stereo

Sony may have lost the MP3 player battle, but it still knows a thing or two about making small, powerful speaker systems.

As evidence, we have the newly announced iRDP-X50iP, a portable speaker dock made for the Apple iPhone and iPod that boasts 40 watts of power in an elegant, minimal design.

With an asking price of $199, the iRDP-X50iP includes a bass reflex speaker design, aux input, remote control with full iPod control functionality, Mega Bass audio enhancement circuitry, soft-touch controls, and certified compatibility with the iPhone and recent iPods.

Sony's press release for the iRDP-X50iP emphasizes its … Read more

With Apple thoroughly touting the headphone remote capability of its various iPods, third-party headphone manufacturers are eagerly turning out products with integrated playback controls. One solution we've seen is the in-line remote cable attachment that can connect to any set of headphones, thereby letting you simply update your favorite pair.

Of course, if you need to upgrade from Apple's stock earbuds anyway, picking up a brand-new model with the controls (and mic, if applicable) built in makes more sense. The selection is constantly expanding, but not all the options provide a great experience. We've rounded up some … Read more

Just about every home theater receiver comes with an automatic speaker setup and calibration system: Denon, Marantz, and Onkyo feature Audyssey; Pioneer has MCACC (multichannel acoustic calibration); Sony's is called DCAC (digital cinema auto calibration); and Yamaha's proprietary system goes by the name YPAO (Yamaha Parametric Room Acoustic Optimizer). The systems handle the basics like determining the sizes of all the speakers, setting speaker and subwoofer volume levels and the speaker-subwoofer crossover point, measuring the distances from the speakers to the listener, and checking that all of the speaker cables are correctly hooked up. Some autosetup systems also employ equalization to balance the frequency response of all the speakers, and they try to minimize room acoustic problems.

To accomplish these goals, the systems send test tones through all of the speakers and the subwoofer, and they all use a microphone to capture the sounds of the speakers. Autosetup is a great idea, but there's no guarantee you'll have a perfectly adjusted home theater sound after the test tones have run through all of their beeps, whooshes, and thumps. The volume levels of the speakers may not be perfectly adjusted, the speaker-to-listener distances may be inaccurate, and the subwoofer volume may be too loud or too low. In the worst cases, the autosetup sounds worse than doing no setup at all.

These malfunctions can be caused by a number of things: your room may not be quiet enough, microphone placement can have an effect, or your subwoofer's built-in volume control may be set too low or too high. I'd recommend checking that all of the speakers are wired "in-phase," meaning red/+ and black/- connections are consistent at the speaker and receiver ends. Some autosetup systems check the wiring, but try to get it right in the first place.

I recently met with Chris Kyriakakis, Audyssey's CTO and founder, to talk about new developments at Audyssey, and while I had his ear, I brought up my concerns about autosetup problems. He followed up with a list of tips that generally apply to most autosetup systems. There's a lot of useful information about Audyssey setup on the company's Web site.… Read more

Judging by the Comments responding to my recent "Do receivers have too many features?" blog post, a lot of folks think today's receivers are overstuffed with gizmos. Now sure, if you crave a full complement of the latest doodads--streaming Rhapsody-Napster-Pandora-Flickr, USB inputs, iPhone certification, Audyssey MultEQ XT Auto Calibration, Wi-Fi, Windows Vista, DLNA, HD Radio, Internet Radio, multiroom-multizone connectivity, Ethernet and RS-232C ports, or Bluetooth Wireless Audio Transmission Capability--rush out and buy a home theater receiver. Enjoy reading the 120-page operating manual and exploring layer after layer of setup options. Good times!

But if the goal is to simply enjoy music and a movie every now and then, do yourself a favor and consider a stereo receiver, or if you don't care about radio, an integrated amplifier (an integrated amp is essentially a receiver without a radio). Another plus for stereo home theater converts, they'll never have to deal with convoluted speaker setup menus, or risk an out-of-balance sound mix. Stereo is nearly impossible to get wrong.

A lot of people think stereo receivers are old hat and they "have to" buy a surround receiver. Wrong! And as I pointed out in the blog post the other day, home theater receiver features aren't "free"; manufacturers pay very significant licensing fees and royalties to the companies that developed those features. To bring a receiver in on budget, engineers and product planners make cost-saving decisions to cut back on other aspects of the design. The audio circuitry is probably the first to take a hit.

With stereo receivers the engineering budget is directed to the audio side and Denon, Marantz, NAD, Onkyo, Sony and Yamaha all make stereo receivers. Apparently, there's still a market for stereo components, and now that more and more folks are getting into LPs, most new stereo receivers have turntable inputs. … Read more

It seems that antenna issues are not the only problems surfacing with the new iPhone 4, or at least that's what one of our readers has experienced. Al, a Buzz Out Loud listener, wrote in to report that his Jabra Stone and Kensington A2DP headset would not connect to his new iPhone 4, whereas his wife's Motorola mono Bluetooth headset worked with it fine. We were intrigued by this development, and decided to test it with the headsets we had in the office.

The two A2DP headsets we tested with the iPhone 4 were the BlueAnt T1 and … Read more

There's no shortage of new sound bars to review, and I still believe they're a great solution for some home theater buyers. They simplify setup chores, and eliminate the hassles associated with placing five or more speakers and running wires to all the speakers. Some self-powered sound bars offer a range of inputs, including HDMI connectivity, so there's no need to buy a receiver.

The best ones get close to the room-filling sound of a bona-fide 5.1 system. The latest Yamaha Sound Projectors like the YSP-4100 and YSP-5100 do a better job at creating a passable facsimile of a surround experience than most, but those two models are priced around $2,000! And those substantial MSRPs don't include the price of a subwoofer. So figure another 300 or more dollars for a sub.

For that kind of investment you can buy a significantly better-sounding 5.1 channel component-based system. If sound quality takes priority over ease of setup and installation, check out Aperion's Intimus 5B Fusion SD satellite/subwoofer system ($1,559) mated with an Onkyo TX-SR507 receiver ($399).

It'll trounce the YSP sound bars on every count, with dramatically better, more-enveloping surround sound, greater dynamic impact--plus, the Aperion/Onkyo system will sound better with music. That last one is a common failing; few sound bars cut it with two-channel music. So if you intend to play CDs in your home theater, steer clear of sound bars.… Read more

Wednesday's video was a basic overview of how to wire up an amplifier to your car stereo system. Well, today's clip is a practical demonstration of grinding grounds, soldering the terminals, and running the power cable from the front end of the car all the way to the back.

To run the wire from the front of the car where your alternator and battery are, you'll need to find or make a hole big enough for your wire to make it into the interior of the vehicle. (Don't worry, the narrator describes where to look for … Read more

Tuesday's video blog was all about wiring and hooking up an aftermarket head unit into your car stereo, but let's suppose you want to create a big, bumpin' system. In that case, you want to get yourself an amp. And if you want to see how to hook up an amp to your car stereo, you've come to the right place, as this Web clip is a practical demonstration on how to make it happen.

This instructional clip goes over some of the tools and materials you'll need to wire and install the amp, how to … Read more

Today's Web clip is a quick primer on how to install a new car stereo head unit into your vehicle. (This of course being that you already have or know how to uninstall your factory deck, but that's a different story for a different time). There's not a whole lot I can say here that isn't demonstrated in this video clip, but to give you an overview of what can be seen here, I'll give you the rundown: installation of the shell in which the deck fits, putting in the ISO connectors to the back … Read more