Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone Speaker Dock

 

Everybody loves good music with good audio quality. Your iPhone may produce a good-enough sound quality for casual listening. But as an avid music lover, you may prefer a higher quality sound system for your iPhone (and iPod too), and there are situations where you may want to pump up the volume. What you’re looking for is the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone speaker dock.

Fluance is associated with high-end quality and the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone Speaker Doc does not disappoint, offering you a high quality speaker system matching a home theatre system. It comes with many high-end features such as two full-range woofers, an audio grade wood cabinet, ultra high-end tweeters, composite input and output jacks and a built in amplifier. At the same time, to live up to their home theatre system image, this speaker has a piano black glossy finish, to highlight the exclusive quality and workmanship.

There are several advantages of this iPhone and iPod speaker dock. First, a remote control is included. With the remote control, it’s much easier for you to make changes to the speaker settings to suit your preferences. Also, the audio functionality is designed to emulate that of a home theatre system. For example, the unit remains in standby mode when you power it down, very consumer friendly.

A few things to watch out for, keep in mind that the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone Speaker Doc does not run on battery, so this is not a portable unit. The high-end speaker system requires the AC/DC power to operate the higher powered audio amplifiers. It’s also been reported that you can experience a bit of audio distortion at really high volume. But at the majority of the output range, the sound quality is outstanding, distortion free and clean.

Despite a few of these shortcomings, overall, the Fluance FiSDK500 iPhone Speaker Doc is a great quality speaker system, and for under $200, it comes in at a good price compared to other comparable systems that can cost much more.

Available: Amazon

Price: $199.99

Papertronics DIY Lunar Landers

 

Remember when we were small and there was a phase where every single paper in the house became an origami figure? Then there would be dozens of those little cranes, spiders, or pianos placed on top of the television, dining tables and also the floor where in the end they all would just end up in the rubbish bins thrown away by your very own beloved mother. Yes,

I’m sure that you would’ve wished that the origami figurines could do something and actually be useful in the house so that you could make dozens more of them and your mom wouldn’t even say a word. Gadget creators also felt the same way and that is why the Papertronics DIY Lunar Landers were created. They are small little paper toys that have circuits in them or more precisely a built in circuit origami figurine. What’s so special about it is that it is DIY which stands for Do It Yourself.

With this DIY characteristic, Papertronics DIY Lunar Landers enable the unique creativity of each and every person. Meaning that, your figurine might not be the same with another person’s figurine. Although the shape is basically the same the colours and patterns aren’t. It comes in a cool pack of three; Tabula Rasa, Spaceboy and Alien Girl. To encourage interactivity, Tabula Rasa is a blank Lunar Lander so that you can beautify it with your awesome creativity.

They can be turned into cool night lights, desk decor, and even party lights. When the spaceships are put in their landers in one way, the lights at the bottom of the Papertronic will light up. But when turned upside down, they will turn off. A cool gadget just to fulfil the dreams of many origami lovers.

Available: ThinkGeek

Price: $14.99

The Strumdrumano

 

Have you ever played Guitar Hero and happen to love the game? Is jamming buttons and moving your fingers up and down as if strumming invisible guitar threads something you enjoy? Well, if you do enjoy it, why not take a look at the Strumdrumano?

The Strumdrumano is a truly wicked instrument. At the first glance, most of you might mistake it for a regular Guitar Hero’s guitar and dismiss it from your thoughts. However, if you take a closer look at the device, you’ll notice some very interesting features.

For instance, by extending the folding neck, the device transforms into a guitar consisting of five buttons arranged side to side on a fret board. Whereas, on the body of the Strumdrumano, a strum bar detects movement of the hand and is capable of playing five distinctive and different styles of notes such as electric rock and so on. A whammy bar, on the other hand, modulates the sustained sounds or embellishes in a riff mode, producing impressive trills and arpeggios.

When the neck is folded away, there are four percussive sound effect pads that allow you to put your drumming skills to test, and if you’re not into that, there’s always a choice of flipping over the back to reveal a hidden piano and immerse yourself in various piano tunes. For a price of $69.95, the Strumdrumano offers a choice of three instruments and the ability of playing along with your choice of tunes by connecting it to a MP3 player.

Available: Hammacher

Price: $69.95

Piano Maestro

 

Playing the piano is a difficult task and you can hire a tutor to teach you but hiring tutors can be very expensive and it may take a couple of years for you to master it. So why not get an electronic teacher instead and learn it at your own pace. The Piano Maestro can help you with the piano and you do not have to rush for it. It teaches you the way you want it to teach you and there is no stress since there are no exams to take. It also takes a shorter period of time to learn to play the piano with the Piano Maestro.

Many companies like Casio has made electrical keyboards with ‘follow along’ LED lights but, it is impossible to master a song and follow the moving light when it never stops so this is where the Piano Maestro takes over. The Piano Maestro is basically a row of LED light that is placed above your piano keys and they will guide you on what key needs to be pressed. The music gadget is hooked to your computer and it will install software that will turn the song you want to play into a MIDI file which allows you to control the speed, bass or treble note to be played and many more.

When songs are turned into MIDI files, it immediately sets out a score sheet for you. The device cost about $169. Now you can learn to play the piano with the help of the Piano Maestro device and its software.

[Source: Piano Maestro]

Piano Stairs

 

What do you do when you are waiting for the train at the subway station? Catching up on the latest news with the newspaper? Listening to music with your iPod? Whatever you do, now there is a new music gadget for you to kill time at the subway station; you can now listen to music for free, the music will be uniquely composed and play only once on a daily basis.

In Jiangsu province of China, the staircase to the subway station has been turned into a Giant Piano, the daily commuters are the players for the day. Each step of the staircase produces a different tune; when people walk up and down the staircase and it make a unique harmony of tune for that day.

It may not be a Steinway piano but perhaps this could be an ingenious way to motivate people to use the staircase instead of the escalator. Walking is often deemed as a boring and exhausting exercise where few people enjoy. Converting staircase steps into piano keys, it gives life music to the commuter. Life is not boring when it is full of music. The last question probably is what the music will sound like during rush hours when all the steps are constantly being stepped on, would it be a loud bang of the entire tune?

If you think you are as talented as a renowned musician, and as fit as a marathon runner, you may think of running up and down to compose your own music. Looks like the buskers need to start thinking of a new gig.

[Source: China Daily]

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