Stuff Geeks Want

They are one of the smallest top quality 2.0 speakers on the market, yet they have a big range of sound. They’re the Creative Labs GigaWorks HD50 2.0 Multimedia Speaker.

Their rigid titanium super tweeters give you clear high notes, while built-in BasXport technology provides awesome bass. For a set of speakers no taller than a 12-ounce glass, they’re incredibly loud.

These are the perfect speakers for gaming on a PC as well. You’ll notice the clarity of sound effects and voices in games as well as booming explosions and rumbling atmospherics. These little puppies deliver an incredible sound at a good price.

Buy for $150 from Amazon

The iGo Green Power Tower Surge Protector is your power saving friend. It automatically cuts juice to devices when they’re in Standby mode but has four always-on plugs for constant running gadgets like a DVR or digital clock.

It’s energy-saving power management system with integrated iGo Green Technology automatically reduces wasted standby power. It automatically powers down outlets when not in use and powers back up again when devices need power – reducing standby power by up to 85 percent.

It includes an instant wake-up button to immediately power the outlets with iGo Green Technology, in addition to two USB ports to charge mobile phones. It features four fixed and four rotating outlets to accommodate all sizes and shapes of wall plugs.

Buy for $80 from iGo

To listen to Internet radio, Napster, MP3s and more, you need a bunch of equipment, right? Wrong. Wi-Fi music systems are picking up steam in time for the holidays and they’re now packing a lot of features and simplicity into small boxes.

Take for instance the Logitech Squeezebox Boom. It’s not the most elegant looking Wi-Fi radio, but specs-wise it’s a beaut.

As long as you’ve got a net-connected router or a WiFi connection, you’re ready to listen to tons of radio stations, internet-only stations, Last.fm, Napster and MP3 tunes. It packs 30 watts of sound from two 3/4-inch tweeters and two 3-inch woofers, as a auxiliary-in and headphone-in jacks, six memory presets, an optional subwoofer output, and remote.

As for sound, it’s much weightier and punchier than you’d think. It’s got XL Technology that allows its smaller speakers to achieve great results. It nicely fills even large rooms with decent sound…loud and clear, rich in low and mid frequencies with tweeters can handle the watts.

Buy for $272 from Amazon

We recently told you about five Blu-ray players below $200. But here’s a player plus surround sound system that delivers majestic picture quality and an absorbing sound stage.

The Panasonic SC-BT300 is a 1250 watt, 7.1 channel system that integrates a Blu-ray player and an audio receiver with a built-in iPod dock. The system is made up of two tall-boy speakers that sound fatter than they look, four small speakers for the surround/surround-back channels, a center channel and the subwoofer.

The receiver uses Panasonic’s VieraCast system that lets you download additional content via the Internet from services like Amazon’s Video On-Demand.

It’s a well-thought-out system that combines the same excellent video quality of the standalone Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-ray player with a solid ‘above-par’ 7.1 surround-sound speaker package.

Buy for $489 from Amazon

Are you a ’sound snob’? Looking for the perfect sound? This is about as close as you’re going to get to in-the-ear bliss…the Turbine Pro In-Ear Speakers.

The Turbine Pro headphones are shaped like the original Turbines. However, that’s where the similarities end: the Pros are much more lightweight and the metal housing is available in either gold or copper plated. The base of the In-ear speakers are made of a rugged heavy duty rubberized plastic and the 3.5mm jack is gold plated to achieve optimum contact.

The Turbine Pro comes with five advanced sound Isolating eartips, each one aimed to fit every ear size. There is also cord management on the Pro cabling so that they won’t get tangled.

No, these aren’t for someone replacing their chepo iPod earbuds Apple gave you. These are for serious music lovers looking for the ultimate.

Buy for $250 from Amazon

What good is an external audio mic for your laptop when so many now come with a mic built-in? Silly you, think outside the laptop!

The Go Mic from Samson Technologies provides incredible audio quality for podcasters or anyone who needs professional audio quality to record meeting, interviews and such.

It’s got a black clip which is used to attach it to the edge of your notebook and it swivels to adjust the audio pattern. On the side of the mic is a switch to toggle between three polar pattern settings. Omni picks up audio from all directions, cardioid is better for up close, while the 10db setting lets you to pick up close audio that refuses to quiet down. 

It’s a small mic that picks up sound like a much bigger mic but at less than half the cost. The Samson Go mic makes recording great audio simple.

Buy for $50 from Amazon

Altec Lansing has announced the latest addition of its inMotion family – the iMT620 inMotion Classic – and it’s getting some early accolades for good quality and advanced thinking.

It’s a portable music system designed for the iPod and iPhone. It features a built-in FM radio tuner with four station pre-sets, built-in carrying handle (which few have), an LCD display that shows source, song and artist info, a handy remote that clips on the back for easy storage, a rechargeable battery with a five hour life and the ability to charge the handset while you listen.

Various early reviews we’ve seen sing this portable boom boxes praises: from great sound via its digital processing and twin three-inch drivers, to it’s clean sound with no iPhone interferance, to it’s compact size and ability to fold flat for packing.

Kudos to Altec Lansing for a great product with some ingenious thinking.

Buy for $142 from Amazon

Did you forget about the Zune HD? You’re not alone. It was almost four months ago Microsoft announced it would be coming. Apple’s planning and immediate availability of products is not Microsoft’s style, to say the least.

But here it is and ready to buy in America only. It replaces the original, poorly received Zune, comes in 16 and 32 gigabyte models, has a multi-touch OLED touchscreen (something we haven’t seen in any Apple devices yet), HD (720p) video out, WiFi Internet access, built-in accelerometer, Web browser, a touch-screen QWERTY keyboard, and FM radio tuner with HD radio capability.

Microsoft has also revamped the Zune’s interface, which now moves fluidly from one screen to the next, and includes a ‘history’ tab that lets you to access, in one click, the last video, photo, radio station, Web site, or song you were playing. An on-screen keyboard allows letters to linger above your fingertip, making URL and search entries easier.

The Bummers: Access to HD radio and HD video out can only be done via the dock (which is sold separately), there’s no online app store and won’t be for some time and no Facebook or Twitter clients at launch (come on, Microsoft!).

Microsoft did announce plans to launch the Zune video service in 17 countries later this year, which suggests that the Zune HD player may be released in those countries soon as well.

Buy the 16GB model for $220 from Amazon

Buy the 32GB model for $290 from Amazon

Logitech added Thursday to its Squeezebox line of products with a new desktop WiFi Internet radio aptly named, well, the Squeezebox Radio (”Why don’t we just called it the ‘Radio’, guys? Yea, that’s a good name!”)

The Squeezebox Radio has been highly anticipated by many (including yours truly). There are a lot of Internet radios out there, but this one brings together a lot of features missing all on one unit together with a few new tricks…WiFi so you can stream your MP3, FLAC, WMA, WMA Lossless, AAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF collections plus thousands of internet radio stations and music services like Rhapsody, Napster, Pandora, Sirius, and Last.fm…a 2.4-inch color screen to display album art, artist/track information, and Flickr slideshows…a 3/4-inch tweeter and a three-inch woofer…802.11b/g WiFi and wired Ethernet standard…a line-in cord for most iPod and other MP3 players with a standard 3.5 mm jack…and social networking support so you can browse music recommendations from friends on Facebook or Twitter.

Buy in black for $180 from Amazon

Buy in red for $180 from Amazon

The iMainGo Portable iPod Speaker System has been around for a few years, but now comes the iMainGo 2. In short it’s a compact, portable speaker case that has room for an iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, Zune or a myriad of other MP3 players zipped inside. They’ve upgraded it with titanium speakers and a little bit more room for the iPhone and iPod touch.

What makes this standout is its design: your device on the left that plugs into speakers on the right using a 3.5mm plug. It’s got a compartment for four AA bateries (included) that give you a little less than 30 hours of battery life.

It’s great sound for the price that let’s you rock out on the go.

Buy for $40 from Amazon