More bang, more bucks
Bang & Olufsen, the Danish maker of high-end audio systems, has released the BeoLink Wireless 1 system, which delivers CD-quality audio to receivers that can cover up to seven rooms in a 27m range.
Each unit can receive audio and transmit it to other units and on to speakers, sold separately, by an infrared signal. The units cost US$450 apiece, plus US$50 for the infrared "eye" that transmits to wireless-enabled BeoLab speakers. With a wireless system, "the challenge for us was to create a system that could send signals around the entire house with no delay," said David Zapfel, Bang & Olufsen's North American product manager. But that challenge, he said, was met.
The system operates on the 2.5-giga-hertz band. Units, in black or white lacquer, may be placed on a shelf or mounted on a wall with brackets.
For owners of older Bang & Olufsen speakers who don't want to pay for newer, wireless-enabled ones, the system allows a hard-wire connection from each transmitter to the speakers using the company's proprietary Master Link cable system, also sold separately.
"That will work with any of the speakers we've released in the past 10 or 15 years," Zapfel said.
Snakes in the garage provide easy hookups for the band
Those who like to rock 'n' roll all night and party every day may be interested in the LightSnake, a self-contained PC audio system from SoundTech made to let musicians hook up their instruments with a minimum of fuss.
The LightSnake is a single cable with a standard USB port at one end and a 1/4-inch audio jack on the other. When it is plugged in, the ends of the cable light up and it is ready to serve as an audio input device on Windows and Macintosh PC's and laptops. The only thing left to do is plug in a guitar or other electric instrument for recording.
The 3m cord features built-in 16-bit digital sound processing hardware that improves and amplifies the audio before sending it to the PC. It requires no additional software on most operating systems.
The LightSnake is compatible with many digital audio recording programs, including GarageBand from Apple. Of course, a real garage band might consider a setup like this to be taking the stripped-down ethos a little too far.
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