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iPodNN: Empire Brands on Wednesday revealed three new earphone collections for its Wicked Audio brand. The Chill, Reverb and Tour all feature graffiti-inspired designs. They are made of plastic and sport comfortable ear cushions. The cords are nearly four feet long and the 3.5mm plugs are gold-plated for superior sound signal transfer and to prevent corrosion.

The Chill earbuds can be had in gold, white or black, priced at $15. The Reverbs, styled after city streets, have better bass performance, and cost $30. The Tour line can be had in one of three two-tone designs. They cost $20. All are now shipping and available at electronics shops.

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Techradar: Pioneer is probably the coolest brand in home cinema. Its sleek, cosmetically finessed designs and cutting-edge performance make the rest of the herd look positively industrial. So how do you go about making a sub-£500 receiver cooler than a penguin’s toes?

The answer is simple: pack it with features and make it the first affordable machine to hit the market that can be fully controlled from an iPhone or iPod Touch with a dedicated app.

While the company’s engineers will be keen to point out some of its other finer qualities, such as the seven channels amplification, stereo PQLS jitter elimination and Dolby ProLogic IIz for example, it is the VXS-920′s homage to Apple’s handheld goodies that really catch the attention.

Not only can the device be controlled by an iTunes app, but it also connects any later generation iPod via USB (without an optional dock) and gets closest yet to turning it into a dedicated home server.

But that’s not all: it also takes a digital audio output from the device to decode within its own DACs for superior performance, and allows searching by cover art on screen, while using the supplied USB + RCA composite video lead. This is all controllable from the Pioneer’s own interface, enabling you to hide the iPod away out of sight.

On the downside, the iPhone/ iTouch control feature isn’t quite as slick as it could be straight from the box. You need to connect the VSX-920 to a wireless router via a hard-wired ethernet cable, and the iPhone/iTouch communicates with the receiver via Wi-Fi to the router and through the network.

A direct Bluetooth link up would be far better, and you can purchase the AS-BT100 adaptor for just such a scenario, although at nearly £100 it does add 20 per cent to the cost.

Able decoding

On the flip side of that argument, if you wanted to use the Pioneer’s extensive vTuner web radio features, including the 24 programmable station presets, chances are you would be connected to your ethernet connection anyway.

Slightly annoying for me, is the fact that, although I have run ethernet to the home cinema room, my 120-year-old walls are built with iron-loaded bricks that comprehensively stop the strongest Wi-Fi signal getting through from the office. In that case, iPhone/iTouch control just won’t happen without the Bluetooth module or, without temporarily moving the router into the same room at the Pioneer.

Needless to say, the machine decodes all the major HD audio formats, has 1080p video scaling of any input, whether analogue or digital and offers v1.4 HDMI connections. The latter render this receiver 3D-compatible on account of its higher bandwidth and, more significantly, enable audio back haul that lets you amplify, for example, off-air broadcast TV without any extra cables.

The latest MCACC room EQ software is fitted as standard and you can now save the data to USB stick for display on a PC rather than having to connect directly. Setting up an AV receiver is just no fun these days; you just connect the mic, press a single button and it’s all done and dusted. That’s probably a good thing.

The supplied remote has a rather lacklustre design, but there is a good selection of fascia controls for when the vagaries that befall handsets happen. However, the iPhone/iTouch app more than makes up for the remote’s lack of cosmetic charms in the hand.

Once downloaded to my iPhone via iTunes, it connected absolutely automatically through my wireless router. No networking headaches or configuring your DNS protocol, just an immediate connection. Result!

The iControlAV App is pure class, too. It offers four screens covering basic control functions, phase and PQLS control, dialogue and bass enhancement and channel balance. The latter sums up the grace and creativity of the software, being a circular tilting table with a rolling ball representing the position of maximum sound. Roll it front left and the emphasis is front left, and so on. Great fun to play with, although I admit probably a bit redundant once you are fully set up.

There are also some beautifully animated tutorials on such topics as group phase delays, which will certainly appeal to the enthusiast.

Boom, shake the room

With the MCACC and Phase Control engaged, the audio is about as lacklustre as the standard remote control, if I am honest. The sound is rather too smooth and shut-in with mid bass doing a good impression of swamping the mix, despite the MCACC’s complex reverb and standing wave calculations.

As the ship passes overhead following the opening credits in Serenity (Blu-ray/True HD) the bass is huge and heavy-handed causing me to leap for the iPhone App volume control to back down the horses. Unfortunately, doing so made the ensuing dialogue too quiet so I had to punch it back up.

Starting again in Pure Direct mode, with all the fancy EQ systems disengaged, really cleaned up the sound, particularly the mid bass. Exactly the opposite result to what you would expect. Re-running the opening sequence of Serenity, the echoing, metal-walled facility where river is kept, is neatly portrayed with a good sense of both space and containment.

After the escape, The Operative’s voice is wonderfully cool and foreboding, with the sword effects cutting through the quiet scene with precision. But the VSX-920 still struggles when the going gets tough, being rather too laid back to excite at low levels, and not having the power or drive to deliver the goods at high volumes.

The classical music track, which accompanies Serenity as it flies through space, is clean and etched into the soundstage, only for the roar of the engines and the ensuing chaos of the nearby crash-landing to turn into a congested mishmash of effects. I really could not find a volume at which the VSX-920 was truly happy, and neither did it conjur any magic to really impress me with action flicks.

With less demanding material, namely a night in with Shrek, plus both its sequels back-to-back, with a bottle of Sandhurst vineyard’s finest, the Pioneer is much more at ease. It conveys Myers’ comedic Scots accent with all its quirks, and the feel-good score throughout the original Shrek has a good foot-tapping quality.

Voices are accurate, if a little trapped inside the centre channel speaker, and there is no shortage of rather heavy-handed LFE. The soundstage is still not exactly massive, and open sky forest scenes have nothing like the sparkle and natural ambience the best sub-£500 receivers can offer.

Style over substance

The VSX-920 is not going to win any head-to-head performance shootout at £500, but you can’t fault its appeal as the hub of your home entertainment. The iPod integration is great fun, and once the album artwork has loaded (this took several minutes for my stuffed 80Gb model), it stays put as long as the machine is connected.

The searching for a song by cover art is a neat touch, and I could easily see users leaving their old iPods connected to the receiver as a fixed server when they upgrade to a new Apple iteration.

Again, sound from both the iPod and net radio fell foul of the Pioneer’s rather thick balance, making me check that my iPod’s own EQ wasn’t set to ‘bass enhancer’, as there was so much mid-bass bloom.

You have got to look at the VSX-920 as more of a lifestyle product for those who prefer gadgets and convenience above extracting the last few n’ths of sound quality. The network and iPhone/Touch/Pod features are wonderful toys, but when you are sitting down to enjoy a movie, they don’t count for much.

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Trendhunter: Urban Outfitters are known for their hip clothing and awesome gadgets, but the iPhone DJ Mixer has to be one of the coolest players to be sold yet.

The iPhone DJ Mixer lets you combine music from two iPhones and tests your ability as a DJ. It has a spin option, reverb, flange and filter, as well as a recording button.

Not only is this gadget a turntable, but it can also charge your iPhone as you are trying your best to mix.

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Engadget: Marantz has unveiled its 2010 line of high end receivers, amplifiers, pre amplifiers and Blu-ray players, and naturally the headlining upgrades have to do with streaming internet video access, Blu-ray 3D and HDMI 1.4 compatibility. You can check out the press releases for all the details, but we’ll highlight the UD7005 ($899, due in September) and UD5005 ($499, August) “Universal Media Players,” which earn the tag by including everything SACD, DVD-Audio, DivX and even Blu-ray 3D playback, plus improving on their predecessors by featuring DLNA v1.5 streaming access and built in Netflix and YouTube compatibility. One disappointment however, while some are still waiting for an updated version of the flagship SR8002 receiver, with only new editions in the form of the SR5005, SR6005 and SR7005 receivers. The SR7005 features six HDMI 1.4a inputs, with Windows 7-compatible DLNA, iPod, IP control, Pandora and the other usual feature boxes checked when it ships next month for $1,599.

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Engadget: Onkyo, known in these parts for everything from digiframes to a rather wild selection of PCs, has announced a set of compact audio systems aimed at the audiophile (though to be fair, Onkyo’s definition of “audiophile” might be different than our own). For the well-heeled consumer, the CS-1045DAB (pictured after the break) sports 70W (x2) output, three analog and both optical and coaxial SPDIF inputs, a front-mounted USB port, VLSC Vector Linear Shaping Circuit tech, and a 24-bit Burr-Brown DAC. Score! Available at the end of August for £600 ($925) or bundled with a pair of D-145 speakers for £700 ($1,080). If your budget’s a little tighter (and we can’t blame you if it is) the CS-545UK (pictured above) is a cute little guy that features a digital amp, 2 x 50W output, MP3 compatible, tray-loaded CD player (remember those?), both an iPod dock and USB input, video out (presumably composite) and sub woofer out. Ships with a pair of D-045 2-way bass reflex speakers for £349 ($537) or without for £249. Look for it in September, kids!

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What HiFi: Heavy snow, horror shootings, football upsets, new governments and gushing oil – 2010′s been pretty eventful so far, but what consumer electronics products have we been tuning into – or tuning out of – the news with? The CE sales statistics are in, and there are some real surprises…

We’ve had an interim update from GfK – we’ve previously reported on their full-year detailed figures -  the stats masters who analyse all the sales data from retailers (on- and offline), tracking which prices and products are getting the tills ringing.

World Cup effect

A loud blast on a vuvuzela, please, for TV sales during May and June, given an incredible football boost. After a pretty slow start to the year – the CE market declined 4.7% in value terms from January-May – that swung round to to a 19% increase over 2009 sales by June, thanks to a mighty 31% more money being spent on TVs.

In one pre-World Cup week, there was an incredible 281% increase in 37in+ LCD TVs being sold. Both plasma and LCD sales are up for the year to date, with larger, more premium sets hitting new levels of popularity.

It’s estimated that more than 10 million flatscreen TVs will be sold in the UK this year, with a further big rise in sales expected pre-Christmas.

A slow start for 3D

But, how many of those new flatscreens will be 3D TVs? Admittedly, it’s very early days for the technology, with products only just arriving in the shops. However, in that pre-World Cup flatscreen frenzy, a mere 4000 3D sets were sold in May, along with 2000 3D Blu-ray players (we assume/hope the other half of 3D TV buyers have a PS3 or Sky 3D….).

Another recent TV technology development – internet connectivity – is growing faster, helped by its inclusion on this year’s more affordable ranges.

Almost a quarter of flatscreens sold in May offered Ethernet connectivity, with almost 60% of Blu-ray players sold being Web-ready (those other 40% are going to have fun with some of those BD-Live heavy discs).

All I have to do is stream

While we’re talking online, there’s been a three-fold year-on-year growth in what GfK dubs ‘Media Gateways’ – devices to stream video and audio from your PC to TV. Almost 45,000 units have been sold at an average price of £83.

The market for client/server/streaming audio devices, meanwhile – such as Sonos or Logitech Squeezebox systems, but also higher-end solutions such as the Naim HDX or Meridian Sooloos -  has also soared £5m in value (to £22m), with almost 22,000 units sold.

More than 2000 of those music servers sold cost £1000+;  around 7000 of them were sold at £500-£1000; the remaining 13,000 were sold at sub-£500 price.

Incidentally, sales of wireless routers have soared 27.3% in the past year, with almost 50,000 units sold at an average price of £140. And that figure, of course, doesn’t include the many more free routers supplied by broadband providers.

An even bigger, £40m market is for mobile broadband – Britain has gone dongle crazy, with 2.6m units sold since last year.

Finally, internet radios are also on rise, with a 50% year-on-year increase in sales, to 121,000 units (hybrid DAB/internet designs being the biggest winners; DAB-only radios have also had a big boost).

Docks clock up sales

Staying in the digital domain, anything you plug an iPod or iPhone into has never been more popular.

Headphone sales are up 37.5%, clock radios with docks up 38.1% and other portable-media player accessories are up 7.2%.

iPod speaker systems – such as the B&W Zeppelin – meanwhile are now a £40m business, up from £26.9m. 158.000 units were sold year to May 2010, compared to 107,000 units the previous year. Do the maths and you’ll see the average price is on the rise, too.

Interestingly, sales of portable media players themselves are down more than 10%, as the rise of music and video-toting smartphones like the Apple iPhone continues.

Blu-ray begins to take hold

Moving onto home cinema, Blu-ray sales have shown a healthy rise – 672,000 Blu-ray players were sold in the year to May 2010, up from 394,000.

BD deals and discounts have undoubtedly fuelled that growth, with the average price of a Blu-ray player falling from £197 to £161.

However, the relative dearth of one-box Blu-ray systems has seen a 7.2% fall in cinema system sales. (Audio system sales, meanwhile, have fallen by 2.4%

Rise of the Receivers

The star performer in home cinema separates is AV amplifiers and receivers. Sales rose to 102,000 units (up 12%); market value increased to £47.5m (up 17%) and the average price paid edged up 5% to £466.

A mighty 30% of receivers sold in the past 12 months cost their new owners more than £1000.

After a few periods of decline, speakers and speaker package sales have also increased, with almost 400,000 units sold. It’s a £95m market, with the average price paid at £239.

Turntables trump CD

And now we turn to our headline fact – that 77,400 turntables were sold in the year to May (a 11% increase). That compares to 41,400 CD players.

However, the CD player market remains more lucrative – the average price has risen 31% to £386 (with a 57% rise in sales for £1000+  players), while the average selling price of a turntable has fallen 10% to ust £122. That shows the real popularity area: budget and USB decks.

Wire me some money

Finally, a little look at cable sales. While HDMI cable continue their rise – with 1.4m sold in the year to May; average price £27 – sales of older AV formats continue strongly. A mighty 970,000 Scart sales were also sold, at an average of £8 per pop.

More stats – including any we can get for the likes of DACs and active speakers – to follow after an even bigger data-splurge next month.
 

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Gizmodo: If you want a packaged home theater that’ll soak your eyeballs in three-dee and fill your ears with THX-certified boom, Onkyo’s HT-S9300THX will oblige. It has seven theater loudspeakers, a 12″ sub, and works with all the latest 3D gear.

The HT-S9300THX receiver has four 3D-Ready HDMI 1.4a inputs and will upscale video to 1080p. It definitely won’t sound shabby, either, with Dolby and DTS high def audio processing and Dolby ProLogic IIz height channel processing. It’s the first packaged system to be both 3D-ready and fully THX certified.

Some might consider the pre-packaged Home Theater In a Box concept the lazy man’s path to home theater nirvana, but those are the types that are likely to be tangled up in speaker wire while you’re hanging out in Pandora. Available at the end of the month for $1099. That’s a lot of boom for your buck.
 

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Gizmodo: Earlier today I reported on the unlikelihood that the next Batman movie will be in 3D. But is that a fluke or part of a trend? If box office numbers are any indication, it’s definitely the latter.

Since the high-water mark of Avatar, where 71% of the revenue came from 3D screenings, numbers for big-budget 3D movies have plummeted to less than 50%.

Obviously Avatar was a unique case in that it was basically sold as a 3D “experience,” so if you saw it in 2D you were missing out. But then three months later the animated How to Train Your Dragon pulled in 68% of its revenue from 3D screens, hardly a significant drop-off.

Fast forward a mere four months and you have Despicable Me, another 3D animated kids movie, pulling in 45% of its revenue from 3D screens. As you can see by The Wrap’s chart below, it’s a pretty clear trend.

What’s this mean? It means that now that people have had a chance to experience 3D in theaters, they’re opting to spend $10 on a 2D screening rather than $15 on a 3D screening when given the option.

It’s not great news for Hollywood studios that have sunk boatloads of money into 3D cameras and tech, but it’s much, much worse news for consumer electronics companies such as Sony and Panasonic who are betting the farm on people wanting to upgrade two-year-old HDTVs to 3D HDTVs. But if Hollywood finds that making 3D movies isn’t as profitable as they thought, they’ll stop doing it. And without that content, no one will have any reason to buy a 3D TV.

Sucks for them, but it’s good news for consumers who are voting with their wallets. No more inflated ticket prices and no need to buy a new TV for a feature no one ever really wanted? Sounds good to me.

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GPS Business News: In a new report, market research firm iSuppli expects the inclusion of GPS technology in cell phones to explode, reaching 79.9 percent of cell phones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2011 (amounting to 318.3 million units), against 187.8 million units or 56.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

GPS adoption driven by Smartphones
“The smart phone is the key product driving the technology industry today—and social networking services and applications spurred by GPS-related features are critical elements in the smart phone market today,” said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. “This is illustrated by Google Inc.’s decision to make turn-by-turn navigation, LBS and mobile ads the central features in its bid to take on Apple in the smart phone market, and make up the central pillars of its strategy to increasingly monetize mobile search.”

iSuppli also sees an increased penetration of embedded GPS in a range of consumer and compute electronic devices by 2014. For example, iSuppli estimates that 18 percent of laptops and 42 percent of portable handheld video game players will have embedded GPS in 2014.

Altogether, the boom in mobile handset navigation will benefit suppliers of GPS semiconductors such as Texas Instruments, Broadcom Corp., Infineon Technologies and CSR.

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Übergizmo: Do you happen to listen to music wherever you go, and have tracks that you wish you could share with whoever is around you at that very time, but your device lacks external speakers to do so? With the Ingenious Audio iTraveler loudspeaker system, doing so can now be a reality since it comprises of a couple of powered stereo speakers that are touted to deliver amazing sound quality. These components comprise of powerful neodymium magnets drivers which have been equalized, offering an extremely flat frequency response that your discerning ears will appreciate. A NiMh rechargeable battery system is said to provide up to 12 hours of playback, and if the situation arises, you can always split both speakers to suit your convenience. Retailing for 249 Euros a pop, you might want to check this out if music playback in public is your cup of tea while you break a dance.

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iPodNN: iHome has introduced what is the first fully functional iPad dock with the iHome iA100ZE. It can also accommodate iPhones and iPods, and gets a Bluetooth connection in addition to an FM radio. The dock includes a free download of the iHome+Sleep app (currently not iPad-optimized, App Store) that offers custom alarms, sleep stats, social media alerts, weather, and overnight news.

The alarm settings from the dock are automatically synced to the iPad. Another button syncs the proper time from an iPhone to the dock. The dock has Bongiovi Digital Power Station circuitry that purportedly optimizes the sound for digital audio formats as well as iHome’s newer Reson8 speaker chambers.

iHome has not revealed prices or a release date for the iA100ZE dock.

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Cube me: The brief was to design a new packaging for the Stereo Earphones RP-HJE 130 that clearly communicates the product benefit: the unique sound quality. The packaging design has to appeal to a target group that usually owns well-designed high-class mp3 players.

By specially arranging the earphones inside a special box they appear to look like two eighth notes. So the earphones show at first sight for whom they are made: for passionate music lovers.

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