Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
Disappointing Q3 Results for iRiver: sales up 4.2% compared to previous quarter but net profit down 26.4%. Side-fact: 3 out of 4 players they’re selling are flash-based. Sony’s figures ain’t that good either with net profits down by 47%. Also read: Creative’s Q1 results.
Sprint Music Store launches: Sprint believes you’ll pay $2.50 to buy a track directly to your cellphone (downloaded over the air). Hmmm… Anyway, they’re kicking off their mobile music store with a selection of 300,000 tracks and if you sign up, you get 5 free downloads (have to redeem them within a month).
SigmaTel’s STMP3600 chipset sounds very impressive: increased battery life, wide audio/video support, USB On-The-Go, Mass Storage compliance, parametric EQ, gapless audio support. One thing’s sure: it looks good on paper. According to the press release, we’re to expect devices using these chipsets in Q4 2005 which is… now—where are they? Also: just because a chipset [...]
Deal: Refurbished HP iPod (20GB) for $187 [via]
Meier-Audio’s Corda Aria headphone amp: limited edition (500 pieces only), built-in DAC, can be connected to a USB port on your computer. First reviews coming in confirm that it sounds AWESOEM for its money. Having enjoyed another amp of Dr. Jan Meier ourselves, it’s not difficult to imagine this. Anyway, $395 for US residents, $450 [...]
Comparison: Sonic Impact T-AMP versus other Class-T amplifiers: to refresh your memory, the Sonic Impact T-AMP is this $40 amplifier with an out-of-this world performance (for its price range). [via]
Proposing a new score for the music business: Pearlman, a visiting Long Island scholar and occasional lecturer at McGill University, says all music downloads should be priced at 5 cents (fine by us). And if the record labels won’t do it, he says Google/Yahoo!/Apple/etc. should just buy them and move on with his plan. “If [...]
Apple to replace any 5G iPods that exhibit hardware failure: they’ve authorized service providers in Europe/Latin America/Asia-Pacific to replace 5G iPods that exhibit “any type of hardware failure,” including “those that would normally be classified as abuse.” This is for a limited time only. No reason has been cited (are they doing it for some [...]
Kinda off-topic link of the day: Liz Phair’s passion for podcasting: “”I’m all about podcasting. I’m totally fixated on it. It’s what I’m into.” Liz Phair’s podcasts.
Creative announces the I-Trigue L3800 speakers: 2.1, going for $150, and the most interesting thing about them is that the IR remote control can be used to manage your Zen Vision/Sleek(+Photo)/Micro(+Photo) once they’re plugged in to the speakers’ port. If you like that enough to buy them, fine. But with a 80dB SNR, they’re far [...]