Device

With the massive influx of digital media in the past decade or so, consumers have become aware of the need for some way to use
their media somewhere other than a computer. More specifically, we want to be able to play our music and movies and view our
digital pictures from the comfort of the couch, and with the high definition glory of a 72″ plasma television. Apple, of course,
released the Apple TV. However, other electronics companies have tried to come up with good home media center solutions that
don’t require a full computer running Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows Vista Premium or Ultimate.

You’ve no doubt heard of, or have seen the Snowball microphone from BlueMic.
It’s a very popular microphone for podcasters and anyone that wants to record audio. BlueMic have a new microphone
to add to their product line – the Snowflake USB mic. This is their first professional portable USB microphone, and I
think they have another winner on their hands.

Since my first experience with digital audio recording with a Sony M1 DAT more than ten years ago I have been an avid fan of new digital audio gadgets. I even got myself a (volunteer, non-paying) gig recording a weekly chamber music series locally, which is an opportunity to spend even bigger bucks on fancy microphones and preamps. But when last year a friend gave me a 1905 Edison Standard Phonograph cylinder player, I really was in gadget heaven…

I love my 65 inch TV. Even though it’s a rear projection TV and not a flat screen, which means it takes up a lot of space in my basement. I went from a 27 inch TV straight up to 65. I can’t go back now… no way. What do you do if you don’t have room for a giant TV, but still want that big screen experience? Vuzix thinks they have a solution with their iWear AV490 Video Eyewear. These glasses claim to give you a 62 inch screen experience. Let’s just see about that…

Do you listen to your audio player through your car’s stereo? Then I would wager that you have probably run into the same problem with volume levels that I have. Quite often, in order to hear the music, I will have to turn the volume on the player all the way to maximum and then do the same with the car stereo. This in itself isn’t the real issue though… The problem is that after I disconnect my player from the car’s stereo, I’ll almost always forget that I left the volume turned to the max. Then later when I go to listen to the car stereo or player, I’ll be blasted with extremely loud music that makes me jump out of my skin. This happened to me three times last week, so I went looking for a solution and learned about CMoy headphone amps.

Let’s face it, the constant evolution of technology has spoiled us. We, as consumers, crave electronics that have everything, yet are small enough to be inconspicuous when not in use. The people at Insignia have created a shelf stereo system with numerous features designed to please, yet small enough to not require a lot of space. For those of you not familiar with Insignia, it is the brand sold exclusively at Best Buy. Today I review their 75W DVD/CD/HD Radio Compact Shelf System with USB Port (Model: NS-HD2114).

What is the worst thing about setting up a stereo speaker system? In my opinion, it’s running all the necessary wires. I always said that if I ever build a new house, that it will have speaker wiring pre-installed in all the walls. But for an existing house without this feature, what do you do to get around this issue? You can either buy a wireless speaker system, or you can check out a wireless audio adapter like the one I’m going to tell you about today from Audioengine. The AW1 Premium Wireless Audio Adapter is designed for Audioengine’s A5 speaker system (my current favorite speakers), but will work with any other speakers just fine.