Parrot Ancient Gold Zikmu Speakers (luxury gadgets)

Parrot Ancient Gold Zikmu Speakers

Philippe Starck, famous French product designer has  built a certain type of luxury in his latest creation – Ancient Gold Zikmu Speakers. Limited edition Ancient Gold Zikmu speakers are exclusively made for Parrot.
Ancient Gold Zikmu speakers by Parrot
The Gold Speakers are packed with the latest technology including Wi-Fi connectivity allowing you to stream completely wireless from any of your favorite devices. The bass comes from the horn shaped bottom and the top half of the speaker allows for amazing 360 degree surround sound. The 2.5 feet tall speakers boasts sleek design and gold coloring, so they are suitable for all sort of spaces.
This limited edition speakers are completely handmade, and only 20 of these will be made for the whole world. 3 of these units will made available for the UAE market. Considering how luxurious and there are just twenty pieces, it might be surprising to know that speakers will be available for sale with an affordable price tag of $3,400. Even more, if you don’t need the gold, there are plenty of other colors available starting at $1,350 on Amazon.

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Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker (special gadgets)

Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker

This tiny and sleek canister hides an AM/FM radio and 80 dB Bluetooth speaker in its modern form.

Industrial designers John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen and Vitor Santa Maria designed the Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker ($119), which appears to be perfectly simple in the best way.
The sleek and small canister is a Bluetooth speaker and radio that is turned on when the user simply twists the top. From there, the more the user twists the canister open, the louder the internal volume, which can get all the way up to a loud 80 decibels when opened all the way. The speaker was designed specifically for Bluetooth use with your smartphone or other devices, but there is also an old-school AM/FM radio and a line-in connection should you not want to go wireless just yet. The battery life of the device is rated at 30+ hours, which is plenty of time for a week of at-home use or a long-weekend vacation. The project is currently still gaining funds on Kickstarter, but we don’t see the designers having trouble meeting their goal.

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Alexandria XLF Loudspeaker by Wilson Audio (Luxury Gadgets)

Wilson Audio's Alexandria XLF Loudspeaker

Price:  $195,000

Wilson Audio has just announced the Alexandria XLF Loudspeakers, positioned above the existing Alexandria X-2 Series 2, which will continue in production. You’ll simply fall in love with these beautifully crafted floor-standing loudspeakers that offer more than just excellent quality sound.
One significant improvement over the X-2 Series 2 is a new passive bass management system. The look of the speaker has also been revised to ensure low resonance from the enclosure. 

 This simple yet highly effective system allows users to optimize bass quality and extension to match the characteristics of the sound room.
The XLF also feature Wilson’s all new driver technology about which no detail is available yet. Making use of Wilson’s latest cabinet analysis tools, their crew has lowered the already low resonant contribution of the enclosure. The cabinet is dressed in Wilson’s latest composite materials that include the revolutionary S material.

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Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus Speakers/Review

Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus Speakers

Available at Hammacher Schlemmer for $60,000.

The Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus Speakers is a triumph of engineering and design – the result of five years extensive reseach and development tasked with designing the perfect loudspeaker.

Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus Speakers are the four-way speakers that provide the clearest three-dimensional soundstage performance available.
Precise to the finest level, and great in external aesthetics, there are 1-inch and 2-inch tweeters along with 4-inch mid-range driver that play a crucial role in giving out a rather crisp, clear, and more vibrant sound output. On further probing, it is said the vibration patterns are monitored to the level of 1/3000th of a millimeter by using Laser-Doppler velocimetry. The result of that is of course the precision and crispness of the sound. For the times when bass plays an important role, there are 12-inch bass drivers which are housed in a curved spiral tube, thus enabling waves to travel without reflection.

Also, B&W Nautilus speakers use an active crossover design that allows each driver to operate on its own frequency unlike the more-than-common passive crossover designs. This lends a crisper and clearer final tone output, and this means that you will need four separate amplifiers for each speaker to power them.
The speakers’ bodies are handcrafted from fiberglass-reinforced ABS and are finished with paints and lacquer systems used for luxury cars.

Drive Units (High Frequency): 2 domed units of anodised aluminium of similar construction, 50mm and 25mm in diameter, handle the 880Hz – 3.5kHz and 3.5kHz – 25kHz ranges respectively. All drive units are completely mounted on silicone rubber O-rings to decouple from the cabinet

Drive Units (Mid-Range/High Frequency): From 220Hz – 800Hz, a 100mm flat-fronted unit is employed to prevent the gentle cavity resonance found in conventional cone units at around 2kHz interfering with the output from the upper/midrange unit. A rare earth magnet assembly with hollow pole is used to minimise the obstruction to the rear radiation from the diaphragm

Drive Units (Bass): A 9.5kg (21 lbs) magnet with a 100mm (4”) voice coil acts as the massive motor of the 300mm (12”) bass unit (10Hz – 220Hz). This, when used in the exponential line enclosure, results in a high-pass behaviour so over-damped that the traditional second-order characteristic is replaced by two distinct first-order slopes and no stored energy. A 250 micron one-piece aluminium cone ensures coherent motion to beyond 1.5kHz

    Frequency Response: 25Hz – 20kHz ± 0.5dB on reference axis
    Frequency Range: -6dB at 10Hz and 25kHz
    Power Handling: 100W – 500W into 8 ohms, one amplifier is required for each drive unit
    Electronic crossover supplied with speaker
    Dimensions (H x W x D): 1210mm x 430mm x 1105mm
    Net Weight: 110kg (Loudspeaker – 60kg, Base – 50kg)
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Special Gadgets/Logitech Mini Boombox

Logitech has announced the latest offering in its portable speaker lineup in the form of the Mini Boombox. The new arrival not only pairs with smartphones, tablets, and laptops for wireless sound streaming, but also doubles as a speakerphone suitable for hands-free calls or video chats.

For wireless sound streaming, the Mini Boombox supports A2DP Bluetooth profile and according to Logitech, it pairs with any compatible device including iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. HFP 1.5 Bluetooth profile support is required for hands-free calls. For non-Bluetooth devices, a wired connection via a 3.5 mm jack is also possible.

Logitech Mini Boombox speaker

The Mini Boombox features a backlit touch panel located on the top of the housing, offering volume, calls, or track control while also indicating the active Bluetooth connection. It delivers bass-enhanced sound, via "a specially designed acoustic chamber." Charged through a USB port, the Mini Boombox is equipped with a battery that is reportedly good for up to 10 hours of playback.

The portable speaker is available for pre-order at Logitech's website and is priced at US$99, which actually makes it way cheaper than its likely rival, the mic-equipped Bluetooth Jawbone Jambox. The Logitech Mini Boombox is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe this November.

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Weird Gadgets/AudioMasons Speakers Made of Solid Stone

Audiomasons Stone Speakers

Wood is a preferable choice when it comes to speaker systems, but if you’re not a fan of chopping trees to make your speakers, perhaps these stone speakers by AudioMasons might be something worth checking out.
Stone is not only the ideal acoustic material, its also one of the most sustainable materials on the planet. As a result, these speakers can put out hi-fidelity performance better than conventional speakers that cost 3-5 times as much. Another quality of these speakers is that they are far more sustainable than the regular ones. All audiomasons products have a self-cleaning titanium nanoparticle coating, and will never stain or discolor.
The AudioMasons mainly produces three models namely Bastion, Comet and Luxs. Bastion is a three way compact flagship speaker for your high-end audio needs. Made of aluminum/titanium drivers to achieve distortion free sound, and the speakers cost around $1,750 each. Comet is a two way compact speaker that that features 7” and 1” drivers, with a frequency response of 42Hz-20kHz, and provides unprecedented clarity and range due to the solid stone housing. The speaker costs $895 per piece. Luxs is a single point audio source that allows for incredible acoustic feel. The speaker has 7 woofer system and costs $1,950 per speaker.
The company also accepts custom order to craft your dream audiophile-grade loudspeakers. And you can choose from pretty much any kind of rock: marble, granite, limestone, travertine, basalt, & more. The custom options also include choice of metal accents, inlay and upholstery. All metal parts can be lined with Itlian Cloth or Goat Skin, availble in of a variety of designer colors.
Besides these rock speakers, we have earlier also write about concrete speakers designed by Shmuel Linski.

[AudioMasons]

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Special Gadgets/Woo Audio WA-234 MONO

Actually it's two US$5,000 (GBP3,100/EUR3,500) amps because these rather spectacular looking beasts are mono-blocks. They are two completely separate, but matched, mono amplifiers. Now it's no secret that the world of audiophile hi-fi sound systems can be a place of strange voodoo and esoterica - where the Law of Diminishing Returns becomes a way of life for deluded males of a certain age (never women it seems) but let's check our cynicism at the door for the moment. There is something interesting going on here and it may just turn out that at $10,000 for the pair, these amps are a (relative) bargain.

Woo Audio has been hand-building high quality tube amplifiers in New York since 2004. Tube amps are prized by hi-fi aficionados for their warm, enveloping sound and the sweetest circuit type of all, un-coincidentally the simplest, is called a single-ended triode (SET), and it is just this type that Woo specialize in. The downside with amps of this nature is that they are quite low powered, so Woo Audio has been producing primarily headphone amplifiers where this isn't a concern. Paradoxically, because a simple circuit means that tweaks and variations are easier to implement, using the very finest individual components possible makes these amplifiers potentially more expensive than a more complex, but mass produced, design. While many of Woo Audio's products are in the US$500 - $1500 range, with the WA234 they have pulled out all the stops and produced a SET amplifier without compromise.

Design Decisions

The first decision was to make the amplifier a pair of mono-blocks. That is, a completely separate amplifier and power supply for each side of the stereo signal. This is done to eliminate crosstalk between the channels and maintain a rock-solid stereo image. Secondly, the circuit is completely hand-wired using the shortest cable path possible and the highest quality components, including a stepped resistor volume control rather than a potentiometer. Transformers and filter coils are wound by hand on the premises for the specific circuit requirements - hi-fi (and guitar) amp experts will tell you that the output transformer is where a great deal of the magic happens in a tube amp. The final piece of the puzzle is the massive machined chassis that reduces vibration and stray magnetic fields affecting the tubes mounted on the top surface.

Unique Feature

All that would be fine and dandy but the WA234 has a unique additional feature. While tube amp designs can be very simple and pure, that does mean that they are optimized for a particular tube, a particular output impedance and a particular power output. Change any of those requirements and the circuit needs to change. To allow flexibility in that regard the 234 is supplied with a set of physical plug-in "keys" that actually modify the circuit configuration for different uses. One key socket allows the circuit to be optimized for 300B, 2A3, or 45 tubes (that all sound different by the way) and another socket accepts keys to change the output impedance for different headphone types, or indeed allow loudspeakers to be driven from the output. A maximum of 8 watts a side won't fill a nightclub but with efficient speakers it will fill a typical living room.

Long Experience

While Jack Wu's eponymous company has only been trading for seven years, it was formed to exploit the 40 years of amp design experience of his father, Wei, and the engineering experience of his brother, Zhi Dong. The company already has a great reputation in the audiophile community and press for creating very high quality amps at reasonable cost. The exemplary construction and hand-wired circuitry of this no-compromise flagship product suggest that rather than being an over-priced toy for the bored and wealthy, it might well be a genuine bargain for the serious audiophile.

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Introducing iHome Audio iW1, The First Portable, Rechargeable AirPlay Speaker

iHome Audio iW1 Wireless Rechargeable Speaker System with AirPlay: $299.99
iHome Audio's iW1 speaker system, which won a 2011 CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award, was just officially released. Once the device is configured for AirPlay by the iHome Connect app, it can receive audio streamed from a Mac or PC running iTunes 10.1 or later, as well as certain iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch models running iOS 4.2 or higher. You can also sync, charge and play from some iPhone and iPod Touch and Nano models. And for those hoping to hear audio from TVs, Blu-ray players and other non-Apple music playing devices, the speaker also has headphone, RCA and optical inputs.
The iW1's two 3-inch excursion woofers with graphite mica reinforced polypropylene cones and two 1-inch silk soft-dome membrane tweeters crank out 2x13W of RMS power. The sound quality is enhanced with Bongiovi Acoustics DPS (Digital Power Station) technology, which digitally remasters audio in real time. The unit is controlled by its capacitive touch panel, the included remote or your iOS device. And it's powered by a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, making it portable and usable anywhere that your 802.11b/g/n router signal reaches. Starting from a fully charged battery and cranking at max volume, it'll last four to five hours -- more than that if listening at normal volume and less if charging a connected i-device.

Credit: SDI Technologies

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Special Gadgets/Göbel Epoque Reference Loudspeakers

The German high-end loudspeaker manufacturer Göbel unveil Epoque, their lates reference class loudspeaker. With two options in terms of colors including the brilliant white and black, the majority of the speaker’s body has been created out of aluminum, which has been given anodized treatment to give a special smooth finishing.
The black rectangles on these speakers are actually the latest version of Göbel’s signature bending wave drivers. Although previous models were crafted from thin wooden membranes, this latest iteration uses nine layers of laser-cut carbon fiber in addition to the wooden core. Of course neither carbon-fiber nor wood can produce sound on their own accord so the actual tunes are produced by four aluminum longthrow chassis drivers and eight passive radiators that reside within the driver unit.

Each instance carries 6 outlets with 12 subwoofers and a front-mounted control panel, all these being able to let out a sound that tickles every ear out there, whether listening to black metal music or chill-out and lounge.
Within the next few months the Epoque Reference Loudspeakers with almost 200 kilograms in weight will make its journey to the most renowned hifi dealers in Europe. Regardless whether you are in Berlin, Munich, London or Paris, Göbel will visit you and give you an opportunity to experience the patented Göbel bending wave loudspeaker.

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Special Gadgets/Philips Fidelio Wireless Speaker

A Ring-Shaped Speaker For Small Spaces

Philips Fidelio Wireless Speaker DS3881W/37: $299.99

Hearing about the next new thing that plays music can get tiresome, as they all seem the same, but there are times when something different comes along. The Philips Fidelio Sound Ring wireless speaker stands out as something visually and technically appealing. As the name suggests, the speaker is shaped like a ring with AirPlay capabilities so that music can be streamed wirelessly from iDevices and heard from any room. A USB port can charge those devices during play and to avoid aleinating those non-Apple users, it also has an audio plug for other players. 

The DS3881W has been designed to fill an entire room with sound, with a central bass sound pipe, front, back and side-firing high def drivers that work to create clear and natural sound, all while being small-space friendly. Phillips developed an app for the Fidelio line that lets users discover and share new music on Facebook and Twitter, as well as listen to Internet radio stations from all over the world. The rest of the Fidelio line has good reviews for sound quality, but aren't as compact. This product, and the rest of the line, received FCC approval this year and is set to hit stores during the holiday season.

Credit: Philips

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Special Gadgets/Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 5 Encore

Bang & Olufsen has unveiled the latest tech in its BeoSound range, the BeoSound 5 Encore, a home music hub that can organise your sprawling music collection. The modern-day jukebox works similar to a networked media consul and is priced much less than the first generation BeoSound 5 system, know for it’s capability to stream on Internet radio and featured a hard drive.

The BeoSound 5 Encore is equipped with 10.4-inch TFT LCD with low reflection coating and aluminium wheel, allowing you to browse through your music. The system gives easy access to your digital music conveniently arranged by album, artist, track or your favourites, plus access to more than 13,000 internet radio stations from all over the world, constantly updated automatically by B&O. It is enhanced with patented MOTS intelligent playlist technology, which captures the unique musical identity of a track, and then uses this to compile a playlist of similar music.

Also if you have a collection of digital music in a variety of spaces, you can integrate the same with this system, as it has the flexibility of reading from USB sources, NAS servers, an external computer or even Apple media devices via AirPlay. The system supports wide range of audio formats and connection options include a mini jack for Headphone, Line-in, 2 USB ports, Ethernet port and 802.11 a/n WiFi. Up to eight Encore hubs can be placed throughout the house to stream different songs simultaneously from the same network.

BeoSound 5 Encore offers different options for wall, table or floor placement. As with most of its designs, Bang & Olufsen is charging a premium for the new BeoSound add-on. It should cost $3,350 when it arrives in stores in August. [Bang & Olufsen]

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Luxury Gadgets/The World’s Most Expensive and Bespoke Music Center

Bang & Olufsen Beosound 24ct Gold & Diamond Edition  

What you see above is Bang & Olufsen Beosound 24ct gold & Diamond Edition, the world’s most expensive music center created by Stuart Hughes. Shaped out of 32 kilograms of solid 24ct gold, the system is also decked with 70 diamonds of 0.75 carat along with Aventurine and Topaz gemstones. The whole Beosound system along with speakers is plastered with handmade solid gold veneer.

It is not very difficult to guess that the model has not been developed for the mass market but to satisfy the tastes of an exclusive few. Only five units will be offered for sale, with each costing a whopping £1.2 million ($1.85 million).

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Special Gadgets/Magico Q3 Loudspeakers

Magico is a leader in high-performance loudspeaker design and manufacture. Now, Magico has developed a new Q3 Loudspeakers that generates sounds like in recording studio.

This five driver three-way floorstanding speaker is housed in a fully-braced, fully-damped, aluminum and brass hard-anodized enclosure. It utilizes a number or proprietary Magico design elements and technology to break the efficiency barrier. Featuring a complete set of Magico-designed drivers, including three new 7″ Nano-Tec woofers, delivers overall system efficiency of 90dB/W/m. Magico’s three new woofers are complemented by a 6″ Nano-Tec midrange and the MBe-1 Beryllium dome tweeter. Together, these drivers represent Magico’s continued pursuit of developing and implementing some of the finest loudspeaker drivers.

The Q3 builds upon the proven concept of the Q platform first developed for the award-winning Q5, which was the first Magico product to take advantage of complete in-house control of all design and build variables. Substantial collar-locking isolation feet are also a highlight in the pursuit of ultimate performance.

Now we can conclude the most important facts. Overall sensitivity is 90dB/W/m, impedance is 5 Ohms and frequency response is from 26 Hz to 50 kHz. Cabinet dimensions are 47 x 16 x 10.5 (HxDxW in inches) and each unit weights 250 pounds.

Regardless of the genre of music, these speakers with price of $34,000 per pair will bring true symphony of sound in your room.

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Special Gadgets/Speakers from Steinway S-Series

Loudspeaker maker Steinway Lyngdorf has been in the business of producing world class devices that have produced sound comparable to the highest standards of quality, including instruments like the one-off Lady Gaga Piano, and the LS Sound System. Its latest offerings come in the form of the S-Series set of Speakers, which has not compromised on sound quality, but added the advantages of compact packaging and great aesthetic appeal.

Delivering remarkable sonic quality in a captivatingly compact form, the S – Series delivers outstanding sound pressure levels relative to its size. This is achieved through the ingenious combination of high efficiency drivers, boundary woofers offering accurate and highly musical bass, alongside fully digital amplification and Steinway Lyngdorf’s patented RoomPerfect 3D technology.

Compact and powerful, the sleek S-Series comes with S-15 mid-high speakers and an S-210 on-floor twin boundary woofer. The S-15 is a two-way speaker with a frequency response between 120 Hz – 22 kHz and peak power capacity of 600 W of sound along with a single channel amplifier needed for optimum effects. Due to its compact size of 10.2 inches in length, 7.8 inches in width and a depth of 3.1 inches, it can be placed perfectly well on a bookshelf, fixed on the wall or even made to stand on the floor with appropriate support.

On the other hand, the S-210 is a one-way boundary woofer with a frequency response of 25-500 Hz and has the peak power capacity of 800 W of sound. Due to its comparatively larger size (W- 14.7 in. H- 14.2 in. & Depth- 14.2 in.) it is generally recommended as a floor-standing speaker.

The common features of the speakers include the options for matte black or the satin silver finishes, stereo and surround sound capabilities, and also the wide frequency response range. The pricing ranges for these speakers are between $22,100 and $47,600, depending on the demand for the variety. [Steinway Lyngdorf]

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Roomba 770 Review – A Mighty Cleaner in a Small Package

 Pros

• Cleans deeper than you suspect it would
• Definitely cuts down on how often you feel the need to do a full vacuuming
• Quickly learns its environment

 Cons

• Tad on the heavy side (8.4 lbs) for physically weaker owners
• Price tag
• Can bang into furniture a bit harder than you might like

Best For: Busy people with pets and those who may be handicapped or disabled.

Suggested Retail Price: $499.99

The Roomba 770 follows the familiar shape of the product line, being a roundish device without very much visible to the naked eye as it tools around vacuuming up pet hair, dust and so on.  The physical button controls on the top are also not new, but the number you have to deal with have dropped from five to four, and in general they seem to be easier to read and communicate with thanks to better lights than previous versions had.  Through a series of different lights you know when the Roomba needs you to empty its dustbin or when it thinks its found a particularly dirty spot so you don’t think it’s gone crazy just running over the same place over and over again.

Maintaining the Roomba 770 is a breeze with the easy to remove dustbin and beaters.  Flip it over, hit the bright yellow tabs, and you know you’re taking out something you’re supposed to.  Removing a brush on a traditional vacuum can be a pain, and quite often involves a screwdriver, but with the Roomba it’s all snaps and shaped parts that make it nearly impossible to mess up.

The 700 series is the first Roombas to feature HEPA filters, included with the device is a remote control. It’s easy to dismiss the remote at first, but the more you think about it, the more sense it makes.

If there is any failing on the hardware side of things, it’s the invisible walls.  The Roomba 770 comes with two little plastic towers that run on two C batteries each and tell the robot where you don’t want it to go.  More often than not they worked, but every so often I’d see him scooting past one of them, leaving his domain in the living room for the kitchen. 

Second failing?  Depending on the height of your carpet, the Roomba can sometimes push the dock around when it’s trying to return home for charging.  The dock has to be against something that isn’t especially slick, and the shorter the carpet the better for it to dock successfully.

As you really don’t interact with the software, this is a bit more arbitrary to assess.  There are times where the device seems insanely smart, and other times where you go, “Why did you do that?”  For instance, banging into the corner of a table and then repeatedly banging into it as it tries to assess the dimensions of said piece of furniture.  Considering the number of sensors the Roomba 770 has you would think it might figure this out a bit sooner, but there it sits, bouncing against the furniture repeatedly.

Conclusion

The Roomba 770 isn’t going to eliminate your need for a more powerful, traditional vacuum, but it is is certainly going to cut down on how often you have to run it.  There is something oddly satisfying to coming coming home and seeing the tracks in your carpeting that tell you the Roomba was out on patrol for dirt and you didn’t have to lift a finger to do it.  The price is prohibitive for those that have never tried one before, but once you have, you really don’t want to go back to life without it.

Four out of five stars for the Roomba 770.  (One star lost for price, dock movement and randomness of invisible walls)

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