Want to listen to your iPod? Don’t care about your iPod getting wet or sweaty? Then stuff your iPod into this headband and run around like the magical iPod unicorn you are.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an audiophile. I enjoy music and I enjoy good sound but I have yet to be bitten by the high end audio bug. I understand that good audio gear is expensive but have also yet to feel that headphones are worth $1,700.

And yet, why am I so fascinated with the Ultrasone Edition9 headphones, a pair of closed-back cans with natural surround sound and an 8-35,000 Hz frequency range? What makes these headphones better or worse than anything else? What have I been missing?

I began my exploration by just plugging these things into an iPhone and listening to some MP3s. Bad idea. When it comes to audio, garbage-in/garbage-out rules the day so I regrouped and did a little research.

First, my biggest problem with audiophile gear. I cover watches so I understand the luxury gadget industry. When I see a $20,000 watch, I understand, at some visceral level, whether it is worth that much money. Is it handmade? Does it use precious metals or stones? Is the band made from the woven hair of Cuban virgins? Or is the company simply trying to sell a luxury product at a premium price because it wants to part suckers from their money? When I look at high-end audio gear, I see more than a bit of snake oil. While the core gear is nice and sounds great, wooden knobs to reduce vibration and magical electricity straighteners make the entire venture considerably less inviting.

Wanting to come at these headphones with an open mind, however, I asked my audiophile buddies for some advice. They told me to ditch the MP3s and go lossless. I got a few lossless music files, fired them up, and was blown away, with some caveats.

There are two problems I have with high-end audio. First, the brain registers the quality in the first few minutes and then you forget about it. You could stick these cans on my head, make me listen to some Ravel, and then take them off. Half an hour later you could stick ear-buds from a broken Coby CD player into my ears and I’d probably not remember much of a difference. But there’s always that little spot between the first note and forgetting that makes the experience worth it.

The sweet spot on these Edition 9s was right there in front of you, creating a soundscape so detailed that I was amazed at what I was hearing. Best of all, these headphones are designed to offer a sense of loudness even at low levels, ensuring you don’t go deaf while listening to the headphones for most of your life. They are also quite comfortable and filter out most of the surround noise. Now, again, are these worth $1,700, at least to non audio technicians?

I’m up in the air. The audio quality was excellent provided I listened to lossless music in perfect conditions on a good rig. You wouldn’t want to use these traveling or riding the subway. To truly appreciate them you need to sip the music from them in a comfortable setting, like a fine wine. You don’t drink Dom Perignon out of a rinsed out Coke bottle, right? You don’t listen to Mingus on these while sitting in a pool of vomit on the train, either.

So it is with some sadness and mostly relief that I packed these headphones away. Whereas I could recommend a pair of Ultimate Ears or some Sennheisers to any Joe off the street, unless you’re willing to invest in some gold remasters and a smoking jacket, I just don’t feel the impetus to recommend these. If, however, you want amazing sound for an amazing price tag, these are well worth the money. Great audio is a privilege, not a right, and these headphones are proof of that.

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Short Version: Are you an iFamily? Got lots of iDevices between you, your iDo, and maybe some iKids? Is your house sooooo big that it’s just too much trouble to walk to where your computer is to charge said iGadgets? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Griffin PowerDock 4 is 4U. If you are Brady-sized, you will need two of these.

What does it do? It charges up to 4 iPods/iPhones at a time. That’s it. Well, it looks nice while it does it, with it’s brushed aluminum shell. There is no way to sync while in the PowerDock. No audio or video outs. Just raw power. Well, not raw, but the 5V DC 500mA that iPods crave. It has inserts to fit any of the USB-chargeable models, but if you have an older one, don’t despair. Without any of the inserts, the PowerDock can accommodate the larger predecessors. They just won’t sit as securely.

We have 2 iPods and an iPhone in our house and I have only put one device at a time in the PowerDock, mostly because it looked lonely. Every iPod and iPhone comes with a charger and we tend to use them in different parts of the house with different chargers/bases/speakers. If you want a centralized place to charge your devices, here you go.

Bottom Line: It charges up to 4 iPods/iPhones. No sync. Each device came with a charger. Unless you need a centralized place to charge, spend your $70 elsewhere.

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Short Version: I love wirelessness. I was using Bluetooth to connect handhelds, phones, and headsets since ~2004. While smart phones have mostly killed the PDA, their media capabilities scream for a good set of wireless headphones. Sadly the Samsung SBH-700’s are not those headphones. While the specs sound impressive, talk time up to 9 hours, play time up to 7 hours, standby time up to 140 hours and weight of only 38.3 grams, the reality was disappointing.

To be fair, my disappointment was only partially Samsung’s fault. First of all, the iPhone does not support A2DP, the Bluetooth protocol necessary to transmit stereo music. WTF, Steve? You create the uber-music phone and then don’t support transmitting that music wirelessly? The only explanation I can think of is that Apple likes to control the entire experience, most bluetooth headsets suck, and they don’t want that experience to be associated with the Jesus-phone. To test out the audio, I tried pairing it with my MacBook Pro. That didn’t work either. So while I never did get to test it with music, its performance as a phone headset was sufficient for me to pass on this product.

As a headset, it paired just as easily with my iPhone as any other headset. Hearing your conversation in both ears is great. Going back to my Samsung Uproar (the first mp3 player phone), I’ve loved having stereo headsets for my phones. It makes the person much easier to hear, especially in loud environments. However, despite Samsung’s claims of ambient noise reduction, when walking outside on a mildly windy day, people I was talking to asked me if I was using a headset and to please stop. The sound transmission and wind noise was pretty bad. The problem is that the mic is located above your ear near the play/pause button and I don’t thing this unit uses the kind of advanced noise reduction that the Jawbone does. In a quiet room, it functioned acceptably.

The unit is well designed. It is an over-the-ear, behind-the-neck form factor that is reasonably comfortable, althought will take a bit of adjusting to get it to fit snugly in your ears. The part that rests on your neck is light enough not to bother you and heavy enough that it won’t bounce if you jog. I don’t know if I would wear it for extended sessions. It’s not that comfortable. The main contol buttons are located near each ear. The phone answer/end button is on one side, play/pause on the other. On the back of your neck are two additional pairs of buttons, volume up/down and track forward/back. Since you can’t see any of the controls , it will take a few screw-ups to learn which buttons are on which side. There is an attempt at consistency by placing the track control on the same side as the play button.

The SBH700 lists for $100 but can be had for as low as $60. If it will work with your phone, you do get both a music headset and phone headset in one small package, but I would suggest that the compromise is not worth the savings with this model.

Overall, it’s a good attempt, but not quite ready for consumption.

Bottom Line: Getting better, but pass on this one.
Product via Amazon

Short Version: The first time you put on noise canceling headphones, you can’t believe your ears. When you flip the noise canceling circuitry on, it’s like hitting a mute button on the world (note: does not work on significant others, only constant noise. And no, your SO’s blathering does not count as a constant din.) I never realized how loud my office was until I put on these JVCs. Now it’s hard to sit at my desk without them.

These are different from the earbuds that you jam in your ear to block out the sound. These headphones listen to the ambient noise and generate sound waves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the background noise to effectively cancel it out. They can do this without effecting the sound you want to hear.

The audio quality of these headphones was very impressive. The sound was full and undistorted. The bass was prominent without being overpowering. They are also very comfortable. The foam cups are worn on your ears as opposed to completely covering them. This makes these headphones a bit smaller for travel, but also means they won’t physically block as much noise as larger headphones will. The ear cups rotate flat for storage and to enable a comfortable fit on your ears. The band holds these headphones in place without pinching my rather large head (not Sputnik sized, but close). The JVCs ship with a semi-hard case with a zip pouch for the included cable, airline plug adapter, and 1/4″ adapter. John has been using Bose for years now but these are on par and considerably cheaper.

The Bose Quiet Comfort line is probably the most well known active noise canceling headphone on the market. I was curious about how these JVCs would stand up to the Bose. My boss lent me his Quiet Comfort 3 (retails for $349) so I could compare. While there are some noticeable differences, you need to be doing a side-by-side comparison to notice them. The Bose do block out slightly more noise and has a slightly fuller mid-range. The bass is tighter in the Bose and more emphasized in the JVCs. This is more a matter of taste to me than quality. Both are very comfortable to wear.

Another smart design decision is that the cable is completely removeable from the headphones. This allows you to use the noise reduction function without connecting it to an audio source and not have the cable dangling in the way. The real benefit is that if the cable wears out or if you want a longer cord, any Radio Shack cable will do. That’s smart design.

The JVCs retail for $199 but can be had for ~$110. Given how close they are in performance, I would recommend the JVCs at a fraction of the price of the Bose.

Bottom Line: Great sound, great value.

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Quick Version: Starting at under $40, the Sansa Clip from SanDisk makes an excellent wearable MP3 player if you’re looking for something small that still has plenty of features.

Overview and Features:

• 1.35 x 2.17 x 0.65 inches (W x H x D), less than an ounce heavy
• MP3, WMA, WMA subscription services, and Audible file playback
• OLED screen
• Built-in FM tuner with 40 presets
• Built-in microphone for voice recording
• Rechargeable battery lasts about 15 hours
• Pricing: $39.99 (MSRP) for 1GB storage, $59.99 for 2GB, $79.99 for 4GB, $99.99 for 8GB. You can find them online for about $10 to $20 cheaper, though.

It’s good for…

…Windows users, people who use subscription music services, people who still listen to the radio, and people who want a small MP3 player with a screen. The Clip has been (and will continue to be) compared to the iPod Shuffle and while I don’t want to get into a whole Mac versus Windows thing here, I’m happy to report that the Clip is a perfectly capable digital audio player that can be clipped to your clothing like the Shuffle yet it has features the Shuffle doesn’t, such as an FM tuner, voice recording, subscription music compatibility, and a screen.

Setting up and using the Clip is easier than falling in love. You plug it into your computer’s USB port, it starts charging, and an explorer window pops up allowing you to drag and drop files onto it. It syncs with Windows Media Player as well.

Sound quality is excellent for such a small device (bring your own headphones) and battery life is long enough that it never seems to be an issue. I’ve used the Clip on and off for the past month or so and I think I’ve only recharged it once or twice. The little OLED screen is nice to have and navigating the UI works well enough, although the buttons on the player are a tad bit confusing at first. Nothing serious, though.

It’s not so good for…

…Mac users and/or people who don’t need any features beyond basic music playback. It’s about as simple as it can get without actually being an iPod Shuffle, but you still do have to navigate the menus to get your music playing and the Clip is a tiny bit larger than the Shuffle. Not a huge deal either way, but there you have it. On its own and without being compared to other MP3 players, though, I find the Clip to be an excellent choice for the money.

I wish it had…

…the headphone jack mounted on the top of the device instead of on the right-hand side, and a flip-out USB connection. The headphone jack isn’t a deal-breaker by any means. I just found it to be kind of awkward for some reason. I do wish the USB connection was built into the Clip, though. I think Apple had the right idea with the first-generation Shuffle’s built-in USB connection — it’d be cool if the Clip had a switchblade USB connection similar to the one found on the Flip video cameras.

Finally, I like the included voice recording feature but it would have been cool to extend it to recording the radio as well, kind of like the iRiver players. Not that I’d ever actually use that feature, but some people might. Just a thought.

Recommendation:

If you’re a Windows user looking for the best bang for your buck, the Clip is a hard player to pass up. It’s definitely a good choice for working out and for people who use subscription services. The voice recording and FM tuner are nice additions, too.

Product Page [SanDisk.com]

Short and sweet: Kidz Gear Headphones for Kids are just that: headphones for kids.  The cans fit little ears, and the swivel mounts allow for comfortable positioning.  Volume control on the cord, reasonable sound quality, and an affordable price make these a pretty good buy for Junior.

As a dilettante musician I enjoy the concept – if not the process – of recording my reedy, whiny voice to digital files. Until recently, that process was fraught with trouble and high quality recording equipment was difficult to obtain and expensive. Now anyone with a six-string and a dream can record fairly acceptable audio with something like the Belkin GoStudio.

The GoStudio records directly to your iPod. It is compatible with iPod Classics, Videos, and Nanos in 16-bit 44kHz stereo. The recordings are stored on the iPod as voice memos which then appear when you sync the iPod. It has two combo XLR/mic jacks and two 3.5mm mini-jack inputs along with two built-in microphones. It has independent gain control on both channels, a main master level control, and a monitor/headphone jack and control.

The recorder works best without inputs. As a stereo audio recorder the GoStudio records with nice depth and quality. Below is a sample taken with the built-in mics:

Download audio file (nowoman.mp3)

This is completely unamped with me about three feet from the recorder. Once you get into add-on mics, unfortunately, things break down.

Because this doesn’t amplify line-in input, you get a bit of a mess. If you increase the gain and the levels, you get fuzz. If you don’t, you get silence. This is the best I could do with an XLR stage mic and a Dean Markley acoustic pick-up:

Download audio file (combo.mp3)

I’m sure with a bit of tweaking I could make it sound better, but I came at this as a novice and without trial and error you won’t be thrilled with the results. In short, the built-in microphones are acceptable and the combo and 3.5mm jacks are slightly less so.

How is this better than a standard iPod voice recorder, then? It’s more robust, definitely, and once you solve the problems I mentioned, it records audio quite nicely. Like the TuneStudio, Belkin is offering fairly high-end technology to entry-level consumers, which is admirable. At $119.99, the device would be good for recording concerts or seminars and even grab a quick musical performance in your bath- or bedroom.

Bottom Line
A nice little audio recorder that records directly to iPods.

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I’ve really been looking forward to trying out the Myvu Shades made for iPod edition.  I’ve always had some techno-lust for wearable computing, and I love the idea of being able to enjoy watching the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoons without people making fun of me.  Keep on reading for my thoughts.

At first glance, this feels like a lot of cables for such a seemingly simple product.  The glasses themselves have cables coming down from the back of each arm which terminate in a connector block.  About midway along these cables are a pair of magnetized clips, which helps prevent these cables from getting too much in your way.  You plug the connector block from these cables into a little dongle, which has a four-way rocker and a button.  This is the power brick for the glasses, as well as the on/off button.  Into this dongle you plug in the cable that ultimately connects to your iPod.  (You can also get other cables to connect to other media sources.)

As you can see in the photo above, there are two teeny little displays alongside your nose.  When powered on, the display image is just a shade below the center of your vision.  This is nice, in that it allows you to view the real world around you without too much effort.  This is not so nice in that you need to intentionally focus downward to watch Bobby save Uni from the evil Venger yet again.

The image quality itself is extremely nice: bright colors with few, if any, motion artifacts. The earbuds produce fine audio quality, although they felt a little big to me.  It’s no small investment of time to get these shades out, connected, and positioned though, so it’s not something you’ll do while waiting in line at Starbuck’s.

Bottom Line

I found it extremely uncomfortable to focus my vision down on the image.  Truth be told, I’d rather look at an iPod display screen: at least there I can place the device in a comfortable position. At $199, I can’t see these flying off the shelf.  If you regularly commute by train or plane, it might be a worthwhile investment, if you have the cash to burn.

We’ve reviewed other Myvu products here and here and none of the other models have been quite as problematic as this one. Try before you buy is our advice.

I like Sansa media players.  I always have.  They’re not quite as sexy as Apple iPods, and they’re not that much cheaper, really.  The reason I like the Sansa players is because they don’t require any special software on my computer — heck, the review model I received contained only the player itself and the USB cable: no software CD at all!  As a GNU/Linux user, I really enjoy being able to connect a Sansa player to my computer and have it immediately recognized as any other USB media.  I can simply drag-and-drop media files into the proper directory, and they’re ready to play.  And I can easily use a Sansa device in lieu of a USB memory stick, if necessary.  But enough about my personal preferences: let’s take a look at the Sansa View 16GB.

The Sansa View can play MP3, WMA, WAV, and DRM-free AAC audio files, as well as MP4, WMV and H.264 video.  It has an FM tuner, and the ability to record FM broadcasts.  You can also use it as a digital voice recorder, which is good for students and blackmailers.  The screen sports a 320×240 resolution: the same resolution as both the iPod Nano and the Zune, but at 2.4″ it’s bigger than both.  It also has a micro-SD slot to expand its storage capacity.

Pros

The View is a shade smaller than an iPod Touch, though not as slim, which makes it comfy enough to hold.  The scrollwheel is responsive, and easy to use.  Battery life is acceptable but not remarkable.  The user interface is simple: the main menu has only four items: music, videos, photos, and more.  Navigating through the UI is easy.  As an added bonus, it’s possible to delete files from the Sansa View without using a computer, which can be handy if you load up a song or video only to find out that you absolutely hate it and never want to hear it again (but see below for a big caveat).

The earphone jack is on the bottom of the unit, which didn’t make a lot of sense to me at first.  But then I stuck it in my shirt pocket and understood: when it’s in my pocket, I won’t be looking at the screen, so put the headphone jack closest to the control wheel, which you are likely to use (or try to) while it’s in your shirt pocket.  The included earbuds felt slightly larger than those bundled with iPods, but I found them to be perfectly comfortable.

Cons

The thing that really irks me about the Sansa View is that it uses a non-standard USB cable.  I long for the day when any device that connects to my computer by USB uses one of the standard USB cable connectors.  I’m tired of special, expensive proprietary cables cluttering up my workspace!

The Sansa View isn’t yet supported by RockBox firmware.  This may only be a bummer to folks who have a large collect of music in Ogg Vorbis format, though.

I tried to delete a single song and thought I ended up deleting all the songs from that artist.  Here’s how: after turning the unit on, before playing any music, I navigated to the music menu.  I selected “Unknown Artist” (because I didn’t set id3 tags on these songs), then “Unknown Album”, and then finally drilled down to a specific song.  I pressed the down button, which brings up the menu.  From the menu, I selected “Delete Song”.  I took note that it said “Song” in singular.  I pressed the middle button and was presented with a confirmation dialog that asked if i was sure I really wanted to delete the song (again, singular).  I selected Yes, and then I was returned to a screen that said, simply, “Empty”.  Navigating backwards, I found that the Sansa thought that the contents of  “Unknown Album” has been deleted.  Oddly, though, the next morning when I turned on the unit, I found that “Unknown Album” had been restored, and that only the song I had deleted was, in fact, deleted.  Very weird.  Moral of the story: you probably don’t want to delete files from the Sansa using the Sansa itself.

The Bottom Line

If you have an aversion to iTunes lock in, or don’t want to pay the Apple price premium, the Sansa View 16GB is a great digital audio and video player.

Thank you to Geeks.com for the review unit…

That’s all the updated info and if you’re interested then keep reading for a full-on review.

Hardware

The G2 is super, tiny and easily portable. The exact dimensions are as follows: 87×53x13.5mm and weighs only 2.5 ounces. The screen may look small (320×240), but it’s big enough to show album art, an artist picture, biography and album review. All of this can be accessed with the old BlackBerry-like scroll wheel. You can “favorite” or “block” tracks via the top two buttons. The rest of button scheme is simple with a play/pause, forward and rewind button located on the bottom half. Volume controls are found on the top of the player next to the 3.5mm headphone jack. A “back” button is located just below the scroll wheel that is mainly used when navigating the menu system.

You can charge and sideload tracks over USB. Depending on which model you choose to purchase, your stations will sync over USB or Wi-Fi. Syncing over Wi-Fi takes a long time, like, hours depending on how many stations you choose. I’m unsure about it over USB since I’m on a Mac, though. However, you can have Slacker pre-load your stations and everything else when you purchase through them. Even though it takes a while to sync you’re getting a ton of music, so I can live with that. I synced before going to bed and you don’t necessarily have to sync all that often.

The hardware is easy to use and much improved over the previous model. There’s a 30-pin connector located on the bottom that will work with upcoming power adapters, FM transmitter and speaker docks. Also included in this model is a custom EQ and volume normalization options. You can purchase through Slacker or Amazon now, but it will ship to Best Buy stores this month. The G2 includes a case with removable clip, USB cable, USB-compatible power supply, and premium-ears. Admittedly I did not try these out since I’ve been testing out Shure’s new SE 110 in-ears, but I’ll update shortly.

Service

This is the bread and butter for Slacker. There are over two million tracks available and they’re CD quality, which is a very good thing considering all you audiophiles will want to know about that. When you rate, fave or ban tracks on the player itself it syncs with your online account and vice versa.
Experts maintain the 100+ stations and the variety is quite good. I rarely found myself skipping tracks. The free service limits you to six track skips within one hour whereas the paid service costs $7.50 a month. The free service also subjects you to about one advertisement per hour, but you won’t find that with the paid subscription. Paying for the service gives the ability to save songs to your library and access them whenever you want with the paid service. This also gives the ability to go back to the previous song you were listening to. You can also request an unlimited number of songs to the most kickass custom stations as possible, but this, too, requires the paid service.

Depending on the model you choose, the number of stations you pick will vary the depth of songs you get in each station. So the less you have the more variety you get. You can sync over Wi-Fi whenever you have access and keys are also stored.

Overall, I’d recommend the G2 if you’re heavily invested in Slacker’s online service and even if you’re not, then you should get one anyway. It’s free music that’s constantly changing and, for someone like me, that’s a good thing. I get stuck listening to the same stuff over and over again.

If you don’t own a Nano, get one of these. If you do, you can probably do to wait. The improvements to this model are manifold but not amazingly compelling, especially considering we haven’t had much time to play with the genius features yet.

Let me begin by saying that the updated hardware is quite incongruous. After the tall nano and the fat Nano, I can’t really wrap my head around the candy bar Nano. It’s almost exactly the same size as the 2G nano but is considerably thinner and the colors are absolutely gorgeous. But what improvements do we see?

The “shake to shuffle” feature is genius and should be in every iPhone and Touch. It’s an amazingly great little idea – I never listen to an album straight through anymore so shuffling is my go to function. The genius features are nice and the accelerometer is a nice addition, especially for the landscape video and picture viewing. In this iteration, the Nano is more like the Touch than the iPod. It doesn’t have a touchscreen and still has the scroll wheel so the marriage of new and old is a bit jarring.

Overall, it’s a great portable iPod but except for the Genius playlist I can’t see anything compelling in the upgrade. I’m fine for the fat and 2G Nano for running and there is nothing that encourages me to pick this up for video.

I was never a Touch man. I loved the iPhone but the Touch never drove me to drink in quite the same way. I am pleased, however, to report that I’m getting me a 32GB Touch as soon as the Apple Store opens tomorrow. Why? A few reasons.

First and foremost I love the Nike+ iPod integration. This is absolutely the best thing they could have done, especially for runners. The 2G touch is quite thin and would work well as a small waist- or arm-banded device for workouts and not having to have a tiny little dongle hanging off the end is excellent. Apple will also be selling the little Nike+ pucks separately now.

Secondly, the Apps are becoming quite compelling, especially for gaming. This is Apple’s second chance at gaming. The DS is doing extremely well and the PSP is, well, sucking wind. This is a great opportunity for Apple to enter the casual handheld gaming market as a winner, not an also ran. Some of the other Apps are hit or miss, but it’s nice to have choice.

Finally, the pricing is very agreeable. $229 is a nice point to start and $399 for 32GB of flash memory isn’t great but it’s not outrageous. As a movie device, this thing will be second to only the iPhone.

Maybe I’m being irrational: I have the Classic, I have an old 3G iPod, I have a two nanos – a fat and a long one. But fit, finish, and software are excellent on this one. I did notice a lot of smudging on the back during the hands-on but that’s to be expected. Generally, however, this is a major improvement design and feature wise over the 1G Touch.

The ATH-ANC3 noise-canceling headphones from Audio Technica feature make for great travel companions thanks to active noise cancellation, which basically entails using built-in microphones to take an audio sample of surrounding ambient noise and then creating the exact opposite noise to cancel the ambient noise out. Sound amazing? It is! So how well does it work on such a tiny pair of headphones?

Let’s find out.

The ATH-ANC3 headphone kit retails for around $100 and includes what you see in the above photo there: the headphones themselves, three sets of variably sized earpieces, an extension cable, airplane connector, AAA battery, and travel case.

Audio Technica’s product page claims that the headphones are able to cancel out up to 85% or 20 decibels of background noise.

Without getting into the nitty gritty, here’s a major selling point for these headphones; They’ve now replaced my $400 Sony noise-canceling headphones for traveling. Instead of carrying around big, over-the-ear headphones, I’m now quite content with keeping the little Audio Technica headphones in my bag.

The actual noise canceling works pretty well on an airplane, blocking out a lot of the really loud engine noise. Where the headphones really shine, though, is in the car. I wore them on a three hour car ride (I wasn’t driving) through the Colorado mountains recently and the difference was astonishing. Road noise all but disappeared.

The size of the headphones, too, is key. It’s as though Audio Technica said “Let’s literally add as little bulk to the headphones as possible.” The result is a little tiny bump that holds a AAA battery, an on/off switch, and a “monitor” button that you can use to temporarily cut off the noise cancellation. No fuss, no muss.

The three sizes of earplugs is a definite plus. When I first tried the headphones, too much noise was seeping in so I switched to the largest size and heard a huge difference. The earplugs are pretty comfortable, too. I’m able to wear them for about four hours straight before I feel like I need to take them out for a while.

Audio quality is really good – as I said before, these $100 headphones have replaced a pair of $400 headphones. Bass is rich without being overpowering and mids and highs are clean without distorting even at high volume. You probably wouldn’t get an audiophile to choose these headphones over a super-expensive pair that have to be custom-molded to each user’s ear canals – BUT! – you’d probably get them to say, “Wow, these are only a hundred bucks?”

Finally, the carrying case is a nice addition. It’s hard-backed and fits my iPod Touch perfectly, so I’m able to keep all my audio gear in one place when traveling.

Some may find that the 85% noise cancellation isn’t quite enough for them. That’s the one area where I sometimes miss my Sony headphones, as they’re able to really, really block just about everything out. The Audio Technica headphones block most of it out, but not all. They’re still far better than conventional headphones, though.

Also, the battery life is rated at 50 hours but I found that I’d often forget to turn the headphones off and the battery would drain down for an entire day. It’d be nice to maybe have some sort of auto-off function if the headphones could sense that they weren’t plugged in to anything or that no music was being played through them. That, or just automatically turn off after six hours or something. I’ve already gone through a handful of batteries because I forgot to turn the headphones off. Luckily – and this is a huge plus – the headphones work as normal, non noise-canceling headphones when turned off. So you’ll still be able to listen to music if they die on you.

Conclusion

If you travel a lot, you’d be hard pressed to find a better set of noise-canceling headphones for the money. The great sound quality, all-in-one travel case, small headphone size, and relatively low price make the ATH-ANC3’s a winner.

ATH-ANC3 QuietPoint Active Noise-Canceling In-Ear Headphones [Audio Technica]

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Writing anything about Monster is fraught with peril. Everyone knows the traditional lime: Monster preys on morons. They sell expensive cables to people who don’t need them and they made a mint doing this over and over again. But this is a new era. Wireless is soon going to eat Monster Cable’s lunch and unless they can diversify – and convince the jaded public that they’re not out to screw them – they are stuck.

So where does that leave the Beats by Dr. Dre? This is a relative first for the company and I believe the headphones, taken at face value and considered in a vacuum, perform quite admirably.

First off, I’m coming at these headphones from a non-audiophiles perspective. I don’t know the lingo and I don’t want to get into a penis-length war with audiophiles because some of what they say is batshit crazy.

The question I tried to answer with the Beats is this: would I recommend them to a friend who flies a lot. No matter what anyone says, the majority of us use earbuds or headphones on flights. I know there are better headphones out there and I’ve used some of them but I’ve always gone back to the Bose QuietComfort 3, one of the most popular headset brands for road warriors.

How do the Beats compare? I’d say quite favorably. As Head Fi points out I was expecting a pair of bass-heavy headphones without much fidelity. What I found in tests at home and six hours of use on a plane were a pair of comfortable headphones with nice fidelity and good noise cancellation. Monster talks up the connection to Dr. Dre and I’m that the good Doctor knows his audio.

Music sounds great on these headphones. TV and movies – I was on JetBlue watching DirectTV and watching movies on the iPod – were a bit rougher. The headphones seem to be tuned for music and not speech and soundtracks.

Were the unlistenable? No. Because they were quite comfortable and cancelled a lot of plane noise I was happy to sit back and ignore whatever artifacts were happening in amplifier. Incidentally, these headphones were louder than the QC3’s. Plugging the Beats into an audio source and then the QC3’s showed a distinct difference in the volume.

Another slight complaint: the headphones aren’t very portable. The QC3’s pack flat but the Beats fold over, leaving a fairly large package. The cabling is also very nice and tangle-free – it comes with a standard audio cable, a 3/4″ converter, and an iPhone adapter.

As a whole these headphones are more than acceptable and quite nice. I’m not sure about the $349 price tag – as many have pointed out there are cheaper headphones out there – but for my money I’m sold on Bose QC3s and I’d be happy to swap the Beats out for extended music listening sessions. Monster is trying and, all things being equal, I’ll give them a chance. Just don’t buy the special anti-oxygen copper and gold coated super magneto-audio dongle that they sell alongside the phones – it’s just not worth it. I think it’s just a piece of plastic.

For more info on Beats By Dre Headphones go to www.beatsbydre.com

POIfriend (pronounced like boyfriend), which has nothing to do with the traditional Hawaiian dish of fermented taro, aims to be “the point of interest community that connects people and the places important to them.” Sounds easy enough, right? That’s because it is. POIfriend.com is based out of Toronto and was started by Dave Krawczyk and Bill McLean. It’s essentially a social network that allows users to create and share their own POIs within their group of friends or with the entire community. Sounds pretty dumb, huh? Well, if it were just a social network to collect and share POIs then, yes, it is dumb and not worth the time to sign up, but POIfriend.com is much more than that.

The real magic happens when you download any and all POIs you aggregate and then transfer those onto your TomTom, Mio, Navman, Magellan or Garmin GPS device. That’s the beauty of this free service. Think of it as a mashup of Yelp, Facebook, and tripadvisor. The community rates and comments on just about every destination imaginable, which includes restaurants, hotels, theaters, and anything else that would be considered a point of interest. A good majority of the POIs listed are user generated whether they’re companies like Wal*Mart paying a lowly intern to list all of their stores is unknown. There are POI Groups as well. My good friend’s Dave and Aileen are having their wedding this August in LA and on their site they’ve listed a handful of places for people to visit in their free time. They could easily create a POI Group called “Dave and Aileen’s wedding” listing all the places they mentioned along with the locations of their actual wedding, the rehearsal dinner and so on. I wonder if they’d let me get away with doing this for them as their wedding gift? And to make it even easier to distinguish the POIfriend POIs that you download to your GPS, you can upload a specific icon to denote specific POIs. So for my friends’ wedding, I can upload and tag all the locations with a wedding cake, for instance.

Easier said than done? It actually is. I’ve been testing the service over the last few weeks here in NYC, Miami and Seattle with a TomTom XL GPS. I uploaded a few POIs from my trip in Miami and listed off a few concert venues while in Seattle. The only downfall I’ve come across so far is that you can’t actually create one POI. You have to create a POI Group even if it lists one place. The site is also not the friendliest to navigate, but that could just be me. Overall, the service works as intended, but it is mostly user generated so it’s only as good as the community wants it to be. As more and more Web 2.0 patrons register and contribute to the site, the better off it will be in the long run, but it works fine now. They simply need to clean up the site and make it a little more user friendly.

You know what? If I were to buy a television for the sole purpose of playing video games and I didn’t expect any friends to ever drop by (no two-player action), I might just consider picking up a pair of video glasses like these instead.

Overview

I had a chance to try out the Myvu Crystal “video eyewear” recently and boy, what a difference does a little double-resolution make. While most video eyewear systems on the market clock in at 320×240 pixels, the Crystal manages to cram 640×480 into a package that you might even be able to get away with wearing in public, say, on an overnight flight or another type of event where most people around you are asleep. These glasses are getting smaller and more normal-looking, is what I’m saying.

Some technical details, straight from Myvu:

Introducing Myvu Crystal: watch what you love, when you want and look great doing it. Featuring SolidOptex® — the Myvu patented optical system — Crystal transforms your portable media player into a hands-free, full-screen private viewing experience. All that within the thinnest, lightest and most durable video eyewear available.

- Full VGA quality — our highest resolution available
- Our widest field of view — over 33 percent wider
- Features Kopin’s CyberDisplay® technology, offering the highest pixel density and sharpest resolution for any video eyewear of its size
- Earbuds from Ultimate Ears® for enhanced comfort, extended bass and sound isolation
- Up to 4 hours of battery life

Here’s what they look like. I figured you’d rather see them on a hot girl than on me.

Pros

So I was sent this set along with an iPod Nano to try out how the system worked with relatively high-motion video. There were several movie clips, the most rambunctious being a scene from The Incredibles. With previous video eyewear that I’ve tried, anything playing at 320×240 just seemed kind of “blah” to me and made me feel like if I wanted to watch something at that resolution, I’d just hold my cell phone in front of my gigantic noggin for a while. The Myvu set, though, was pretty close to those claims you read that say “It’s like watching a 60 foot screen!” except that you can tell it’s not 60 feet but it does actually look pretty “normal” like a TV would. I tried out a few videos from my own iPod Touch as well as some YouTube clips and was pleased.

My real intent, though, was to try these puppies out with some video games. I loaded my Wii up with Excite Truck, Blazing Angels — a WWII flight game, and Tiger Woods 2008 and connected the glasses via the included red, white, and yellow RCA cables.

Excite Truck doesn’t let you change the view, so I was perpetually perched above and behind my truck, which was still cool but left me wanting more. Blazing Angels was phenomenal, though. I almost felt like I was flying and would get intermittent sensations of vertical and horizontal movement that affected me enough to move my head around to try to catch more of the action. Tiger Woods was fun, too, because I could concentrate on keeping my head steadily focused downward while swinging each club. Putting, especially, felt a lot more real.

The audio, too, sounded great. The attached Ultimate Ears ear buds felt very comfortable and the speech and music in movies and games was crisp and clear.

Everything was controlled by a simple, yet functional remote that sat in between the glasses and your video’s source. The iPod-centric version comes with a plug that goes into the bottom connector on your iPod and the regular version comes with female RCA plugs that can hook into most standard video sources. Both versions cost the same.

Cons

So those are some of the positive aspects of the Myvu eyewear. The negatives include; a whole mess of cords (standing up to play Tiger Woods was a little difficult at times), and a relatively high price tag at $299. Some people might take issue with the four hour battery life being too short but I can’t imaging wearing any sort of video eyewear for that long. I don’t know if I’d sit through an entire movie but I’d definitely use them for gaming because I like racing and flight sims.

Finally, Myvu’s done a good job of slimming these things down to an almost-normal size, but I’d almost rather have a set that covered my eyes completely. That I could see the outside world around me was kind of distracting. To each his own, though.

Recommendation

For the most part, the pros far outweigh the cons. The sticking point for most people here, though, is going to be the price. For a set of high-resolution video glasses, $299 isn’t all that steep — they’ve come down a LOT in price over the past five years — but it’s like, do you really need video eye glasses? Do you even want video eye glasses?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, though, then I think you’d be more than happy with this Myvu Crystal set.

Myvu Crystal Product Page [Myvu.com]

Navigon made waves not long ago by introducing GPS units with free map upgrades for a one-time fee, unique among entry-level GPS units. The 2100 Max is an inexpensive in-car GPS add-on with many high-end features, including text to speech, comprehensive POI database, and upgradable maps.

The Good Stuff

The 2100 Max has a 4.3-inch touchscreen that does the job well enough. It has a sturdy feel to it. The overall unit design is quite nice, it’s minimalistic, with only a couple of input buttons to worry about, notably the power button.

There’s an SD card slot on the right hand side that comes pre-loaded with Navigon’s 1GB map-filled card. It also has an antenna mount on the back for a more robust GPS antenna if that’s your thing, but it worked fine without one.

It’s powered by an internal battery and charged via the USB port on the bottom, we always like USB chargeable devices.

The GPS unit comes with a suction cup-style windshield mount that I must say works perfectly fine. Even when I gave the mount’s arm a vigorous shake it stayed stuck to the window. In other GPS units this can be a problem, but not with the 2100.

The 3D-aspect maps work quite well, and refresh time is close to real time. It’d be hard to get lost with this guy as a guide. That said, the map itself is fairly sparse; if you’re used to Google Maps and its outlines of buildings and parks you may find yourself wanting with the built-in maps. I, though, appreciated the un-cluttered look.

One neat trick the device does is it will track your speed, and it has an optional warning when you go a specified number of miles over the limit where you’re at. If you’re heavy footed like yours truly, this is a blessing.

The re-routing works quite well, though it’s not the fastest I’ve seen. I missed a turn getting onto the West Seattle bridge and it took me a way back around I hadn’t known about and now love.

Not so good

While the interface is simple, it’s not intuitive. When I’m getting directions, I want to be able to just input the address or name of the destination. I guess I’m used to the ease of use of Google Maps, but the Navigon UI wants me to put in my city first, followed by street, then number. I’m not sure why, but that’s how it works. It’s very offputting, but not a deal breaker.

The interface itself is sluggish. It sometimes takes one or two seconds for a screen tap to register and return with data. The unit could benefit from a snappier operating system for sure.

Because of these two problems, you should really allow your passenger to do the work with the GPS, or pull off the road. Doing it while driving is far too distracting, even on an empty roadway.

It took me several minutes of configuration before I could start using the device, and all the hoops seemed redundant. A consumer unit should be ready to go out of the box.

While I did like the feature to string multiple destinations into one trip, the lack of interesting points of interest seemed like a waste. Sure, restaurants and gas stations are listed, but many other things, like my local bowling alley, aren’t.

Now, it should be noted here that there’s an upgrade to the built-in maps, but it requires an activation code that my demo unit didn’t come with. It’s possible that the new maps include more things. I know an update is in order because it thinks there’s still a Burger King on Capitol Hill, even though it’s been gone for three years.

Conclusion

If you’ve never had a GPS unit before, this is a great way to start. The price point is great — generally under $250, sometimes on sale for less than $200 — and they’re very useful to have if you travel a lot. But if you’re looking for a way to upgrade the one you have now, look elsewhere. Though it works just fine, the sluggish interface and lack of destinations will make current GPS owners annoyed at best.

Score: 7/10

The VentMount

DLO is a company that makes its fortune manufacturing cool and useful accessories almost exclusively for Apple’s iPod. It makes every imaginable case, dock, cable, you name it. The VentMount is new. It’s a type of case for the iPhone and iPod Touch that clips into your car’s dashboard, allowing easy access to your device when you’re driving.

The Good Stuff

The VentMount works as promised. It clipped quite easily onto the center vent of my BMW and stayed there firmly. I’ve been driving with it for two days now and not once have I felt threatened that it was going to fall off.

It has a neat feature where you can unclip the holster from the mount itself, and then clip it to your belt. I don’t recommend this, as belts are not for iPhones, but it’s possible if you’d like to do so.

At the top are two strong clips you push into the vent. At the bottom is an easel-like support that fits in the vent to give you just the right angle. The mount swivels 360 degrees, which means you can have your iPhone in portrait or landscape mode. It clicks into place nicely and stays there.

It works great with the music playback features. It’s far enough out of the way that it doesn’t hinder Coverflow at all. There’s room at the bottom for your dock connector if you’ve got an iPod car kit. It’s perfect if you use the GPS and mapping features of your iPhone for directions, as it’s sturdy enough that hitting the “next” button won’t shift it.

I know I’m going to be pivoting it to watch movies when I’m waiting for my loser friends who are always late.

Not so good

The only real problem I have with the VentMount is that once I had it installed it was fairly hard to get it uninstalled. I decided it was too low, blocking a couple of my stereo’s buttons, so I wanted to move it up. It took some jiggering, but I finally managed to get the clips into an angle that got them free.

It’s not impossible, just a pain in the ass. Make sure you know where to put it before you commit.

Conclusion

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user with a car, this is probably a must-have item, especially for those of you with car kits. It does exactly what it’s supposed to and not much more, and for $25, I’m totally OK with that.

The Archos TV+ is a set-top media extender plus (get it?) a whole lot more. And in true Archos fashion, this device demands a lot from its users. I mean that in a positive way, though, believe it or not. Archos users make up a proud community of tech-savvy enthusiasts hell-bent on getting the most out of their gadgets. I should know, I’ve been an owner of the Gmini 200, the Gmini 400, and even the ancient-but-awesome Jukebox 6000. So let’s take the Archos TV+ for a spin, shall we?

Overview

I’d have a hard time deciding which feature of the Archos TV+ is the main attraction. Is it the ability to stream audio, video, and photos from your computer? Is it the ability to record TV? Is it the ability to surf the web and download content directly? Is it the ability to transfer content from other Archos portable players and/or USB storage devices? I think Archos might place equal importance on all those features which, in the end, has the potential to make the TV+ a jack-of-all-trades, yet master of none.

Features

The hardware unit itself consists of a bevy of input and output ports like composite, S-video, RGB, component, HDMI, and an Ethernet jack. There’s also an internal Wi-Fi connection and a USB port on the side of the unit. The unit I tested had an 80GB hard drive (there’s also a 250GB version available).

You control everything with the above remote. It’s unique, to be sure, and I love the included QWERTY keypad. If I had my druthers, though, I would have made it a little heavier/more solid and maybe a bit longer or wider. It was a bit too big for one-handed use and a bit too small for two-handed use.

The interface is pretty plain. You’ve got eight main icons; Video, Music, Photos, Files, Content Portal, Web, Recording, and Widgets. Settings buttons are always in the lower-right corner and status information is always in the upper-right. The interface can appear in tabs depending upon what you’re trying to do but for the most part, almost everything’s made up of big icons. Here’s a shot of the music UI, for instance.

As far as content is concerned, format support consists of MPEG-4 and WMV for video and MP3/WAV/WMA for audio. You have to buy plugins for H.264 video and AAC audio playback ($20) as well as for MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio files (also $20). You also have to shell out $30 to surf the web. More on that in the “cons” section below.

Pros

Setup was an absolute breeze, which is saying a lot for a media extender. I literally took the thing out of the box, plugged it into the wall, hooked up an HDMI cable, and ripped through the initial setup in under two minutes. I didn’t have to install any special software on my home computer to start streaming files — the TV+ just found everything via the uPnP protocol and I was on my way. So high five for an easy setup.

Getting files onto the device was also dead simple, no matter which method I tried. Recording TV programs was easy but almost too simple — no “Season Pass” or other TiVo-like features beyond recording one show at a time, though — and the TV+ unit was able to IR blast my cable box without any fuss right out of the gate so that it changed to the appropriate channel at its scheduled recording time.

The included USB port also made transferring non-restricted content off of flash drives, portable hard drives, and the Archos 705 portable unit a snap (see above photo).

Finally, playback of supported files was smooth and hassle-free. Keep in mind that “supported files” part, though, because there are a LOT of file formats out there and the TV+ only plays a few of them, unfortunately. The ones it plays, though, it plays with relative ease. If you can handle transcoding your non-supported content before sending it to the unit, you should be okay.

Cons

If there’s one overriding negative aspect of the Archos TV+, it’s that each feature kind of lacks “oomph”. It’s like they’re all 80% there. Digesting content works, yes, but you have to buy $40-worth of plugins to get more format support and the unit doesn’t do high-definition. It can record TV, yes, but you can’t watch something while recording something else and it doesn’t handle series recording.

You can browse the web, yes, but it’s slow enough that you’ll rarely use that feature, if ever. The Opera browser includes seven popular widgets, like Weather (see below) but it costs $30 extra.

There’s a content portal (see below) that allows you to download stuff, but the available content comes from either CinemaNow (small catalog, poor interface), EuroNews (news from a far-away land), or Dailymotion (big in France, not the US).

Here’s a game called “Golf Practice,” which reminded me of “Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge,” from the Simpsons. There’s no swing meter, just very strong wind. So the object is to play the ball 48MPH to the left and hope it hits the green.

Conclusion

I’m trying to look at the Archos TV+ through the eyes of its intended audience. If the target market for this unit consists of the same people who are likely to buy Apple TV (thought I’d get all the way through the review without comparing the two, huh?), then it’s not going to fare well. It’s too complicated and rough around the edges for the common user.

However, if it’s targeted at loyal Archos fans, which I think it is, then I suppose it’s an okay product. The people who are used to using Archos products and are familiar with Archos’ somewhat quirky navigation scheme (it’s gotten a lot better, though), for-pay add-ons, and quantity-over-quality features might just make a spot for this in their homes. The problem is that much of what the TV+ features is already available in Archos’ line of portable devices that many Archos users might already own, which makes it a tough sell. At $249 plus $30 for a web browser, plus $20 for H.264 video and AAC audio, plus $20 for MPEG-2 and AC3 audio puts the TV+ in a gray area as far as value is concerned, especially if you already own a 605 or 705 portable device.

The Archos TV+ section in the ArchosFans.com forum seems a tad quiet so far but a lot of people have happily adopted the 605 and 705 devices, which are basically portable versions of the TV+, so it may be that the TV+ has a hard time appealing to new users for lack of recognition and easy of use and an equally hard time appealing to existing users for lack of enough features to differentiate it from current portable device offerings — especially at over $300 with all the extras.

While the TV+ may not be a smash hit in its first iteration, I’ll bet it’s not the last we’ve seen of the platform. Archos is a pretty aggressive company and could very well already be hard at work on the next generation. As such, I’d recommend holding off on this device for now unless you’re a die-hard Archos fan with money to burn.

Archos TV+ Product Page [Archos.com]