Archive for the 'Audio' Category
October 22nd, 2009, 4:47 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 If you’ve been wanting to get your hands on a gadget that softens overly loud commercials, now’s your chance to get one for free — just tell your annoyingly loud TV commercial story in 500 words or less.
The contest is sponsored by Santa Ana-based SRS Labs, which I wrote about earlier this month. Its TruVolume technology has popped up in a few TVs and sound systems. It automatically lowers the volume of TV commercials. Read about my experience and watch the video at “SRS Labs’ gadget could end annoyingly loud TV commercials.”
For long-time readers, you may remember that I used to offer a round-up of contests that awarded geeky prizes. This is definitely one of them. Plus, since it takes some effort, there could be few entries. Hmm… should I bring this feature back?
Ian Hamilton, who writes for the Irvine Business blog has the contest scoop in his recent post, “Hate loud commercials? Write a story about it and win.” The prize is Vizio’s new sound bar, a $199 $350 speaker with TruVolume built in. SRS has three of them up for grabs.
For even less time and effort, you could win a Samsung HDTV with TruVolume. Just watch a silly commercial and vote at www.srslabs.com/truvolume. SRS is giving away a 22-inch, 32-inch and 40-inch Samsung HDTV to the lucky voters.
Good luck!
Posted in: Audio • Video & TV • contest alert • contests • Samsung • Santa Ana • SRS Labs • TruVolume • Vizio | 2 Comments »
August 14th, 2008, 11:01 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 **UPDATE: Added official comments from Logitech and Ultimate Ears. See below.**
Irvine’s Ultimate Ears announced it is being acquired by Logitech in Fremont for $34 million.
The union may seem strange — Ultimate Ears makes custom-fit earphones for rock stars and non-celebs willing to pay $1,000 or more. It also has a universal-fit line that starts below $100, plus it just introduced a children’s line, starting at $40.
 Logitech is best known for computer mice, keyboards and web cams (although it too offers some nice, higher-priced mice). But Logitech has also been expanding its audio line of speakers and headphones and earphones.
Says the press release:
The acquisition of Ultimate Ears allows Logitech to expand its portfolio of digital audio products, providing more options for portable music listening. The company already offers a line of digital music speaker systems for in the home and on the go. Logitech is also a leading worldwide provider of speakers and headphones for PCs. And the company recently introduced a portable wireless speaker product for listening to music stored on Bluetooth mobile phones.
So far, the nearly 40 people at Ultimate Ears will remain intact in Irvine with Bob Allison still in charge. Employees found out today but someone at Logitech apparently knew a while ago –UE earphones are already listed on Logitech’s site:
**UPDATE:** I just spoke to Allison and he said that he and UE founder Mindy Harvey had both been eyeing the mainstream retail market to get the UE brand out there. A few years back, the company took its audio technnology and created universal earphones in the $100 to $300 range. But as a small company, it needed a bigger partner to help get product out there. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Audio • Computers • Audio • computer mouse • earphone • headphones • Irvine • Logitech • Music • OC company • Ultimate Ears | 2 Comments »
August 1st, 2008, 3:05 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 Musicians love their custom-fit Ultimate Ears headphones, or monitors as they are called in professional circles. But who can afford the $1,000-plus price tag?
While Ultimate Ears has offered lower priced models, the Irvine company just launched the LoudEnough earphones for just $39.99.
These appear to be decent earphones, if you don’t mind that they are geared for kids.
And by ‘for kids,’ I mean they are colorful (available in mint, blueberry and plum), include extra small silicon ear tips and have a mechanism inside to cap the volume by 20 decibels to protect those delicate little ear drums.
“You’re almost chopping the volume in half,” said Paul Manfrini, who’s in charge of product development. “If we limit it so there’s a cap on the loudness, we’re going to help protect their ears.”
 Ultimate Ears utilized technology it already offered in its Airline Attenuator, a small gadget that plugs into a user’s headphones and an airplane’s headphone jack. The attenuator levels volume so your ears aren’t suddenly irked when the pilot starts talking on the PA system. Ultimate Ears built an attenuator inside the LoudEnough earphones and that is what puts a ceiling on the volume by 20 dB.
“If you listen to something at more than 100 dB for more than 5 minutes, you start to damage your ears. This will drop volume down by 20 dB so if you’re around 80, you can listen for 3 to 4 hours,” he said.
“It’s not an end-all though because we don’t know if kids are going to crank up their parent’s stereo,” he said. “Parents still need to watch their kids.”
LoudEnough isn’t the only headphone out there for kids. I also spotted the AirDrives for kids and the iHearSafe earbuds for kids (currently 3 for $49.99 on the Ingemi Corp. site).
More photos:
 
Related:
Posted in: Audio • news • Alt+Save Money • Audio • earphone • headphones • Irvine • monitors • Music • speakers • Ultimate Ears | Post a Comment »
December 21st, 2007, 6:01 pm by Sonya Smith
 Irvine’s Ultimate Ears announced today its first voice-integrated product, earphones designed to work with the iPhone.
The$149.99 super.fi 4 vi earphones in “gunmetal silver” (at left) can be used, like all other earphones designed for the iPhone, to answer a call with music fading in and out just for the phone call. A pause button on the phones also allows users to pause media programs like YouTube and iTunes, skip through songs and answer or end calls.
Another Irvine company, Iophase Inc., this week announced a new version of its e-mail security product, Advanced Email Scrubbing 2.0. The program works to keep spam and viruses away from users and the update includes an updated interface and the ability to automatically find and quarantine spam that the user can still choose to retrieve. The program is priced on a domain basis, with $22.95 per domain and 20 cents for each user.
And the third Irvine company to release news this week was Atlus, USA, which announced Thursday a new game, Drone Tactics, for the Nintendo DS coming out March 25. Players create and command an army of drones fighting against the Black Swarm army.
The final O.C. gadget this week is from BenQ, with United States headquarters in Irvine. They announced Monday a new class of laptops — the dual-screened Joybook Q41. The laptop is the first to offer VoIP (voice over internet protocol) functionality — allowing users to make calls over the Internet right from an auxiliary display. The laptop also has a 14.1-inch UltraVivid widescreen, a 2.5-inch auxiliary display, a Intel Core2 Duo processor and Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.
Posted in: Audio • Music • iPhone • BenQ • drone tactics • iGirl • Iophase • OC company • super.fi • Ultimate Ears | Post a Comment »
September 18th, 2007, 11:15 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 Sick of the weak stereo in your car?
Santa Ana’s SRS Labs managed to get its Circle Surround Auto technology inside a car, the 2008 Subaru Impreza. This is the first vehicle to sign on with SRS’s new CS Auto technology, which, like other SRS products, makes audio from all sorts of devices sound better. Check out SRS’ demo on its home page HERE.
What’s the big deal? Circle Surround Auto elevates sound to ear level even if sound is coming from the lower speakers in the door or under the dashboard.
It also creates a ‘phantom center speaker’ to focus on vocals from the audio track and includes a channel-mixing feature. And for those who need a thumping bass but can’t afford a sweet system, the technology includes SRS Labs’ bass enhancement system to create a virtual subwoofer.
Let’s hope more cars will add the technology, especially for us cheapskates who don’t want to buy a better system for our cars.
Posted in: Audio • Car tech • OC gadgets | Post a Comment »
August 22nd, 2007, 6:02 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 Two things I learned after reviewing today’s gadget announcement from Anaheim’s Targus Inc.:
First, the Targus SoundUP sound enhancer adds back data from the original recording that was lost in compression. And second, Santa Ana’s SRS Labs and Huntington Beach’s BBE Sound have a competitor, Phantom Technologies in St. Paul, Minn.
I’m not sure I believe the first part. Says Targus, SoundUP “enhances sound quality by up to 20-25 percent, revealing instruments and voices from original recordings that are typically lost during compression.”
If the MP3 file cut out the voices for compression’s sake, how can it recapture something that is no longer there? Enhance higher and lower sounds, yes. But recapture the original recording? Hmm…
 SoundUP is a high-definition sound enhancer. Plug it into an iPod or MP3 player and it should make the music sound much better.
It’s slightly smaller than an iPod nano, uses 1 AAA battery and weighs less than 2 ounces. It also has an audio-out splitter lets two headphones share a headphone jack. Price $29.99.
Posted in: Audio • Music • iPods • OC gadgets | Post a Comment »
May 3rd, 2007, 11:10 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
The higher-end audio company Bang & Olufsen is launching some new products tonight at its showroom on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. This may be a hike for OC audiophiles but expect all the swank of a VIP party to introduce its “most highly anticipated product to ever be build in the United States in 35 years,” says the press invite, which I’m told is open to the public.
One new product: a loudspeaker that “performs just as a musician does in live format…” To demonstrate the new technology, Benni Chawes, a Danish musician who has opened for Ray Charles, will be performing so you can compare the live performance with the recording.
::event details::
When: Today, May 3, 2007 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Bang & Olufsen Rodeo Drive, 369 North Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, 90210
Posted in: Audio | Post a Comment »
September 14th, 2006, 10:39 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
** Updated Sept. 22, 6:50 p.m.: A response from SRS Labs. See blow**
If you value the movie-theater experience where you hear sounds coming from behind you, you should check out the new lineup of software from SRS Labs in Santa Ana. New software launched today at the ongoing CTIA Wireless Show in Los Angeles (for more coverage, see previous posts).
Known for enhancing the sound within Windows Media Player with SRS WOW software, the company now has software to make headphones sound better, iPod video sound better and well, anything PC-related sound better.
SRS Audio Sandbox is the company’s collection of all the sound-improving software. A quick round up:
- SRS WOW HD - Improves sound of compressed audio files
- SRS TruSurround XT - If you’re listening to a surround-sound DVD or CD but only have two speakers (ie: stereo), this translates the surround sound into stereo without losing that surround sound experience.
- SRS Headphone 360: Lets you hear surround sound on headphones.
At CTIA yesterday, SRS folks had me listen to parts of the movie Dragonslayer on a iPod cell phone. In the movie theater, when you would hear the dragon’s heavy breathing behind you before the creature appears on the big screen, I could definitely hear some noise. But heavy breathing? I couldn’t distinguish it until it was pointed out to me. I probably had to be caught in the moment of watching the movie to notice it was the dragon.
Maybe I’ll try again, which I can do for a free 14-day trial. Try it yourself and post a comment below.
** Update Sept. 22 ** Says Benjamin Grier, SRS’s Product Marketing Manager: **
What you heard was one of our technologies, Headphone 360, using a higher end cell phone. As a suggestion, you might want to hear the SRS Audio Sandbox on your PC. If you try the SRS Audio Sandbox free trial (at http://www.srslabs.com/sas ) with any movie content (and choose our movie settings), you will get a much better idea of the end user experience with the SRS Audio Sandbox.
Good tip, Benjamin. I’ll check it out…
Posted in: Audio | Post a Comment »
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Tamara 'the Gadgetress' Chuang
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