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Akihabara News: Back in February Panasonic released a new Slim Stereo, the SC-HC40. It not only offers a clean and sleek design but also the possibility to get full control of your iPod touch or iPhone without cables or any other clutters. Now, several months later Panasonic finally have put its SC-HC40 on the market and we had the chance to secure one of them for a test.

Specs
- iPod Dock / CD Player / AM/FM Radio
- Plays CDs, CD-R/RW, and MP3 CDs
- 40 watts
- 2 – 1/2″ bamboo cone speakers
- Wireless Bluetooth feature means you can connect your iPhone to this dock wirelessly
- Motorized sliding door that conceals CD tray and iPod/iPhone dock
- Additional 1/8″ Mini input
- Charges iPod or iPhone while playing
- 4 EQ presets
- Treble/Bass control
- Programmable timer / sleep button (to use as alarm clock)
- Dimensions (HxWxD) = 7-29/32 x 19-11/16 x 4-1/32
- Weight = 6.6 lbs

Design
Simple, minimalistic, “Bose” or “B&O”-like, the Panasonic SC-HC40 design is just what we have been looking for quite a long time now. Obviously entirely made of plastic, the SC-HC40 does not feel cheap or fragile, and Panasonic ’s subtle “Chrome”-like effect and usage of blue LED give the user a warming sensation of using a High-end product rather than your average “Boom-Box”.

iPod and other DAP functions
Besides its elegant design, the SC-HC40’s main selling point is its incredibly well implemented iPod support. With cleverly integrated docking station accessible thanks to a sliding door, you will easily be able to plug your iPhone or iPod to your SC-HC40. It not only givies you the possibility to charge your iPhone, but also to have full access to your Phone’s basic functions including its audio contents, your alarms but also your phone.

Although I am sure you will easily understand how the SC-HC40 can take full control of your Audio files sorted on your phone, the part that is about having control over your iPhone communication, however needs some explanation.
Thanks to the basic support of Bluetooth 2.1+EDR with A2DP, AVRCP and HFP or Hands-Free Profile, you can, in fact either receive calls or place calls from the comfort of your sofa without the need of touching your iPhone. As you may have seen on the video we published alongside this article, the SC-HC40 will fully use your iPhone’s Hands-Free capacity and let you talk to anyone freely as you do with any other conference call system.

While in fact for us the reproduction quality was impeccable, we could clearly hear the person who was calling us, this very same person, however had a nasty “echo” giving a rather annoying experience whenever you would use your SC-HC40 Hands-Free mode.

Now we are not sure if this was due to our test unit that was, in fact not a final product version but rather a pre-release one, or if this “echo” will affect most people calling an iPhone dock on a SC-HC40.

Not only limited to the iPhone you could potentially use the Bluetooth mode of your SH-HC40 with different DAPs or Phones… Also thanks to its additional 1/8″ Mini input, you can plug any external audio sources to use your SC-HC40 speakers and “unleash” the sound stored on your Zune HD or your PC for example.

So what about the Sound?
Well, this should be in fact the most important aspect of our stereo and to be honest the SC-HC40 performs just fine. Made to be mainly used in a small room rather than a loft, the sound coming of our SC-HC40 2x 1/2″ cone speakers were noticeably clearer thanks to Panasonic’s unique usage of bamboo in speakers.

The addition of Bamboo not only gives a sharper voice reproduction but it also helps Panasonic to get the best sound possible in the slimmest package ever.

Now it is always difficult to evaluate the quality of sound reproduction of one product when you do not compare it to another one but, as I said earlier, the SC-HC40 gave us good, or above average sound quality that will please most of us. And if you feel the need to tweak things a little for your own pleasure, you can always play with the SC-HC40 EQ to get the most of your sound.

Other Goodies
Being above all a Slim Stereo, the SC-HC40 comes with a CD player and an SD, SDHC and SDXC card reader, meaning that you will not only be able to listen to CDs, Rip CDs to a memory card but also be able to listen to music stored on any compatible SD Card, a little plus always welcome if you happen to get a few SD cards lying around.

Conclusion
Well-built, nice design, overall good iPhone integration and above average sound quality the SC-HC40 is a Slim Stereo that we can recommend without hesitation. Unfortunately giving a “weak” audio experience for people calling you directly on the SC-HC40 on our test sample, just make me either wish for a fix or hope that the product available on the market is exempt from this problem. But once again if you are looking for a nice Stereo with clutter-less iPhone integration, the SC-HC40 is what you are looking for!

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Übergizmo: One of the many benefits of OLED displays are that they can be flexible. Now Sony has announced an ultra thin flexible OLED display, and we’re talking 80µm-thick, which is less than a strand of hair. This OLED display measures in at 4.1-inches and sports a resolution of 432 x 240 pixels and has a contrast ratio of under 1,000:1. It also claims to be the first OLED panel to be able to play videos while being rolled up and stretched around a cylinder with a 4mm radius. If this gets mass produced, who knows what kind of cool gadgets we’ll be seeing in the next year or so?

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Übergizmo: Bose systems are rarely cheap, let alone affordable to the average Joe, but that doesn’t mean the company cannot turn a profit as it has been in business all these years as the rich and famous lap up their devices and audio systems without thinking twice about the financial damage. Well, the company is back with three more 5.1 systems, namely the V35, V25 and T20, where all of them will boast a new “Unify” technology which supposedly makes “connecting speakers and sources, programming remotes, and accessing content easier and faster than ever before.” No idea on how easy that will be – as if color codes and using simple logic of seeing which connector fits into which port isn’t enough. Guess money can’t really buy brains either, where you will need to fork out $3,299, $2,499 and $1,999 for the V35, V25 and T20, respectively.

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Gizmag: iLuv, one of a number of manufacturers of Apple accessories, has added three small and portable speaker options that provide high quality sound while eliminating cable clutter. The three speaker options include a mini clip speaker, a portable speaker bar and a pair of newly designed cube speakers, all powered by USB to reduce cable clutter on the desktop. All three speaker designs work with Mac or PC.

The iSP130 Mini Clip Speaker has a built-in hanging clip for mounting on just about any monitor, putting your music at ear level.

The iSP150 Portable Speaker Bar complements any device with a 3.5mm jack, such as an iPad, iPhone, iPod, laptops and other portable audio devices. It can be operated on four AAA batteries or via USB, and is great for portability and travel.

The iSP170 Cube Speakers measure only 2.8 x 2.8 x 2.8 inches in size, making them ideal for laptops. They feature loud and clear sound and built-in volume control.

“We feel that computer-users now want solutions that feature USB power options, minimal cables and are small in size,” said Howard Kim, iLuv marketing manager. “To meet the everyday speaker and space needs of Mac, PC and laptop users, we designed these three peripheral solutions in an effort to meet that growing demand.”

The iSP130, iSP150 and iSP170 are available online for US$19.99, $34.99 and $39.99 MSRP.

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T3: If God is a DJ…. he’d probably use these uber-pricey decks. Since their arrival a decade and a half ago, Pioneer’s CDJs have become ubiquitous in the DJing market, and are incumbent in bars and clubs the world over. They were the first CD turntables to challenge the vinyl hegemony in the mixing scene, offering all the tactile pleasures of traditional decks but with the obvious advantages that a digital format brings.

This latest model, the CDJ-2000, is by far the firm’s most advanced decks yet and comes with a price-tag to match, around £1500 in most retailers. Considering you can get the budget model CDJ-200 (which contains most of the basic mixing features) for a third of that price, you’d be forgiven for asking what your extra grand is getting you.

First up, it’s got a big screen! Yup, a 6.1-inch monitor that makes sorting through tracks much easier, plus displays the song as a waveform which can be handy if you’re keen to see how the song pans out. Unfortunately you can’t play Splinter Cell on it while you’re DJing though…

The CDJ-2000 now accepts audio/data DVDs, SD cards and USB devices, which is a very handy feature. At 320kbps (probably the lowest you want to compress an mp3 for decent soundsystems) you can squeeze hours of music onto one source – you can effectively carry your entire music collection in a small bag.

Pioneer CDJ-2000: Features

Next up, Pioneer’s much-hyped Pro DJ Link, which allows you to connect a USB source to one drive and access the music from a ‘linked’ unit. So bring a hard drive and plug it into one and you can mix using up to four linked CDJs from the same storage block. This works impressively well, and testing with a couple of sources showed no problematic latency or glitches.

Needle Search might sound more like a location from Trainspotting, but it’s another feature trying to offer some of the benefits that laptop DJing brings, namely being able to jump straight into the middle of a track without having to skip through. It’s handy, but you’ve coped without it before and it feels more gimmick than essential tool.

Pioneer CDJ-2000: Software

Rekordbox is another relatively new addition although it’s also available on the 2000’s little brother, the CDJ-900. Effectively Rekordbox is an iTunes-style piece of computer software for cataloguing and editing your music specifically for the CDJ. You can preset your cue points, quantise (ie regulate loose drums into a tighter order to make them easier to mix) tracks and add metadata and tags to make songs easier to find. Once you’ve edited your tracks you can save them and they’ll be mapped out on the unit with the music. It’s a useful tool but we’d be hard pressed to say it’s a truly essential add-on. Many DJs have been doing what Rekorbox does using standard audio-editing software to extend intros and outros to make them better for the mix for a long time. Admittedly you can’t add cue points, using Audacity (or similar shareware programs) but you can manually make these on the unit.  Pioneer has now made Rekordbox available as a free download, compatible with certain decks, so it might be wise to have a play on it first to suss whether you feel the features are essential club tools for you.

Pioneer CDJ-2000: The cost

Which brings us to the CDJ-2000’s main problem, at £1500 each only top-end clubs will be able to afford a pair of them. Editing your entire record collection on Rekordbox and uploading it to a hard drive is fine if you’re playing Fabric or Ministry of Sound, but mere mortals might find that it’s time wasted when you get to your local DJ bar to find a more standard pair of CD decks awaiting you. There’s no doubt this is incredibly sophisticated, cutting-edge DJ kit and the Pioneer’s mixing technology is still pretty much perfect, but for we’re unconvinced the extra features here justify it over its cheaper siblings.

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GPS Business News: Nokia and CE4A (Consumer Electronics for Automotive) working group have released the Terminal Mode technology specification as a proposed industry standard for the integration of mobile applications into the car environment. The German CE4A group includes Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen.

Developed in co-operation with Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto and CE4A, Terminal Mode integrates smartphones into an in-vehicle infotainment system. Once connected, the full range of smartphone features, services and applications, such as navigation and music from Ovi by Nokia can be made available through screens and audio systems embedded in the car. It also enables information exchange between the smartphone and the car systems.

In addition to the CE4A participants, Nokia has also established collaborations with Alpine Electronics, Continental, Fiat, Harman Becker and Magneti Marelli to use this technology.

A “Terminal Mode Summit” is expected to take place in June 2010, but no more information was made available by Nokia on this topic at this stage.

The specification documents (Terminal Mode v0.9) are available here:
http://www.nokia.com/terminalmode

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Engadget: Before you dismiss this as just another crazy idea out of Japan, hear us out. The newly developed, crab-simulating Navi Robo is designed to give drivers visual navigating assistance as a supplement to their GPS device. Its primary benefit, aside from helping the hearing impaired, will be in conveying instructions without requiring the driver to focus on it, as its eyes light up for attention and its “claws” vibrate urgently when an upcoming turn is imminent. Frankly, it looks both cute and functional, and we think kudos are in order for both Pioneer and iXs Research for coming up with the idea. They’ll be taking their usual good time (read: a couple of years) to refine and develop the idea, but we’ve got video of the robot doing its thing right now — you know where to find it.

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msnbc: Google TV was announced today. But what exactly is it? Give us two minutes. (more…)

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Übergizmo: If it weren’t about the price, most folks out there would want a few Bang & Olufsen products in their home. Now the company has just announced its BeoVision 8, which is a smaller version of its BeoVision 10 LCD, and less expensive. This 4-inch display touts 240Hz motion processing, something that the folks over at B&O claim to be nearly double that of the conventional LCDs. Being a B&O product, you’d expect it to sport some pretty awesome sound quality. The BeoVision 8 will be available this summer, and should set you back around $5,400, pricey, but it shouldn’t force you to sell your assets, right?

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Techradar: Blu-ray sales in Europe are looking better than ever, with new figures suggesting that the format has almost doubled in popularity in a year.

In Q1 of 2010, Blu-ray sales managed to increase by 94 per cent year on year, with 8.4 million discs sold, according to new figures released by the Digital Entertainment Group Europe.

This meant that consumers spent a cool 151.4 million Euros on the format. This is similar to what happened in 2009, where sales of Blu-ray increased by 109 per cent.

Riding the wave of success

Blu-ray has still got a long way to go to match DVD sales, however. In the same timeframe 135 million DVDs were sold, which is a slight drop of 1.7 per cent.

Money wise this equates to a massive 1.3 billion Euros.

Overall this meant that combined disc units sold was up 3.8 per cent.

Speaking about the increase, Yves Caillaud, senior vice president of Warner Home Video said: “Blu-ray has continued to ride the wave of success at the start of 2010 and it is promising to see consumers respond well to the format.

“The industry is providing consumers with the most innovative and enjoyable home entertainment experiences, and we expect sales to increase as the penetration of HDTVs continues to accelerate.”

This is all good news, but surely those betting big on Blu-ray will be a little concerned that the humble DVD is still outselling the format by 10 to one?

The entertainment industry will be hoping that another Avatar-like success will be just around the corner.

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Dvice: Now that simple home theater gear like soundbars is popular, is there really any reason to own a home theater receiver anymore? One thing holding back receivers is that manufacturers have been slow to include features that are in sync with how people get their music and movies today — namely, digitally. That’s why we were so glad to hear about Pioneer’s new receivers and their ability to play music via Bluetooth streaming. (more…)

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Audiojunkies: Denon has released six new headphone models, bringing the total number of Denon phones available up to 14. The new introductions consist of five new affordable in-ear and on-ear models with prices ranging from $49 to $199, and a new noise-cancelling model with a price to be determined. The four least expensive models (AH-D510R, AH-D31OR, AH-C560R and AH-C260R) feature an in-line microphone and three button remote that supports the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. (more…)

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