Displaying items by tag: Audio

Over the last year or so the PC Gaming market has seen an interesting re-birth. Although many developers seem to have embraced the new x86 console craze the peripheral manufacturers for the PC did not get the memo. One company that has leapt into the fray is Tesoro, so far they have dropped more than one high-end headset, keyboard and other accessories for the gamer to enhance their experience. Today we have another one of their products in the lab, the Kuven Pro 5.1 gaming headset. Let’s listen in and see how they sound.

A few years ago Thermaltake decided to introduce a new line of hardware, the Level10. The thought behind it was that this was the top of the line, period. The broke into the market with a case that was almost unique in its design. After that case they have released several more products including a pair of gaming mice that are outstanding in design and performance. Now we are taking a look at their headset, the Level10M headset. This gaming headset is designed in the tradition of the original level10 case and the mice that followed it. So let’s take a look and see if this headset deserves to be alongside the other products in the Level10 family.

As we have said many times before the peripherals market seems to be one of the PC related markets that continues to grow at a very rapid pace. Everyone wants to get in on the gravy train these days and we are starting to see peripherals from companies that you would not normally think of when it comes to keyboards, headsets or mice. Today we are taking a look at a new product from a company that, until recently, was known for their memory, SSDs, and flash drives. We are talking about Kingston and their HyperX Cloud gaming headset. Now the question we have to find the answer to is: can a memory maker make a product that gamers, PC enthusiasts and audiophiles will like? Let’s dive in and find out.

There is no doubt that the mobile market is beginning to become the focus of hardware manufacturers. In many ways this market is eclipsing what we are seeing for more mainstream computer systems. One of the biggest reasons for this is that while most people will own a phone or portable media player only a fraction of that group will own a desktop computer. Because of this the demand for high-quality components and accessories has been growing at an exponential rate. Even companies that were once dedicated to the more traditional “PC” are starting to build devices for the mobile market. A couple of areas that are growing very quickly are power and audio. Here you have two very vital functions that anyone with a mobile device needs to think about. You have to have power to keep things going and most (if not all) will want a way to listen to their media on more than just the bundled set of headphones. Today we are taking a look at a product from LUXA2 that addresses both of these areas with style. So let us introduce the LUXA2 GroovyW Bluetooth speaker set and wireless charging unit.

According to the Financial Times, Apple is reportedly negotiating the takeover of the company Beats Electronics for $ 3.2 billion. Apparently, the agreement on the takeover could be announced as early as next week, but companies still have not agreed on all the details, so the deal may not happen.

Audio on gaming computers is one of the things that gets overlooked when people are building their systems. While they are busy making sure they have a powerful CPU, GPU and enough RAM they seem to forget that audio is an important part of the gaming experience. With good audio the gaming experience becomes more immersive. Of course even if you do get a good audio card you still need something that can reproduce the audio properly or that is just a waste of money. Headphones, Speakers, etc. all need to be able to do their job or you lose a part of the overall gaming experience. With that in mind we are taking a look at set of gaming headphones from Cooler Master’s CMStorm line, the Ceres 300. Let’s see if this set of headphones can bring out the best in your gaming audio.

Two new soundbar speaker and TV Base have enriched the Sony offer of home entertainment devices. Soundbar HT-CT770 and HT-CT370 are characterized by modern design, and sound environment that they make fills the room with a virtual surround sound and powerful bass. Model CT770 offers 330 W total output power, 2x20mm tweeter unit and 160-millimeter subwoofer. CT370 delivers 300 watts in a smaller footprint.

Google's video codec VP9 at the beginning of 2014 received the necessary hardware support that will help him further in conquering the market. All major manufacturers will soon add support for VP9 codec. Among others these are ARM, Broadcom, Intel, LG, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, RealTek, Samsung, Sigma, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba. So far, the codec was supported mainly on Web browsers Chrome and Firefox, and some video players.

In the last month there have been various stories about the fate that should befall the popular Winamp. From a sudden cancellation and complete shutdown, over a petition requesting to become open source, to the alleged Microsoft's interest to become the owner of the program and all supporting services.

Two new models will come under the labels ES-CTI300 and IE-CTI300, the first model is derived in the form of headphones, while other one is in the form of popular earphones. ES-CTI300 headphones are made of lightweight aluminum, come with 40mm drivers and detachable cable for which manufacturer guarantees that it will not get tangled, while IE-CTI300 comes with drivers of 14.3 mm diameter.