The SSB-1 Soundbar speaker, recently released by Maxell Corp. of America, is a great deal for the price, considering you can easily spend 10 times that on other soundbars but not get 10 times the sound.
Soundbar speakers are increasingly popular because they offer great sound for TV watching without expensive full surround-sound systems.
This tabletop speaker has an attractive glossy black finish and offers 2.1 channels with 30 Watts of power along with a two 7.5w speakers and a 15w subwoofer.
All this produces great sound - outstanding compared to the sound that is output from a typical TV.
The SSB-1 is designed as a space saver so a television or monitor up to 55 pounds can sit directly on top of it.
Setting up this soundbar is as easy as any electronic gadget I've ever dealt with; just plug the included RCA plug to the audio output on your TV and then connect the other end (3.5mm) to the port on the back of the speaker.
If your TV has the 3.5mm output, a cable is also included for that.
The speaker has a pair of the ports so an additional output device (iPod, iPad, etc.) can be connected for listening.
A handheld remote controls the power and volume.
Details: www.maxell.com, $129.99
Capturing digital audio for the average user seems to be something that hasn't gone as smooth as the never-ending quality improvements for video and digital images.
Easy-to-use and great sounding results sum up the Snowball USB microphone from Blue Microphones' with an iPad.
The recent release of iOS 4.3, combined with the iPad camera connection kit, form a perfect combination that provides USB connection for recording with the Snowball to specific recording apps.
The Snowball is a stereo condensed microphone designed for any level of user. It produces studio quality sound for anything from instrumental music to simple podcasts.
Once you have all the hardware and app, for the most part everything is plug and play, just like this should be.
While I tested this for its unique usage on an iPad, it can also be used with a standard Mac or PC computer just as easily.
For my actual non-studio testing, I recorded satellite radio coming out of a soundbar speaker at very close range.
After the recording, the playback was kind of amazing in clarity on top of how easy it was to do.
The microphone is encased in a big ball, just under 4-inches in diameter and comes with an adjustable tripod/mic stand and USB cable.
Details: http://blueblog.bluemic.com, $99 or $66 at Amazon.
Practice what I preach is the best recommendation I can give about the OWC external DVD burner, which I seem to be using for non-stop disc burning.
Given today's high priced electronics, I consider the under-$100 price point for the OWC Mercury Pro Dual Layer Samsung FireWire 800/400 DVD/CD burner a steal and that's why I recently bought one recently.
Discs to back up priceless family photos or just about anything burn at super fast DVD speeds up to 22X or a CD at 48X.
My laptop and desktop computers both have built-in disc burners but don't compare to the ease and speed of this one, which measures just 10.5 by 7.5 by 2.5 inches.
It works with just about all disc-burning software for Mac and PC systems, while using single or dual layer discs.
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