We know that Dan is a big fan of the Sonos Wireless HiFi system based on his reviews last year of the PLAY:5 and PLAY:3, as well as his recent video showing how easy it is to set up the system. One thing that holds some people back from a Sonos system is the cost associated with it. Even though these are high-performance systems, the initial entry cost may be high enough to cause some hesitation in the purchasing process. (Though Dan has said to me that it is well worth it.) Well, Target is sweetening the deal for a limited time, so if you haven’t yet made the jump and are interested, read on.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Native Instruments is one of the pioneers in the virtual instrumentation market. Back in the 90′s, you needed a bunch of physical instruments chained together with a MIDI processor to get all the sounds you wanted. Each had a labyrinthine interface and special requirements and non-standard settings. NI came out with the first modular virtual synthesizer, perhaps before computers were ready for them! Since then they have remained on the forefront of virtual instrumentation and sound production tools, and now they are giving away free limited versions of their most popular and powerful tools!

Here is what they say about themselves:

Native Instruments is a leading manufacturer of software and

Have I mentioned how much I love my Sonos system? (I have? More than once? Oh, right.) I really do love it. Sonos lets me have my music in a variety of different rooms or in all my rooms and it lets me listen to my music collection, Pandora, RDIO and more. As of today the “and more” includes one of my other favorite music services, Slacker Music. As the company explains,

Slacker® Radio is now available as a free music service on Sonos in the United States and Canada. With Slacker on Sonos you can tune in for free to over 150 expert-programmed stations and create unlimited custom stations from a

From the Editorial Staff of Gear Diary: Is there someone in your life who loves music? If so, here are five gifts with which you can’t go wrong.

First off, Sonos. Dan hasn’t stopped raving about the Sonos wireless music system he installed a few months ago. Sonos is the best way to get lots of music in lots of room at a fairly affordable price. Better still, the system can grow with you as you add more and more components. You can read our reviews here, here and here.

The Play:3 is just $299 in our Amazon Affiliate Store. The Play:5 is $100 more at $399

Elana is all but sick of hearing my content refrain of “Have I told you how much I love our Sonos System?” It is at that point that she reminds me that, while she enjoys the music when it is on, the Sonos system is definitely my baby. She’s right. It is one of the best purchases I have ever made. Here is the thing though: the Sonos system worked for me for two reasons. First, at the time I didn’t have a serious music system in the house and, second, I was willing to make the investment to set up Sonos in a bunch of different rooms. And believe me, getting the entire house… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

In my experience, new iOS applications fall into one of a number of categories. There are “Wow” apps; these are the ones that are released into the iTunes App Store that blow you away from the very start. There are “Ow!” apps; these are the ones that are released into the iTunes App Store, and you wonder how they ever got through Apple’s screening process in the first place. Then there are “Not quite now” apps; these are the applications that show a great deal of promise, but are not quite there… yet. You want to keep them on your device because you know that they’ll be updated, and it’s abundantly clear that when the updates… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Great news for those of us who love their Sonos audio system. (Here’s our review.) The Mac desktop software is finally Lion compatible! Here’s the email that just came in:

Update: Sonos is now Lion-friendly

Good news: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion works with Sonos®. Even better news: the solution is ready for download. Just select Check for Updates in the Sonos menu on your Sonos Controller for Mac. Now you can play all the music stored on your Mac in every room with Sonos and use Lion. Problem solved.

Thank you for your patience as we worked out this incompatibility issue. We’re sorry if this interrupted your music listening

A few weeks ago we took a look at the Monster Cable iSport waterproof headphones. They are pricey but sound great and are, in fact, truly waterproof. They are machine washable!! If you don’t need the same level of audio quality but still want waterproof headphones JLab’s Wave headset is worth a look. While the Wave is not machine washable it IS waterproof and has the huge advantage of not requiring a separate mp3 player. You see, the Wave IS the mp3 player. It MAY look like a pair of in-ear headphones connected by a ridged neck wire but the Wave headphones house 2GB of storage and the mp3 player. That makes the Wave… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Imagine if back in 2006 someone told you that RIM was offering a music plan for the Blackberry that would allow you to get 50 songs per month, share them with all of your friends who also have a Blackberry, unlimited and on-demand. And that it would have cost $5 a month!

You would likely have lamented that you couldn’t also get them on your PC or iPod … but would otherwise been pretty thrilled and signed up immediately!

This was the time before the iPhone, before Spotify and Slacker, and when RIM ruled the enterprise phone market. This was before RIM was bleeding market share … well, because of moves like… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Last night I was listening to my iPod touch and an awesome song came on that I had never heard. I looked up the name and it turns out it was “All the World”  from the self-titled album Fauxliage. Having never heard of the group I did a quick Wikipedia search of the band. This is what I found:

Fauxliage is a musical project made by members of the Canadian electronic music group Delerium (which, in turn, is made up largely of members of the seminal industrial band Front Line Assembly) and Leigh Nash in 2007. The vocals are performed exclusively with Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer.

I had… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

It looks funny. It does exactly what it promises. And, at least for me, it is in the running for “iOS Accessory of the Year”.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit but I’m pretty serious about how cool I think this iOS hardware/app combination is. The Griffin Beacon is the universal remote on steroids. With this odd piece of plastic powered by four AA batteries and a free download from the App Store I have taken my Samsung HDTV remote, my TiVo remote AND my Apple TV remote and put them away. Now all I need is one of my iOS devices and I have total control over the media in my den… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Headphones… We’ve check out a bunch. Some have impressed us. Some… Not so much. So when a new pair of headphones come on the market we want to check them out. And when they come from a company we know we are even more interest. That’s the case here with the new offerings from Able Planet.

Judie introduced Able Planet to Gear Diary readers in this post way back in 2008. Mike looked at pair of their gaming headphones in this post. And Judie checked out a pair of their headphones with active noise cancellation here. I met with the company at CES 2010 and was impressed by their approach. Now… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Want richer bass, higher clarity and an all around enhanced audio experience? Bongiovi Acoustics: Bongiovi DPS (Digital Power Station) technology has it. The technology is currently available in iHome dock stations and select Toyota models and, for the first time, Bongiovi’s technology is available as an iOS app. The technology ”re-masters your compressed digital audio files at the source and then, using device specific profiles, optimizes the output for your listening device (headphone, speaker, earbud, etc).”

I tried the iOS app and was rather impressed with the enhanced audio pumped out by my iPod touch and my iPad.

As the… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

When Spotify finally came to the US I was quick to jump on it. I like using streaming, subscription music services a great deal. I like the flexibility. I love being able to download and listen to pretty much whatever I choose for a small fee each month. Sure, I already have a huge music collection but there’s a ton of music I want to hear that isn’t part of it and there are enough tunes that it would cost me a small fortune to purchase all of them. I tried Rhapsody for a while and while I got hooked on the subscription idea I didn’t like the service too much. That let me to my… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

We have had a fair bit of coverage of the Sonos Wireless Hi-Fi System over the past few weeks. As I noted in my initial review of the system, I only had the review units in my home for 23 hours before I went and ordered my own. I was impressed by the ease of use, the overall sound quality, and the vast amount of music that was available to me through the Sonos eco-system. It was by no means an inexpensive purchase but I have not had a single moment of buyer’s remorse. At this point I am a Sonos evangelist and have gotten at least two other homes… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...