Gadgets Blog » MP3

It’s a bit odd to write about today’s gadget, a device that triggered a cultural revolution around the time I was born. Portable music may have been a 20th-century invention, but the advent of the MP3 and the iPod has spectacularly transformed how we think about music here in the 21st century. The idea of carrying a tape, or even a CD, around just to get our music fix seems archaic. I could listen to my iPod for 31 straight days and not hear the same song twice.

In an era before this technology, Sony’s compact device transformed the world, laying to rest the 8-track cassette and rendering the vinyl record a collector’s item. The Walkman was released in 1979, and as the design became more portable and sleek, sales continued to climb. Sony sold a staggering 220 million cassette tapes around the world in the three decades following its release.

But on Friday of last week, the last Walkman on Japanese soil rolled off the production line, bringing an end to its 30-year run. The advent of compact discs stole a considerable portion of the Walkman’s market share, leading to the updated Discman. According to Sony, there remains a strong market for the Walkman in other places in the world, but Japan’s rapid adoption of other technology has, sadly, rendered the tape deck obsolete.

Sony revolutionized the world of portable music with the introduction of the Walkman. These days though, the electronics giant has been relegated to the back-seat in the market they once helped define. With MP3 players like the Zune and iPod making up the vast majority of the market, Sony has needed other ways to stay relevant in the playing field. Luckily for us though, the company still turns out some great gadgets, like today’s Cool Item on a Budget, the Sony MHC-EC79i BoomBox. Priced at around $120, this stereo packs a lot of punch in a small package, making it great for the bedroom or office.

First and foremost, the marketing guys over at Sony need to do something about their product names. The “MHC-EC79i” is no exception, either. With its seemingly random alpha-numerical title, it’s not likely to bolster any sort of recognition like competitior products such as the iHome. Yet by the same token, this makes our gadget an excellent buy for the consumer, as we don’t have to pay premium for brand recognition. The stereo comes in a compact shape, featuring a CD player as well as a dock that works with any Apple iPod products. Unfortunately the same dock only works with Apple products, so if you have a different brand of MP3 player (including even a Sony player), you’re out of luck.

Despite these limitations, the sound quality on the stereo is quite high. With two plastic cabinets, the acoustics aren’t anything a serious audiophile would appreciate, but the balance of bass, mids, and treble make for a solid player for casual use. What’s more, the issues with the iPod dock can easily be skipped over via the axillary port on the back of the unit, meaning you can play music off of any device with an 1/8 – inch jack on it. This is great flexibility for such a small unit, and allows the stereo to play music from computers, MP3 players, and most cell phones.

Finding quality computer speakers can be a real chore, and it’s easy to see why with the wide variety of options available. While surround sound and stereo systems are designed for a specific audio function, be it movies or music, computer speakers must instead inhabit the middle-ground, needing to be versatile in application while still packing an aural punch. Additionally, computer speakers have to compete with other office electronics for desk space, making larger and bulkier units a hassle.

Enter the Bose Companion 3 Series II computer speaker set. In spite of its long and awkward name, these speakers offer up a great combination of quality, price, and style to make them great for all types of audio. The setup is straightforward and space-saving: two stand-mounted speakers rest on either side of the computer with a beefy but compact subwoofer going somewhere nearby, or even under the desk.

Seeing as it’s a Bose unit, there are some fair expectations about sound quality at stake, and these speakers do not disappoint. Using Bose TrueSpace Signal Processing, the speakers are able to add spaciousness and ambiance to the sound, giving the speakers a larger-than-life quality. Bass frequencies are crisp and punchy thanks to the subwoofer, which provides ample boost to the low end without overwhelming the speakers. Volume can easily be controlled by the disc-shaped control know, offering auxiliary and headphone jacks in a compact unit.

The flexibility of the speakers is a great asset. They can easily be transported due to their small size, and they perform well with a variety of sound. Although they don’t have the volume levels of some larger systems, the clarity present at low volumes more than makes up for this. Movies sound as though they are in surround sound, and MP3s have a light and crisp tone to them, with vocals in particular sounding lush in the mix. There’s no way to adjust the EQ on the speakers, which should be alright if your computer or MP3 player offers the ability to do this, but it would have been a nice touch.