Blue Announces Nessie USB Adaptive Microphone

Oh snap, we've found Nessie the Loch Ness monster! Well not really, but Blue's latest consumer microphone pays a bit of homage to the mythical creature with its unique design. Blue's Nessie is a $100 adaptive USB desk mic designed for non-professionals looking to record voiceovers, vocals, instruments and more without having to tinker around with knobs and settings. The Nessie automatically sets the appropriate EQ, de-esser and level controls depending on what you're recording in real time to produce professionally enhanced, and expertly finished sound without any post editing on your part. The Nessie features a studio grade, built-in pop filter and shock mount that help reduce both vibrations from a desk, and disruptive plosives for a clean polished sound. 

The Nessie has a single internal mic condenser capsule with a carded pattern which can be adjusted up or down, and a zero-latency headphone output complete with volume and mute controls for monitoring your audio as you record it. And that's not all the Nessie has to offer. In case you'd like to take things into your own hands, there are three types of recording modes that are optimized for richer vocals, more detailed instruments and straight up raw audio recording which you can set yourself and edit in post production. You can even directly connect the Nessie to your iPad using Apple's camera adapter. Looks for Blue's Nessie USB mic to be released in Q1 2013.

Audyssey Debuts Lower East Side Audio Dock Air With AirPlay

Our favorite speaker dock maker, Audyssey, has announced of a new AirPlay wireless music streaming machine of a speaker dock called the Lower East Side Audio Dock Air. Yes that's a long time, and yes this is in many ways similar to the good old South Of Market speaker dock we reviewed and fell in love with last year, only with less of a head turning streamline design. Audyssey's latest and greatest promises to outperform any comparably priced AirPlay audio dock on the market thanks to Audyssey's proprietary Smart Speaker technology. These are big words we can just about believe after using Audyssey's South Of Market dock. Wireless streaming is obviously the main focus here, so much that there isn't an actual dock to dock your iPhone or iPod. You'll be able to stream music from your computer using iTunes and with iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad with AirPlay.

under the hood, the Lower East Side Audio Dock Air is packing two 4-inch passive bass radiators for that signature rumbling deep lows Audyssey is known for, two 3-inch midrange woofers, two 1-inch tweeters all delivering distortion-free, power and precise sound quality. If you feel like using some cables, there are 3.5mm line input and 3.5mm headphone output ports as well. Good sound doesn't come cheap, you'll be dropping $400 on the Lower Easy Side Audio Dock Air. It'll be available starting November. 

NuForce Icon iDo Amp Adds Audiophile Grade Audio To iPod, iPhone & iPad

NuForce has released a new amp called the Icon iDo that promises to improve your iPod, iPad and iPhone's compressed audio quality to CD quality sound by bypassing Apple's own built-in DAC (digital-to-analog-converter) by connecting to your Dock Connector port via USB to deliver audiophile grade audio playback with low-jitter. All that sounds great until you find out that you need to plug the Icon iDo to an external power supply to power it up. Not so portable now is it? But with that extra power, the Icon iDo amp can power up those juice-hungry headphones of yours without a sweat. It can also be plugged into your home stereo system with its RCA and digital Coaxial outputs. NuForce's Icon iDo amp features an LED volume indicator gauge on the front with a smooth volume knob and an aluminum enclosure. Available in 4 colors for $249.

HTC Partners Up With Beats By Dr. Dre, Sounds Good

Big news today as HTC announced its partnership and 51% stake acquisition of Beats Electronics, the company responsible for that sleek Beats By Dr. Dre line of most wanted headphones, and more recently speakers docks worldwide. Full details are yet to be announced as to what exactly this partnership will bring to the table, and most importantly to the consumers. It's very safe to say that we're going to see HTC incorporating Beats By Dr. Dre speakers in their well made handsets in the very near future just like HP has done with their Beats branded laptops.

HTC could have a big advantage over competitors if it will use the Beats audio in their handsets or even offer bundles that include a Beats branded headset along with a handset. Expect to see a whole lot of HTC smartphones in music videos.

Monster Unleashes All New Beats Products

Today Monster announced a slew of new audio products to the current line of Beats audio products. The new offerings from Monster include the more serious Beats Pro that are designed more for DJing use which cost $450, $100 more than the Beats Studio headphones. The Powerbeats are a collaboration with both Dr. Dre and LeBron James that are designed for athletes and active people who need to have a secured fit, these will run you $180. The iBeats are in-ear earbuds with ControlTalk for controlling your music and taking calls. With an all-metal housing, the $100 iBeats are similar to Monster's other offerings like the Turbine and Jamz. 

As you can see from the image above there are also the purple Just Beats which might be similar to the current Solo line but with other colors. We have no info on those as of yet. Monster has finally introduced a speaker dock for the iPhone and iPod called the Beatbox for a hefty price tag of $450, Monster says these will provide the signature Beats sound you will love and recreate a club experience with deep bass and sound that will fill a room and might get the cops knocking on your door. You can now pre-order the Beats Pro, iBeats and Powerbeats and expect them to be released in mid October. 

Source Beatsbydre