360 DEGREES Weblog

If you’re as worried about the looks of your audio system as how it sounds, you should probably have your head examined, and you might just be in the market for some pieces from the Mark Levinson 40th Anniversary Collection ($6,000-$25,000). Created to celebrate the legendary audio brand’s 40th anniversary — surprise! — the lineup includes the No. 52 Reference Dual-Monaural Preamplifier, the No. 585 Integrated Amplifier, the No. 519 SACD Disc Player and the No. 560 Digital Audio Processor, all of which arrive with gorgeous, minimalist designs that would look as normal in a museum as they will in your home theater cabinet.

They’re certainly not the most intelligent movies of the last decade, but when it comes to giving your home theater an audio/visual workout, there’s little fare better than the Transformers Trilogy ($90). This seven-disc set includes all three of Michael Bay’s robot-on-robot battles, including Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, all packaged in a trophy display along with a movie plaque signed by the infamous director himself.

We have been talked about ambient sounding speaker systems for a while now, but some of them tend to remain afresh in mind. One of those is the Meridian series, which has earlier given us masterpieces like the Ferrari F80 audio system and the i80 universal iPod dock. Their shot at creating another such minimalistic device with high grade engineering, is the M6 DSP loudspeaker system, which tells us how great sound can be produced from devices, which can fit into virtually any setting of section of the room. Getting down to it, there are a few points which will indeed strike a chord with the audio geeks out there. Beginning with the primary, is the cylindrical acoustic radiation which in simpler terms, means a rather even distribution of sound, with equalized intensity no matter where the speaker set is exactly placed in the room. Since a lot of working is actually electronic like the digital signal processing system, it helps in giving sleek and slim ergonomics to the speaker set, housed within the base plate of every set. The use of this technology also has enabled the thermal and dynamic bass protection thus giving a very neutral sound output. Also, the bass and wide range drivers have been given independent woofers, which in turn mean the ‘extra punch’ in sound whenever needed. Since Allen Boothroyd has used his designing skills to create such an intelligent device, the use of specially crafted fabrics has ensured that one hears only the speaker, and not it’s cabinet.

Talking of device numbers and technicalities, there is a frequency response between 38Hz-20 Khz, which is a sizeable range for most varieties of sound. There is also the 140mm aluminum cone driver with 85mm wide ranger of the similar material. The power hunger of the device is pegged at around 350 Watts, but compared to what its going to give out, a bit of extra energy might be truly well spent.

California-based company in2technologies has unveiled its aptly named Unity Home Theater System at CES 2012 that unifies a HTIB with a TV stand. So instead of a tangle of cables snaking their way from the back of a TV stand to the TV, the Unity cleans things up with a single HDMI 1.4a cable.

To be marketed under in2technologies’ Engage brand, the Unity features a pedestal design which the company has dubbed the “tShape” – although, if you want to be picky it’s actually more of a H on it’s side shape, but that’s probably not quite as catchy. Along with an integrated Blu-ray/DVD player, the unit provides 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound thanks to an integrated amplifier, dual 10-inch subwoofers, integrated center, left and right channel speakers, and a 5.25-inch down-firing midrange speaker.

in2technologies says it has designed the Unity using acoustic modeling and a proprietary speaker configuration that creates a dynamic sound field. The stand is built to support flat screen TVs up to 60-inches in size and in addition to the single-wire HDMI 1.4a connection, also includes iPhone/iPod and Ethernet connections.

Sure, he’s kind of an asshole, but you still love him. And you need all of him. To celebrate the golden anniversary of his secret agentness, MGM and Fox are releasing Bond 50 ($200), a gigantic collection that includes all 22 Bond films (and 6 James Bonds) along with over 130 hours of bonus features, all in Blu-ray quality.

Bang and Olufsen has provided news to launch its Beolit 12 iPhone Speaker later this month at B&O stores and through the Apple store, which will be released under its B&O Play sub-brand that will focus on high-quality portable audio-video products. As a line geared to the “digital generation,” items will cost lower than Bang and Olufsen’s high-end audio installations, but don’t expect any huge price breaks since the items will still cost a pretty penny.

The Beolit 12 is definitely a premium portable iPhone speaker with a price tag of $799, but its specs will defend its steep price. With a full-grain Italian leather carry strap, the speaker features a sleek, minimalist design with its anodized aluminum speaker grill. It’s going to launch in a grey color scheme, but more colors will become available at a later date. Its top is finished in rubber and is supposed to be non-slip so you can place you iPhone on it with no worries of damage when charging or playing tunes. It’s AirPlay compatible. It measures in at 230 x 150 x 188mm and weighs 2.8kg.

The speaker’s insides feature a 120-Watts class D-power amplifier, two 2-inch full-range tweeters and a 4-inch woofer. Which is more than enough to fill a medium-sized room with your favorite music. It also has an internal battery that’s supposed to provide 8-hours of playback (with wireless switched off) and charge your iPhone (or iPod) via a USB port hidden down the side.

The Beolit 12 is designed to be portable so comes with an internal battery that is said to give you 8-hours of playback (with wireless switched off) and will charge your iPhone (or other device) thanks to a USB port hidden down the side.

Samsung are looking to turn your regular HDTV into a web connected one with their newly-announced InTouch kit.

Combining a Wi-Fi enabled Skype camera and unique QWERTY keyboard, it adds apps, high-definition video calling and the ability to browse the web to any HDTV.
The camera has a tilt-range of -30 degrees – 0 degrees, making placement relatively pain-free for a clear view in even the most cluttered of home entertainment set-ups. An integrated USB port also lets you browse videos and images, letting you upload them to your favourite social networks.

“While internet connected HDTVs are now common, not every household gets to experience this fun and interactive feature, especially if they have an HDTV purchased just a few years ago,” said Mike Palazzolo, vice president sales and marketing, consumer video monitoring and security products for Samsung Techwin America.

“With the inTouch camera system, Samsung is now bridging the gap between this experience and those consumers who own HDTVs without networking capability.”

The Samsung inTouch will be available from March 2012 and will cost around $199.99.

Considering all the other things we’ve seen reduced to stick form, it’s no surprise that the Roku Streaming Stick ($TBA) looks ready to make that not-so-smart TV of yours a lot more useful with a minimal amount of fuss. Resembling a USB thumb drive, the streaming stick packs Wi-Fi, a processor, memory, and specialized software into a tiny enclosure that connects directly to the MHL-enabled HDMI ports on modern TVs, ensuring up-to-date software and access to services like Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu Plus, and Pandora long after you’ve upgraded your set.

When the market remains flooded with Bluetooth technology, it was only obvious that speakers are a part of the offerings as well. We have seen some hi-tech designs such as the Bluetooth Boom Bench and the Jabra Bluetooth headphone set, but taking a more minimalistic approach to designing, is the newly created Hidden Radio speakers. Appearing to be the simplest of Bluetooth speakers, the designing of the speakers appeal to laggards of the tech world consumers, as well as the industrial designers, in search of technology and designing combined.

Designed by the industrial designing duo of John Van Den and Vitor Santa Maria, the hidden radio speakers will capitalize on the concept of intuitive technology to help operate them. With a single turn of the outer cap, one turns on the radio and with each higher lift of the cap, the volume increases along with. This would be the primary step towards making something user-friendly for just about everyone to use. Next is the flexibility of Bluetooth, which helps in integrating one’s iPod, or any other Bluetooth storage device to the speakers, wirelessly and listen to content without a messy setup.

What we are later told is that these speakers are not just individual units. They generally will be in numbers, which means one can place them throughout the house or music room, to get a better play of sound output. So if you wish to setup your Bluetooth network for a personal movie theater, or address a small gathering, then using these units could be a fair idea, as they are also equipped to handle 30 hours of usage before recharge, thus allowing more freedom. As for the pricing, a single speaker would cost $119, but on taking a set of 2 units, then $229 would the cost. Likewise, for $449 you’ll get 5 units in your choice of color, including one individually numbered limited edition unit, and for $659, you’ll be the first to receive 7 units in your choice of colors, including a special high gloss white edition.
Also there are color options such as graphite black and metallic silver to choose from, but customers also can get them made in shades of their personal choice, to suit their tastes better. The introductory offer has free global shipping included.

German manufacturer of premium Hi-Fi devices, Loewe, introduces it’s powerful docking station SoundVision. Inside the obviously sleek corpus made of polished anodised aluminium work six speakers and two subwoofers of the upscale Loewe quality. Alongside the crisp sound, the iDevice dock features a multi-touch 7.5 inch touchscreen, web and FM radio, good ol’ CD slot, WiFi, Ethernet and an integrated music recognition service named Gracenote, and AUPEO! recommendation service, if you want to spread your aural wings.

$2000