Craziest Gadgets » Audio and MP3 Gadgets

Solar Powered Guitar Tuner

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:10:19 +0000

Tune your guitar anywhere, electricity-free with the Tascam Solar Guitar Tuner. This guitar tuner has an internal battery, powered by a solar panel. It can run on continuous battery operation for six hours and also be charged by USB in case you rock and roll all night and party every day. The tuner has four modes: needle, strobe, fine, and meter. It has 12 tone equal temperament and detection accuracy within 1 cent (A = 440 Hz). I don’t know what all that means either, but I do know that it’s pocket sized and has a standard mono jack and a built-in microphone to pick up the sounds. Rock on.

Solar Powered Guitar Tuner

Review: iFrogz Boost Speaker

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:41:54 +0000

We recently received an iFrogz Boost Speaker for review. This interesting speaker is a wireless speaker but it works a little differently; it uses NearField Audio to receive the sound from your iPhone or other phone with an external speaker. You simply place your device directly upon the palm-sized Boost and it “magically” amplifies the sound through a pair of 2w speakers. This is of course best demonstrated in our video review:

Quite reflective. The Boost doesn’t require any bluetooth pairing or wires or syncing, just set your phone on top of it and go. It weighs only 5.9 ounces without the trio of AA batteries it requires. The sound quality was very good for a speaker of it’s size- obviously you’re not going to get room thumping bass but it amplifies the sound enough for say an office or bedroom. Like I said in the video review, it has 15 hours of play time and 6 months on standby (or you can power it via micro USB) and sells for $39.99 (or less on Amazon!). Overall we like the simplicity of this speaker, it’s unobtrusive styling, portability, good sound quality, and overall cool factor with the NearField Audio “trick”.

Review: iFrogz Boost Speaker

Mason Jar Speakers

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:08:01 +0000

Sarah Pease has created these fantastic mason jar speakers from open-source hardware (ie basic Radio Shack type stuff with free instructions) and a standard household item. The cool part is that since the speakers are actually mounted to the lid of the jar, you could swap out the jars to experiment with different sizes and widths for different sounds. They look really simple and attractive and anyone with some basic skills can make their own set. And when you’re all done listening to music you can preserve some berries for the winter in them. Win, win, yum.

Mason Jar Speakers

Yo Gabba Gabba DJ Lance Boombox iPod Speakers

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:19:30 +0000

Hey kids, it’s time for Yooooooooooo Gabba Gabba. Now you can “break it down” at home, DJ Lance style with the Yo Gabba Gabba musical boombox. This boombox has little figurines of Muno, Brobee, Foofa, and Toodee (left to right) on top (poor Plex got the shaft on this one). This site’s name is Craziest Gadgets and we like to dance. The boombox opens up to reveal a little playset (cool cool cool tricks!):

The boombox lights up and plays four songs on it’s own or you could use a wire to hook up your iPod to play your own music. Cool.

Amazon

eBay

Yo Gabba Gabba DJ Lance Boombox iPod Speakers

Peavey Marvel Superhero Guitars

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:31:07 +0000

Legendary instrument manufacturer Peavey has teamed up with Marvel Comics to create a new line of superhero guitars. Available in comic book favorites like Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, the Marvel guitar line comes in full size electrics, 3/4 size electrics and half size acoustic guitars.

I don’t know about you, but that Iron Man guitar is just begging to have a certain Black Sabbath song played on it- that’s right, Paranoid 8). Each one has stunning superhero artwork graphics across the body.

That’s pretty bad-ass. The half-sized acoustic guitars even have graphics on the headstock, like this Incredible Hulk one below:

There’s even accessories available like guitar picks and the guitar strap below which has some superheroes not available on the guitars like Punisher and Ghost Rider:

Retail prices range from $139 to $399 for the electric guitars and just $59 for the acoustic. They are available here on Amazon or at your local guitar shop.

Peavey Marvel Superhero Guitars

A Record Player that Plays Tree Rings

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:29:09 +0000

If trees could talk, what would they say? Well they don’t actually talk, they play music. Sort of. Bartholomäus Traubeck, a modern day Lorax, has created this specially designed record player called “Years” that visually scans a slice of wood and maps out the color and texture of the tree’s rings into a piece of music. Listen to the silent trees in the video below:

The knot makes it pretty interesting sounding. Ambient and minimalist. The camera is a hacked Playstation Eye Camera. Since every tree’s rings are different, Years plays each record sized slice of tree trunk in a unique way. (via next web)

A Record Player that Plays Tree Rings

Earbud Knitting Kit

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:02:57 +0000

If you think that I’m going to knit my own earbud wraps I have two words for you: Knitter Please. But apparently a lot of people are into this whole “do it yourself” thing (probably the same people who are anti-robots, drive manual transmission cars powered by leftover oil, and wash dishes by hand in their mud and straw house they built using a pulley attached to a bicycle for power while bowing down to their red-headed noodling guitar hero Trey Anastasio) and would love the Earbud Knitting Kit.

The kit comes with everything you need to knit your own tangle preventing earbud cozy and accompanying pouch- which is basically some yarn and needles and instructions from my perspective. Comes in “eggplant” or “sage”, just like you plan on naming your first two kids. $25 at Uncommon Goods.

Earbud Knitting Kit

MiniSkull Speaker

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:45:43 +0000

The MiniSkull Speaker from French duo Kuntzel+Deygas has to be one of the more handsome and unique speakers we’ve ever seen. Handcrafted from walnut to look like a skull, these speakers not only look great, they are serious audio pieces. Inside is a pair of Fostex Fe-83 speakers with a banana leaf pulp membrane (which forms the eyes of the skull). There’s also a custom made Mosfet amplifier inside to boost sound levels. These 50 watt beauties measure about 10 inches tall, run about $2000 each and you can array 5 of them to create the coolest looking surround system ever. They take 4-8 weeks to produce and ship, so don’t count on getting them in time for Christmas- this year.

MiniSkull Speaker

Tembo Trunks Silicone iPod Earphone Amplifiers

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:54:28 +0000

Here’s something a little different- Tembo Trunks look like some sort of silicone kitchen tool but they are actually iPhone earphone amplifiers. These stackable, collapsible, speakers work with your standard issue white Apple earbuds (other earbuds might fit too). You slip your earphones in the back and it can raise the volume of music to 80db (about a 30db increase). Check out the video here to see and hear them in action, you can see how they collapse when not in use too:

They use a simple acoustical horn shape to raise the sound levels up. The cool thing about Tembo Trunks is that they don’t require any batteries or power, no cables or wires, are waterproof, dustproof, stackable and fail proof. They come in 5 color choices for $39.

Tembo Trunks Silicone iPod Earphone Amplifiers

Behringer 10,000 Watt iNuke Boom is the World’s Loudest iPod Dock

Craziest Gadgets Jeff — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:45:49 +0000

Behringer will be introducing the iNuke Boom at this year’s CES show, claiming it is the world’s loudest iPod dock. If you’re at the show just listen for the 10,000 watts of sound or look for the 8 foot wide, 4 foot tall, 700 pound monster speaker. See that little tiny speck on top of the speaker in the picture above? That’s an iPod lol. You can actually pony up the $29,999.99 MSRP for this if you want, although I’d hate to ask what the shipping on a 700 pound speaker would be. Put one in every room of your house.

Behringer 10,000 Watt iNuke Boom is the World’s Loudest iPod Dock