Artsy iPod dock makes you look and sound rich
If Apple's "I am rich" app limits your ways to show off, no worries. Here's another product that can help you do that with style, and is substantially more eye-catching, better sounding, and, most importantly, more expensive.
It's called the Art.Suono Wireless Music Transmission System and iPod Dock and it costs $1,500. Designed by David Wiener Ventures, which makes products under the DWV and Ferrari brands, the Art.Suono is a limited-edition, luxury iPod-compatible product that works as both an audio instrument and, depending on your tastes, a piece of art.
The product uses a proprietary wireless transmission technology that lets users transmit any audio source--including iPods, iPhones, computers, CD players, MP3 players, and satellite radio--to any audio system.
(Credit:
David Wiener Ventures)
According to DWV, the Art.Suono also incorporates an acoustic technology developed for the recording industry and used by artists such as Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and Paul McCartney. The product's proprietary circuitry, developed by Aphex Systems for DWV and now used for the first time in a consumer product, promises to make your recorded music sound more "alive."
DWV claims the Art.Suono iPod dock can restore the harmonics lost in compressed music files and provides a sense of spaciousness as well as clarity so each instrument and voice is clear and distinct. At the same time, it optimizes bass frequency response to provide deeper, more resonant bass.
Specs-wise, the product features docking and charging for any iPod model and is made of machined aluminum and carbon fiber accents. The 5-pound Art.Suono comes with a receiver, also in machined aluminum, that can be displayed or hidden. Each Art.Suono can power up to two receivers so multiple music systems may be used at a time.
Start saving, as the Art.Suono system will be available in October. I think this is such a cool product, especially the notion of making my music sound more alive. However, whether or not it's $1,500 cool, I guess I'll have to wait 'til my next big promotion, which basically means I'll probably end up having to pass.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
Haha, audiophiles are so dumb... sell anything at a premium and they think they can "hear the difference" and part with $$$.
iPods have crap DACs and until Apple uses better components the resulting sound will be average at best.
Digital audio recorded at a high bit-rate with good DACs and low or no compression can sound very good. The Apple DAC? Junk. No dock in the world will fix that. Garbage in, garbage out you know? The music that comes out is only as good as it's source. This dock is the equivalent of putting a Porsche badge on a Pinto and expecting Porsche performance.
However, sometimes the best components are expensive due to discreet circuits and hand-assembly. Some stuff is just over-priced junk. A certain brand of cables comes to mind...
BUT I'm assuming how this little guy works is that it looks for patterns or certain sound bits (so a certain range of low, mid, highs, etc.) and tweaks it by either adding in a generally compatible sound or tweak it up like a tricked out equalizer. Kind of like a live, self-adjusting EQ as the sound changes, or using sounds sound generally like the one's usually dropped in compressed songs. So maybe it doesn't fully restore it, but does a pseudo restoration with similarly equivalent sound bits that are meant to replace the ones dropped in the compression.
..or so I'm speculating, anyways.
- by MegaRichMadness October 16, 2008 4:13 PM PDT
- If people were really rich they'd check out www.iammegarich.com. Why not just show the world you're obscene wealth?
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