Audi Car Concept Sees 62 Speakers Added For 360 Surround Sound [Cars]

Considering my car is bombed out in a shed somewhere, I'd be happy with any car—but given half the chance I'd love to see this Audi Q7, complete with all 62 speakers, in my garage.

It's the Audi Sound Concept, which sees the car manufacturer's engineers cramming in 52 mid-range speakers, five woofers and five tweeters into one of their small Q7 cars, with speakers hidden in the dashboard, ceiling and doors. Sound like overkill? It probably is—but Audi's used "wave field synthesis," an audio rendering technique which doesn't have many compatible audio tracks that are playable with the audio system, so this is very much a prototype showing The Future, if nothing else.

If the car ever does turn up on a showroom floor, good luck driving it away on holiday—there's no boot to stow your luggage, with most of it being used to hold the amplifier and cables.

What a shame only 32 tracks can be played on the system so far. If I was driving that baby, I'd crank up some Queen extra-loud.

[Gizmodo via Gizmag]

Psyko 5.1 Gaming headset now available in USA and Canadee-i-o [Surround]

The Psyko 5.1 gaming headset has fascinated us for nigh on a year now but it is finally reaching the masses. The headset is available today on NewEgg and a number of other exciting online retailers.



The headphones cost We did a hands-on at CES.


[CrunchGear]

A Surround Sound Speaker, Not a Dartboard [Home Theater]

The EOps i24R3 Portable isn't just the product of a design student and a 3D modeling program. It's a real, wireless, waterproof, single-speaker surround sound system that was just announced by Hong Kong designer Michael Young. How does it work?
The design is basically one sealed sound chamber filled with enough speakers for an authentic surround sound experience: four, 2.6-inch flat speakers and two, 4.5-inch passive radiator speakers. You'll find a 2x10W Class D amplifier squeezed in that shell as well.
Plugging in or operating off a built-in lithium polymer battery, the i24R3 has no inputs, instead receiving signals over 2.4GHz wireless USB or A2DP Bluetooth—yes, from software like iTunes and devices like iPhones.
And while we have no idea how it actually sounds or how much it actually costs, we have too many regularly-intoxicated friends with too good of access to aerodynamic implements to ever invest in one of our own. [Gizmodo via Michael Young via The Design Blog]

Victor JVC announces a very pretty, very thin home theater sound system

Victor JVC has announced [JP] a new home theater sound system for the Japanese market today, consisting of a set of two speakers (SP-FT1/FT2) and the corresponding amplifier (AX-FT1/FT2). And the system is very pretty, mainly because the speakers are just 30.8mm thin and weigh 0.85kg each.

At 31mm, the amplifier is a tiny bit thicker and weighs 0.73kg.It features 20W×4ch(4Ω) average power output and Dolby Digital DTS and AAC support. You can either hang the speakers up on a wall or use a stand that Victor JVC throws in.

The sound system will go on sale in Japan at the end of this month. No announcements for markets outside Japan were made, but Japanese buyers will have to pay $260 for the amplifier and $220 for the speaker set. The system will be available in black and white.
[CrunchGear]