Podcasting and home recording are popular hobbies for many around the world. The hobbies are easier to get into today thanks to the low cost of home recording equipment. Samson has announced a new home recording kit today called the Q2U Recording Pack.

The pack is cheap at $89 and includes everything you need to record at home. The kit includes a Q2U mic that can connect to a PC via USB and a mixing panel via XLR. Both the USB and XLR cables are included.

It doesn’t fly. Does not participate in cattle mutilation. There is no little grey man driving. This UFO dubbed the MobiBLU UFO, is a stylish looking audio player.

It does double duty as an MP3 player and a Bluetooth speaker/headset. Some specs include: Capacity at 2, 4, and 8GB, MP3, WMA, and Ogg, Built-in Speakers (2W), Bluetooth Support, Battery Life of 15 hours with headphones, and 5 hours with speakers. The design is different, that’s for sure.

Amplivox Sound Systems has introduced an all digital portable audio system. The SW915 Digital Audio Travel Partner with remote control and 250 watt amplifier. The new system can entertain an audience of around 10,000 and cover an area of 30,000 sq ft with crystal clear sound thanks to two 6.5 inch neodymium woofers.

In the standard package you’ll get a UHF 8-channel diversity internal wireless receiver with your choice of mic and transmitter, a CD/RW/MP3 disc player with pitch control plus SD card slot, and USB input. The SW915 can use either AC or replaceable 12 volt rechargeable batteries that will run 10 hours. It also features 3 Neutrik Combo XLR inputs for microphones or instruments.

You’re bound to either love this one or hate it. Be sure to let us know where you stand. ZVUE’s 1GB pre-loaded Journey MP3 player is of course decked out like an ’80s Journey Album cover on the outside.

Inside, you get 22 Journey tracks pre-loaded. 11 new, 11 that you’ve been sick of for years. It’s like buying Journey’s greatest hits album and getting a DAP as well. At $39.88, that’s like a $1.80 per song. So, do you want one? Or will you touch and go your separate ways?

AnythingbutiPod found some interesting info about the new and very plain looking Creative Zen Krystal. The new DAP sports 4GB of storage capacity, FM Tuner, blue OLED display, a built-in pedometer and support for MP3 and WMA file formats.

It will give you 10 hours of battery life, stopwatch, radio, clock and voice recorder. It measures 57mm x 37mm x 10.8mm. Comes with a pouch and wristband as well as standard earbuds and USB cable so it’s ready to use. It’s available at Creative’s Hong Kong site for about €55.

Alesis has come out with a product recently that takes advantage of the popularity and significant storage capacity available in the Apple iPods with a new digital stereo recorder that integrates with the media player. The ProTrack Stereo Handheld Recorder has sleds built into the design to securely dock your iPod inside and use it to store and playback digital audio recordings.

The ProTrack comes with two built-in stereo condenser microphones to pick up ambient sound, or you can plug in external mics or line-in audio sources to the 1/4-inch jacks. The recorder, like the iPod itself, is truly portable and runs up to five hours on four AAA batteries and can fall back on an AC power adapter if needed. They’ve even included a threaded mount on the bottom to hold it steady with things like a camera tripod.

As far as solar devices go, Thanko’s DAP actually looks pretty nice. I’ve seen much worse. In the front it looks like any other device with a 1.8-inch 220 x 176 resolution display, 4GB of internal storage space and a miniSD expansion slot.

But in the back is where you’ll find the solar panel that doubles as a stand for the unit. Just stand the whole thing up as shown and let it soak up the sun. It can also be charged via USB. No word on a price or release date, so who knows if we’ll ever see it in the U.S.

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 “separate and reprocess digital music files, providing a three dimensional sound envelope from your MP3 player”. The device promises to improve the overall sound of files that are compressed for size, bringing out instruments and music that normally would not be heard otherwise.

The device plugs into any standard 3.5mm headphone …

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.