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Boom! TDK’s Sound Cube will rock your outdoor party — if you can afford the batteries

TDK’s portable boombox line continues to grow, and joining the rather more traditionally styled, giant-cassette-deck-shaped two and three speaker “Boomboxes” is this cheaper and more compact Sound Cube.

Like those Boomboxes, the cube looks amazing, with big metal knobs and jumping readouts on its retro-styled glowing display. It has two speakers to kick out some big bass and you can hook it up to pretty much any music source via line-in or USB. And music on USB devices (including iDevices) can be controlled directly from the Cube’s front panel. Buskers may like it too, as you can mix a mic or musical instrument input with the music.

Also like its bigger brothers, the Sound Cube requires a mountain of D-cell batteries to work — 12 in this case.

Battery-powered speakers are a lot of fun. I went for a bike ride with friends recently and we cruised around town beaming music to the Bluetooth Jambox speaker from Jawbone. Passersby seemed to dig on our all-Bee Gees playlist, but it would have been a lot cooler with a giant bass bin like this.

The TDK Sound Cube is available now, for $300.

Sound Cube product page [TDK via Uncrate]

See Also:

• TDK Resurrects the Boombox
• Gadget Lab Podcast: TDK Boombox, Screwy iPhones

You can use these USB-powered UltraLink UCube speakers on a bus, on the beach, or on the table at your favorite McDonald’s, but please — for the love of god — don’t. Remember: with great convenience comes great responsibility, and if these speakers are as impressive as the dramatic marketing video below implies, disruption of the peace is about to know no bounds. At $150 per pair, these sleek sound machines aren’t cheap, but each speaker is able to pump out 15 watts of peak power — you won’t be filling a large room with crisp, distortion-free sound, but they’re probably loud enough to play your tunes or flicks for a group of friends, or to annoy strangers in a park. UltraLink claims that the speakers use DSP-controlled power supplies to “store energy during quiet passages,” allowing the 3.25 inch cubes to reach their 15 watt peak output with 170-degree listening angles. We haven’t had a chance to go hands on, but if these speakers sound half as good as they look, we may have a better solution for playing music in the CES trailer next year.

Continue reading UCube speakers run off USB, are coming to an Amtrak quiet car near you

UCube speakers run off USB, are coming to an Amtrak quiet car near you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 04:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, do you like things that sound good? That’s funny, we do too. In a world jam-packed with mass-produced, perfectly adequate home-theater-in-a-box solutions, it can be really hard to differentiate between speaker solutions for your computer, TV, or stereo system. It takes a lot for small-scale, high-quality systems to stand out and justify their costs, especially when entire surround kits can be had for under a hundred bucks. But like that song said that one time, you can’t put a price tag on love. Orb Audio’s eponymously constructed speakers are little works of art that you can rearrange to suit your taste, budget, and decor — but are they a good solution for you? It’s a good question! Read on to find out just how the Orb family might or might not be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Continue reading Orb Audio modular stereo speaker systems review

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Orb Audio modular stereo speaker systems review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Harman Kardon has departed from its austere design language on occasion and come up with some questionable aesthetic results, but its latest compact stereo system sports the clean and classic lines for which H/K is famed. Of course, looks aren’t everything, so the MAS 102 slings songs at your skull using a two-channel 65W amp, five-inch mid bass drivers, and one-inch waveguided dome tweeters. The MAS 102 also has dual USB ports for accessing digital music and a phono input for those who prefer sourcing tunes from an old school turntable. It’s not all sonic bliss, however, as an optional dock (sold separately) is needed to hook up the iDevice of your choosing. That’s a glaring omission for a stereo that costs just under a grand — but forgiving that flaw should be easy for the form-over-function crowd. More info can be found in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Harman Kardon’s MAS 102 stereo has a petite profile, luxury looks and matching $999 price tag

Harman Kardon’s MAS 102 stereo has a petite profile, luxury looks and matching $999 price tag originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 May 2011 22:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you haven’t heard of Dr. Amar Bose directly, you’ve surely heard of his eponymous audio equipment company. Late last week, the 81-year old founder and chairman of Bose Corporation announced that he’s donating the majority of shares in the privately held company to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A member of that college’s graduating class of 1951 and its electrical engineering faculty all the way until 2001, Bose felt compelled to give something back and he’s opted for the most grandiose of gestures. MIT won’t be able to sell its shares in Bose Corp. nor have any say in the way it is run, but it’ll receive dividends as and when they’re paid out, which will then be reinvested in its research and education programs. In making this perpetual endowment public, Amar Bose took the time to credit Professors Y. W. Lee, Norbert Wiener and Jerome Wiesner as his mentors — in the image above, you can see him pictured with Lee (left) and Wiener (right) back in 1955. Chalkboards, that’s where it all began.

Amar Bose donates majority of Bose Corporation shares to MIT, says thanks for the education originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 05:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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