Zimri Speakers was recently at the Consumer Electronics Show to display their latest line of speakers.  They have a full range beginning with tiny bluetooth speakers that can be used with a laptop or even tablets and smartphones.  What sets their speakers apart is both battery life and the lack of distortion, even at the highest levels.

Moving up the line from the smallest speaker already mentioned, Zimri’s next entry is nearly identical, but has a slightly bigger body for better base and also an SD Card slot, allowing it to be a stand-alone music player.  Zimri also offers battery packs that can not only recharge your speaker, but also your mobile device.

You really have to watch the video below to get the full concept of Zimri Speakers.  The demo of the bluetooth range, especially in a crowded and noisy CES show filled with other  bluetooth devices, is absolutely amazing.  For more information you can visit Zimri Speakers.

Interview by Nick DiMeo of F5 Live.

California Audio Technology, known as CAT, work with third-party hardware vendors in the home theater field to produce some of the best sound quality available.  They were recently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showing off their latest top-of-the-line 2 channel audio speakers.  These aren’t speakers for the feint of heart.  Each tower weighs in at 120 pounds.

CAT makes more than simple tower speakers though, they precision-make each speaker and can design them for almost any installation, including hidden in-wall speakers.  Their custom-made speakers can be found anywhere from homes, to music studios, to mega yachts.  All of that massive weight comes in handy to prevent any speaker vibration, which is a common issue in cheap speakers.

To really understand everything that goes into these speakers you will really need to watch the video below for an in-depth explanation of how they are milled and how they work.  You can visit them at their web site.  CAT speakers are on the market now, but if you have to ask the price….well, you know how that saying ends.

Interview by Nick DiMeo of F5 Live.

Do your headphones get tangled up in your pocket or purse?  Are you frustrated by having to spend time untangling them everytime you go to use them?  Then you may want to take a look at Zipbuds. Zipbuds are headphones where the cords zips up like a zipper and so the two cords become one and doesn’t get tangled up. Zipbuds come in two styles in ear and over the ear. The over the ear style has two models a lower end model and a higher end one. The lower end model comes in five colors and the higher end model comes in three colors. The earbuds come in eight different colors. They are made of PET plastic and aluminium and are environmentally friendly. They are available thru the Zipbud Web site and Amazon starting at $20.00. They have gotten great reviews on Amazon as far as how they sound and work. So if you are in the market for headphones that don’t get all tangled up you may want to take a look at some Zipbuds.

Interview by Courtney Wallin of SDRNews for the TechPodcast Network.

Pioneer is probably most famous for A/V receivers and car stereos.  At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show they talked primarily about their new line of car audio devices.  It consists of in-dash CD players, DVD players and even navigation systems.  All are what Pioneer refers to as “connected devices”.  There are even in-dash devices with capacitive touch-screens.

The new devices can replicate your phone’s interface, or reasonably so, allowing you to control the stereo from the touch interface in your dashboard.  The stereo will use your mobile handset’s connection to access services like Pandora and others.  In addition the new devices can use apps like those that help you find parking spaces or even navigate.

The new line of Pioneer in-dash stereos will also work with Android,  in addition to the previous support for iOS.  There’s a  lot more to these stereos than just what I have touched on here, but you will have to watch the video below.  You can also visit the Pioneer website.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News.

Jeremy from Vox International, representing Acoustic Research, dropped by the TPN studio at the Consumer Electronics Show to talk a little bit about the new AirPlay Wireless Audio System that they introduced at the show.  As the name implies, the system is based on iTunes and it allows you to free your iTunes library from you computer or mobile device and stream the audio anywhere in your house.

While there are a number of AirPlay devices on the market, Acoustic Research hopes to separate themselves from the group by, not only their famous name, but also with quality and pricing.  Users will be able to tether multiple players together so that they can have them in separate rooms, creating a whole-house audio system.

The box has 10w x 2 for audio power and will be available this April for $129.99.  You can learn more from Acoustic Research.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

I think it would be fair to say that Cambridge Audio has successfully moved from being a budget hi-fi brand into a solid middle tier player with several of their products receiving praise from audio and home cinema magazines. Consequently, I was interested to see what Cambridge Audio was demonstrating at CES this year, especially as it’s a British company. Scott has the interview.

The DacMagic Plus is a digital-to-analogue converter that will take the digital output from a games console, PC or smartphone, analyse and upscale the signal and then produce a clean analogue signal vastly superior to that produced by the original device. Let’s be honest, the DAC in your average games console or PC probably cost pennies to the OEM so it’s unlikely to be hi-fi quality. The DacMagic Plus has a pair of digital inputs, both optical and co-axial, plus USB input for high data rates (24 bit). There’s also an optional Bluetooth adaptor which uses the new AptX high quality codec. Output is to headphones, phono (RCA) and XLR.

The StreamMagic 6 is a new network music player that streams from a wide variety of sources – PC, uPnP, DLNA, Internet radio, Pandora – and it connects to the network either by ethernet or wireless-n. Cambridge Audio provides an on-line music portal which lets the audiophile choose their listening selection from a PC or tablet before sending the playlist to the StreamMagic. This neatly avoids the problem of poking around thousands of tracks on a tiny screen trying to find the ones you want. Round the back, like the DacMagic Plus, two digital inputs can take signals from sources such as smartphones or music players.

Overall, two great products that are definitely worth checking out.

Interview by Scott Ertz of F5 Live.

Sennheiser is one of the big names in headphones, so it’s not unsurprising that a few of the latest models were released at CES. Nick hears the latest for sound buffs from Eric.

First up are the HD 700s, an open headset approaching reference standard. With a wide soundstage, angled transducers give it a sound experience similar to listening to a speaker array; other features are designed keep the sound as pure as possible. These headphones are aimed at audiophiles who want to hear every nuance of the recording. Pricey at around $1000.

Next are the HD 800s, a futuristic-looking headset that takes audio purity and quality to an amazing level. Every detail has a purpose in the design, giving unparalleled acoustic reproduction for the total audio purist. Even more pricey at around $1500.

And finally, the Sennheiser Amperior brings the world-famous HD 25s to portable devices by optimising the impedance to give superior sound from a smaller unit. Suitable for all MP3 players, Apple iPods and iPhones, the Amperior comes with an inline remote and mic. Available from March for around $350.

Interview by Nick DiMeo of F5 Live.

If you’ve listened to the Geek News Central podcast for a few years, you might have heard Todd talking about Blue Microphones as his mic supplier of choice. Here Todd and Don talk shop with Jon Maier.

Blue Microphones returns to CES this year with three new mics, all in the portable space. The new Mikey Digital is designed for the Apple’s newer digital connector rather than the older analogue one, meaning that more digital processing can be done on the microphone itself. In particular, auto-level sensing can adjust the input gain depending on the loudness of the source.

The Tiki is a brand new small USB device that’s been in development for over a year. It plugs directly into the USB port on the side of a laptop and has intelligent signal processing so that extraneous noise, such as typing, is ignored. It’s aimed at Skype and Google Talk users but it’s still a high quality recording device, so if needed, the DSP can be turned off to record live music as naturally as possible.

The studio-grade Spark Digital is a USB and iPad version of their pro mike, the Spark, both of which have glorious retro looks. Sitting in a shock mount, it looks great. Utility-wise, the Spark Digital converts the iPad into a mobile studio.

All the mics are expected to be available in the spring. Prices are $59 for Tiki, $99 for the Mikey Digital and $199 for the Spark Digital.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Interview by Don Baine, the Gadget Professor, for the TechPodcast Network.

I have a 1998 Nissan Sentra it has an Am-FM radio and a cassette deck, which is how I connect my iPhone to listen to music. It works for that purpose, however I can’t legally make or take calls while I am driving. The car runs great so I am not in the market for a new car, however I would love to be able to make hands free calls in my car. The The Kit by Livio Radio was made for someone like me. It was shown at CES 2012. The Kit will work with any car that has an FM radio and a 12 volt adaptor. The device plugs into the 12 volt adapter and then works with your iPhone or iPod Touch through Bluetooth. With the Kit by Livio Radio you to make hands free calls with the integrated microphone. You can voice dial anyone in your iPhone address book. It also allows you to stream music from your favorite music application including iTunes through the award-winning car Internet application. The Kit is around $119.99 and is available through the Livio website

If you have an older model car and are looking to get connected, the Kit by Livio Radio maybe your answer if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. It runs around $119.99 and is available through the Livio Raido website.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central

Olympus has announced the latest addition to its popular LS series of digital recorders with the addition of the LS-100 linear PCM audio recorder. Aimed at musicians and audio enthusiasts, it comes with a combination of professional interconnects, high quality sound recording, multitracking and extra features in a convenient pocket size.

It’s an impressive little device with a matching list of features

- two internal 90-degree directional stereo condenser microphones with a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz and capable of capturing sound pressure levels up to 140 dB (which is about as loud as you’d really want to get).

- uncompressed 24 bit/96 kHz Linear PCM digital recording saved to the internal 4GB memory or on SD (up to 2GB) / SDHC (up to 32GB) / SDXC (up to 64GB) cards.

- separate audio and system circuitry to keep the signal clean.

- low cut filter at either 100 Hz or 300 Hz to eliminate low frequency background noise.

- two quarter-inch XLR / standard phone combo jacks, supporting phantom power at 48/24 volts to power high-quality external microphones.

- 8 track multitracking, with independent volume and pan control.

- tuner and metronome.

- Lissajous measurement which shows the phase difference betweenthe left and right mics.

- direct CD mastering.

- 2″ LCD screen and all-metal body.

“The Olympus LS series has been a favourite of musicians, artists and music lovers, and the LS-100 is an evolution in this series designed with the working musician, specifically, in mind,” said Amy Leslie, Sr. Marketing & Business Development Manager, Olympus Imaging America Inc. “For songwriting sessions, band rehearsals, live performances, broadcasting, or really anything that requires the highest quality of audio recording, the LS-100 is an ideal, all-encompassing recording solution.”

Nevermind all that, it just looks cool. Full details on the LS-100 are here and it will be available from all good stores in February 2012 for $399.

If you feel that white headphones mark you as just one of the herd, and that black headphones are a bit dull, then you’ll want to check out MIYA headphones, because these come in more colour combinations than you can possibly imagine.

Each set of headphones has 18 colour changeable parts and you can build your own headphones from the builder on the MIYA website. There’s a picture of it below. Now you can have headphones to match your clothes – imagine a set in lurid colours to go with your Lycra sportswear.

They’ll work with any device that has an audio 3.5 mm jack, so that’s most mp3 players, iPods and so on.

Price is HKD 388 (Hong Kong dollars) but there’s HKD 150 off if you order before the end of June. There’s a checkout code on the website for the discount. For comparison, HKD 400 is about US$ 50 or GB£30.

Can’t comment on the audio quality as I haven’t got a pair myself. Let us know if you get a set.

Both Todd Cochrane and Tom Newman had fun trying out the product being shown by Roland Nutter of Andrea Electronics Andrea Electronics has been in the speech recognition market for 15 years, they make quality headsets and audio drivers. He showed off the new line of Andrea Super Beam headsets. The headsets come in two models one with earbuds and the second over the ear kind.

The idea was to eliminate the need for a microphone to be out in front of a person’s mouth. They did this by putting the microphone in the earbuds. In one mode the microphone collects only audio that is created right in front of a person mouth. The background noise is cancelled out. In this mode there are two filters. A light filter that would be useful in a coffee shop environment where there is some background noise but its not very loud. In a more noisy environment like a concert or ballgame you could use the more aggressive filter. The software you use to record, is going to be easy to use for the beginner, but highly customizable for the expert. You can use it conjunction with Skype and remove constant background noise coming in from the caller, such as the noise coming from an air conditioner.

The software works on both Macs and Windows. As you can see in the video, Tom tried the headphones out and seemed quite impressed by them. The earbuds will be $129.00 and the over the ears will be $149.00 and should be available in June.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central. and Tom Newman of The Fogview Podcast.

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Todd listens to Mary Semcken, VP of Marketing for Able Planet, which has an innovative technology for reducing the decibel level of headphones without reducing the richness of the sound. Amazingly, Able Planet has won a CES Innovation Award every year from 2006 through 2010.

Mary shows off three new headsets, the first in military-style colours so that you can wear the colours of your team while playing Call of Duty. Camo, desert, navy.

Secondly, Able Planet has developed a Signature series of headphones in conjunction with a number of sportstars. Motocross women’s champion Ashley Fiolek has a pink set with 10% of proceeds going to breast cancer charities and Chris Anderson’s (“the bird man”) Signature set has copies of his tattoos on the phones.

All available shortly from major retailers and direct from Able Planet.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Altec Lansing has developed a speaker system that allows you to play the music on Bluetooth enabled devices through out your house. Using Bluetooth only the system has a range of 33 ft. If you attach the wireless adapter to a computer then the range extends up to 300 ft depending on how many walls you have. Enough so that you can have the adapter in one room and the sound playing outside near your pool.

This is CD quality sound and doesn’t distort even if you crank the volume up. It uses apt-x control technology and Waves Maxx to over come the tinny sound that Bluetooth speakers tend to have. Producing a superior sound to other devices in the same price range. The Altec Lansing InMotion Air remote control works various audio libraries including Windows Media and iTunes. The controls are mounted on top of device and it is designed to look good no matter where it is. It runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The Altec Lansing InMotion Air should be available in February 2011 exclusively at Radio Shack.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News.

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John Maier from Blue Microphones (www.bluemic.com) introduces the Yeti Pro USB 24-bit 92k microphone, which retails for $249. Maier also introduces a Mikey model that works with current Flip camera models that are equipped with a Flip Port. The new Mikey Flip product should be available by Spring 2011 and will retail for $69 dollars. The Mikey flip brings some needed audio improvement to the flip video camera and I really look forward to it’s availability.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Ted Aguirre talks about the three models of Lookee TV (www.lookeetv.com), a table-top model, a portable model, and a set-top box model that connects to a TV. Lookee TV devices retail for about $150 and are available right now. Lookee TV receives over 30,000 streaming radio stations and over 1,000 streaming TV channels. The company maintains its own strategically-located international content servers. All the content carried on the Lookee TV devices is free. Lookee TV devices are especially useful for international travelers who want to watch foreign television content or listen to streaming radio from other countries.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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“FiRe” Field Recorder is an audio recording application for making high-quality audio recordings on an iPod, iPhone or iPad. The application cost is $5.99 U.S.

“FiRe” Field Recorder does a good job of making high-quality recordings, but the program does have a few quirks that need to be taken into account.

I found that if I tried to make multiple recordings one after the other, the FiRe app would not record the second file unless I exited and re-entered the app. This glitch was a bit of a nuisance but once I realized what was going on it became easy to overcome the problem and get the app to do what I wanted it to. Recorded audio files are transferred to one’s computer via WiFi by enabling the feature in the app and then browsing with a computer on the same local network to a provided local IP address.

The latest generation iPod has a surprisingly high-quality built-in microphone. However, that being said, there are a few caveats that must be taken in account when using the iPod as an audio recorder. Recordings made in low background noise situations were high-quality and quite good. However, I also attempted to make recordings while driving down the road in my semi truck with a lot of heavy background noise present. The resulting audio files were distorted and noisy. Even with an anti-rumble software filter enabled within the app, the recordings were still unacceptably distorted and noisy using the built-in microphone or a standard 3.5mm wired stereo headset microphone.

With these shortcomings and limitations taken into account, I still recommend “FiRe” Field Recorder for iPod/iPhone/iPad if you are looking for a recording app that offers a higher level of sophistication than the simple Memo audio recording app that comes with IOS 4.x.

Making the switch to Mac OS/X a few years ago as my primary computing platform was not without its sacrifices. Among these was Adobe Audition. Sure, I could use Audition in a Windows virtual machine, but it just wasn’t the same thing and entailed its own sacrifices.

Sacrifice no more. Adobe finally heeded the call for Audition for Mac OS/X, and has released a public beta that can currently be downloaded for free available at

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition/

After a cursory look at this new beta, I’m impressed. They seem to have succeeded in bringing the Adobe Audition user interface I love in Windows to OS/X. I’ll be buying the final product once it is released for sale to the public.

Samsung announced the TicToc MP3 players back in July but they’ve only recently started shipping in UK. Aimed unashamedly at a young female audience, coming in blue, pink, black and Hello Kitty variants, this is a fashion accessory as much as an music player. I’ll try to get in touch with my feminine side to give the TicToc a fair review.

So what do you get for your money? A tiny 4GB MP3 player, a dock, a clip-on case and a set of headphones, plus instructions and warranty. First impressions are good – although plastic, the build quality is excellent and everything has a smooth touch to it with rounded edges. Everything is white with blue highlights and grey lettering and it looks good. The TicToc itself is only 36 mm long and has just one button and one 3.5 mm socket. Later, I’ll discover that there are three little lights as well.  It’s a minimalist approach but sometimes less is more.

I was intrigued by the 3.5 mm socket as it doubles as both the earphone socket, data connector and charger, so it was time to stop looking and start playing.  Frankly it’s easy.  The TicToc drops into the cradle and the cradle’s USB connector plugs into the PC.  It’s at this point you see the lights for the first time: they’re under the skin of the plastic, behind plus, minus and next track symbols.  When the player is docked, the lights show the charging status of the player.

The headphones are of the in-ear, noise-isolating type and are colour co-ordinated with the TicToc player. There are a couple of different-sized ear adaptors in case you have small or large ear canals. I found them comfortable to wear but more on the sound quality later.

On the PC, the TicToc appears as two drives under Windows 7. One partition is read-only and holds the TicToc Player application. The other contains the music files. Loading the TicToc with music is simply a case of drag’n'dropping your mp3s. It also supports .aac, .wav, .wma, .ogg and .flac but I only tried .mp3 and .wav.

I’ll come back to the TicToc Player app in a moment, but now that the TicToc is charged up, let’s play some music!

This is where it gets fun. With only one button, how do you control the player?  Well, it’s all to do with how you hold it… If you hold it vertically, pressing the button adjusts the volume. If you hold it horizontally, pressing the button moves between tracks. And if you give it one good shake, the voice guide announces the artist and track, which is pretty handy on a device with no screen. Give it a couple of shakes and it swaps between playing albums, general shuffle, fast tracks and slow tracks. It’s pretty cool and doesn’t take long to get used to.

When you first turn on the TicToc  (just press the button), an enthusiastic female voice will tell you how much battery you have left.  Samsung claim 12 hours play time and while I never completely drained the battery, it seems about right. After listening for a few hours from 100%, I would have 80% battery left which would be on target for 12 hours.

The TicToc will then start playing music. And how does it sound? Well, as with so many of these small players, the sound quality is let down by the headphones. With the supplied earphones, the sound is very much to the treble end with disappointing bass. They’re not the worst headphones I’ve ever used (a pair of Jabras currently hold that accolade) and on the plus side, the ‘phones were comfortable: I had no problem with them in-ear for several hours.

However, plug in a set of half-decent headphones, say, some Senneheiser CX300s, and the TicToc is hugely improved. Still perhaps little thin in the normal mode, but to improve the sound output, the TicToc comes with DNSe -  Digital Natural Sound engine. This allows the player to apply enhancements such as rock, R&B, dance and concert hall, which fill out the music nicely and brings it to life. And let’s be honest, the TicToc isn’t being marketed at audiophiles. For listening while walking to work or working out at the gym, it’s perfectly acceptable and actually quite good.

Returning to the TicToc app, this is where some of the magic happens. Although you can load music onto the player simply by drag’n'dropping, if you want the voice guide or you want the fast and slow playlists, then the TicToc app has to be run to analyse the music on your player and add in the extras. You can also use the TicToc app as a music player.

The voice guide is pretty good at converting the artist and track name from the mp3 tag into speech. It probably wasn’t fair to ask it to pronounce Abba’s Chiqichita right but it got S.O.S. spot on. This was my first exposure to this kind of feature and overall, I was impressed. There’s also a fast and slow playlist function which you can enable if you give the TicToc a couple of shakes. If you look at the screen shot, you’ll see the F and S labels next to each track, indicating whether the software thinks it’s a fast or slow track. If you disagree with the analysis, you can right click on the track and change the tempo.

There was only one thing that did annoy me. When the TicToc is playing in normal mode, it plays by folder which is usually the same as an album. However, when playing a folder, it seems to ignore the mp3 track number. I’m not sure what order it plays them in – I thought it was alphabetical to start with but it wasn’t always the case. It’s so irritating – Samsung please fix this.

In the end, I didn’t really need to get too in touch with my feminine side because the TicToc looks great, is funky to use and sounds good. The little cradle is a nice touch which sets it apart from the competition and much better than a cable with a 3.5 mm jack on the end. I think it would a perfect player to keep in your handbag or with your sports gear, ready to go.

RRP is £39.99 for the 2 GB version and £49.99 for the 4 GB.  Thanks to Samsung for providing the review unit.

Sony have launched a series of high performance HDMI cables to meet the needs of the latest developments in audio and video entertainment, including 3D and Ethernet.

All the cables in the DLC-HE series offer:
- HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC), allowing the cable to not only carry audio and video, but also data.
- Audio Return Channel (ARC),  permitting audio to be transmitted in both directions.
- 3D support, for the latest movies.
- Quad Full HD, for resolutions up to 3840 x 2160.
- 48 bits per pixel colour depth, giving richer colour reproduction.

Obviously, the TV and the connected device, e.g. an AV amp, have to support these features to take advantage of the cable.

Although the press release doesn’t make it 100% clear, I believe that these features mean these new cables conform to the HDMI 1.4 standard.

There are five different cables in the range, from general purpose to premium, with variants using horizontal and vertical swivel connections.  There’s also a special cable for connecting from HandyCam or Bloggie cameras that have the HDMI type C connector.

The cables come in a range of lengths from 1m to 10m.  Additionally the HDMI connector body has been redesigned so that it’s easier to see which way round the cable is before trying to plug it in.

Available now from all good stockists with prices starting from around £40.

In 2009 Audio-Technica shocked the world by retiring an icon turntable that resulted in some turmoil on the web. What most did not realize Audio-Technica was releasing a new and modern turntable with USB connectivity with the same professional build of it’s predecessor. Being a bit of a LP snob I was excited to see this new addition to their product line-up. If you have a pile of LP’s that you have been wanting to listen to, or to convert to digital this is the perfect USB LP Player to get high quality captures of your LP Collection.

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Geffen Xantech has made use of wiring that you may or may not have in your home to distribute audio throughout your home. It is a feature that may appeal to those that have stopped using your Cat 5 in lieu of wireless. The key here is getting multi-room audio distribution over Cat 5 with room to room control of the media you want to listen to.

This could turn out to be the retrofit for Baby Boomers.

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I like online videos but I don’t have time to watch as much as I like. At work I can listen to podcasts as much as I like until it is time to go home. I have yet to figure a way to watch videos while I work so audio only is for my situation. The difference between video and audio is video requires complete attention. Audio can be enjoyed while actually doing other tasks. Well there are tons of online videos that are not action based that I would like to hear just the audio. Interviews, standup comedy, etc are in video format but work just as well as audio only formats. A Firefox add on helps me with this is media convertor. I can download a video & convert it to mp3 format to go on my mp3 player. It is a two step process so it is simple enough for anyone to use. You can convert into many more formats so it is as versatile as you need it to be. Youtube is full of stuff that does not need to be seen to be enjoyed. Audio only stuff will always be a huge market for new media producers. People have to work so listening to audio is possible for them while videos at work are not always possible. Firefox is turning into one stop shopping for anything internet related.