Dolby wants to make your next PC sound experience more pleasant and to that end it’s updating its PC Entertainment Experience program with new audio features and more. This program was first launched more than four years ago.

The Dolby PC Entertainment Experience program consists of several Dolby audio post-processing and connectivity technologies. The company specifically put into second generation Dolby Home Theater and Dolby Sound Room. New features of the former, geared towards a surround sound experience, include a sound stage enhancer, bass enhancement and a virtual 7.1 surround sound experience.

MXL has announced the release of what they are boasting as the world’s first “plug and play” USB microphone that features 24Bit/96 kHz recording. According th MXL the new USB.009 microphone can deliver “world class sound reproduction” by simply plugging the USB connection into an ordinary laptop running Windows or a Mac OS. Before making an effort to audition for the next American Idol you may want to use this guy to get an accurate listen of your voice, first. It might just save you an embarrassing spot on prime time television.

The MXL USB.009 microphone features a recording capability of up to 96kHz, a gold sputtered diaphragm, 24-bit A/D and D/A converters, and a dynamic range of 114 dB. It also houses an adjustable level control, mix control and a 1/8th-inch stereo headphone jack all withing the microphone. And our favorite part is the blue LED light that glows inside the microphone grill letting you know its powered on and of course giving it just the right amount of geeky-coolness.

Little by little technology continues to work towards integrating your digital life with the not-yet digital portions of your world, and Logitech is bringing it a step closer this year by unveiling the Lotitech Squeezebox Duet music system. This new system being launched at CES 2008 consists of a receiver box and a handheld controller that brings digital music from your computer to your living room, entertainment center, kitchen or just about anywhere you like to listen to music around your house.

The receiver is connected via WiFi (802.11g) to your computer (PC, Mac, Linux) and can be configured to find and play your personal music collection wirelessly. The receiver is then connected to your home entertainment center through standard audio cables to bring your digital music out of your office and into the rest of your home.

How badly do you want to make digital recordings of lectures you hear? Are you willing to shell out around $400 for the product to do this? That is the cost of the new Marantz Professional PMD620, which its maker says has been developed for “professional recording quality in a small, convenient package for hobbyists and professionals alike.”

The Marantz Professional PMD620 is a handheld digital recorder which is small and makes use of SD memory cards for data storage. It offers direct-to-MP3 recording in three quality settings as well as a fully uncompressed WAV format. There’s two built-in condenser microphones and also other input and output options to help you record and manage audio.

When innovation is elusive try novelty, right? Available in an assortment of colors and certified “Made For iPod”, Mountain Network Solutions unleashes an iPod docking station that will call attention to itself.

Included are the necessary adapters to dock any iPod that is docking capable. The unit will synchronize with iTunes and is controllable via a small remote for navigating playlists and adjusting volume, bass and treble.

Today’s the day Sony decided to unveil video Walkmans to the US for the first time with the NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series Walkman media players. Both players support an open platform for downloading and saving music and video content to coincide with Sony phasing out its CONNECT music service.

The players come in capacities of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB and in colors of black, pink, red and silver. The higher end NWZ-A810 model has a 2-inch QVGA (320 by 240) LCD, comes packaged with some high-end noise isolation earbuds and has a battery life that supports video playback of up to 8 continuous hours. The NWZ-A810 is targeting a little bit younger crowd with a 1.8-inch LCD and features an FM tuner and a little more battery life for continuous video of 9.5 hours. Both models promise to provide an impressive 33 hours of continuous music playback.

Targus has been well known for making computer bags, backpacks and other small computer accessories such as mice and keyboards. Today the company announced the SoundUP, designed to work inline with your headphones to improve the sound quality of compressed audio media.

The SoundUP device itself measures about the same size if not bigger than many MP3 players with dimensions of 3″ x 1.5″ x 7/8″ and a weight of just under 2 ounces. Targus says it uses a High Definition Sound Enhancer to …

Creative has quietly brought to American shores a Zen MP3 player which has built-in speakers. The Zen Wav is on sale through Wal-Mart in 2GB and 4GB sizes.

The Creative Zen Wav, announced earlier this year, lets you play your standard MP3 and WMA music files as well as view AVI files and digital images on its 1.5-inch color display. The player gets up to 30 hours of playtime through headphones or 20 hours through its speakers before needing the battery recharged. You also get a FM radio to entertain you when really bored.

The Pure Evoke 1-S is a DAB digital radio that marries old school technology with the new. Its retro design gives it a look like it emerged from a portal straight from the mid 20th century, but the OLED display identifies it as modern all the way.

As one of the company’s third generation digital radios it comes with an auxiliary input for your iPod or MiniDisc player, USB upgradability, built-in FM reception for areas with reduced DAB coverage and Pure’s Intellitext and textSCAN features. There are also station presets, the display can …

The nosy sleuths (and we like nosy) at Unwired View discovered a very interest patent application filed yesterday by Apple Computer for a “Dynamic lyrics display for portable media devices.” Apple’s filing explains that “The text being displayed is associated with and synchronized to the media content being presented.” Hmm, doesn’t that sound a lot like what a karaoke player does? Essentially Apple is claiming the patent on karaoke functions on a PMP but there is at least one device out there that does exactly that, Asus’ Z801 flip phone.

Even if Apple doesn’t wind …

Our British readers can now head on down to their closest Currys or Currys Digital outlet and buy one of the new Pure talkSPORT DAB digital radios available exclusively at these two chains. The impetus for owning a talkSPORT DAB is that with the press of one button listeners can tune in to the United Kingdom’s biggest commercial sports station (which also goes by the name of talkSPORT…hmm.)

The Pure ONE talkSPORT Edition (£49.99) gives you DAB and FM radio reception along with a pair of features named textSCAN (essentially it’s scrolling DAB …

Ion Audio gets how important it is to back up your vinyl collection to a digital format. The company announced today two new USB turntables designed to help convert your LPs into MP3s.

The Ion Audio iTTUSB05 ($150) and iTTUSB10 ($250) turntables come with a USB port for single-cable connection to a Mac or PC and allow for playing albums while at the same time copying them. Both come with software for copying music off the vinyls, including a program for converting tracks directly to iTunes. Other features of the new USB turntables include dust covers to protect the record, stylus and slip mat; built-in pre-amps eliminating the need for an audio receiver with phono-in jack; integrated RCA cables; and 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM playback speeds.

If you worry about your child blowing out his eardrums as he rocks out on his iPod, Mad Catz is preparing to debut earphones which could remedy this problem. The company will begin selling in September the AirDrives.

The AirDrive earphones are based upon the designs of a company Mad Catz acquired in 2006 called InAir Technology. These earphones “were created with speakers that lay on the outside of the ear, which helps to deliver rich, natural sound and makes them more comfortable than conventional ear buds and earphones.” The AirDrives have a magnesium design for lightweight, directional sound control and come in standard ($100) and small ($70) sizes.

This computer-based DJ system looks cool, if for no other reason, because it has a whole lot of dials and switches and lights all over it. In fact it has a nice advanced MIDI control surface of mixer and player controls with over 76 different buttons, sliders and knobs, two scratch wheels and one touchpad. It also has LED volume and progress meters for easy monitoring.

The Torq Xponent is designed to be an all inclusive package of hardware and software that’s compatible with Mac’s and PC’s which allows …

Twinbird is known for it’s waterproof gadgets and the latest they’ve brought to the market is an MP3 player with some pretty cool underwater-able features.

The SD ZABADY is the latest from the company and provides a measly 128MB of internal storage for your audio media, however it does have an SD card slot capable of handing cards up to 2GB. It has an LCD screen to show what’s playing and for navigation, connects and transfers files via USB 2.0, and has built-in speakers.