new portable wireless speaker with a playful design. The X100 speaker is able to connect to your smartphone or other device wirelessly using Bluetooth. While it’s small enough to fit in the palm of you hand, Logitech says it “delivers rocking sound” which I have to assume means it’s loud for its size.

Digital audio software lets you emulate the sounds of instruments that you don’t own or know how to play in real life. But these programs don’t eliminate the learning curve. They’re still not intuitive. Imitone can change that.

The Bluetooth speaker market is very crowded, so it’s quite difficult to decide what speaker to go with. Well, the portable speaker that has now jumped to the top of my list is the Grain PWS (Packable Wireless Speaker).

I’ll be perfectly honest – I haven’t listened to broadcast radio in a number of years. Between iTunes, Pandora, and SiriusXM, I have enough choices already. That said, I would actually listen to the radio again if I could have one that looked like this.

When it comes to speakers and TVs one of the fashionable things to do is hide them so that when they aren’t in use, you can’t tell speakers or a TV are in the room. We have seen TVs hidden by art on the wall in the past.

Neil Young has been talking up his forthcoming high-fidelity music service and music player for a few years. That service and the player will now be launching via Kickstarter and it is called PonoMusic. That is a horrible name, each time I see it I think PornoMusic and hum bow-chica-wow-wow to myself.

If you’re into recording or playing music, you’ll definitely want to enter this giveaway that we’re doing in partnership with our pals at Gear Diary and IK Multimedia.

Ever since trying out professional quality headphones with a digital audio converter (DAC) and headphone amp, it’s hard for me to listen to music without them. Unfortunately, the amplifiers in most computers are woefully underpowered – and most headphones are designed to operate at a low impedance to make up for this shortfall.

Wearable technology is still at a very early stage, but we’re seeing more refined and truly useful examples every so often. Bragi’s Dash is the latest example. Calling this tiny pair of devices “headphones” is as fair as calling the iPhone a “phone.”

If you want a Bluetooth speaker that you can take with you on the go to listen to your favorite tunes, Bem Wireless has a new offering that is very different from the others on the market.

Back in 2010, we talked a bit about the Bose SoundLink speaker. Since that time, there was a Soundlink II, and now Bose has announced a new version of that speaker called the SoundLink III. The new speaker is much more attractive and promises better performance.

It may not look like much, but Dentaku’s tiny board lets you follow in the footsteps of Leo Fender, Antonio Stradivari, Ikutaro Kakehashi and other musical instrument makers. It’s called the Ototo, and it’s a small synthesizer that can be activated by any conductive material and tweaked by a variety of inputs.