pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/cup_speakers_for_ipod_and_other_music_devices.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /It's hump day and I was looking for a quick, fun project to try out. So I figured I try something easy I found over at the Make Magazine blog earlier this weekmdash;a set of speakers made from paper cups and a pair of earbud headphones originally created by artist Dmitry Zagga (in no small amount of jest). The PaperCup speakers are based on the principle of a megaphone: Energy from sound waves from the earbuds would normally disperse in all directions. Instead, the cups focus the sound waves in a particular direction, making it louder for those in front. While pretty self-explanatory, I figured I'd whip up a how to, especially since the folks at my local coffee shop were happy to provide the materials for free./p pYou'll need:/p ul liA pair of earbud headphones./li liFour paper drink cups/li liTwo toothpicks or skewers/li liTape/li liA small knife or scissors/li /ul br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/cutting_hole_in_side_of_cup.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /First poke a hole in the side of the cups that will be the "speakers" resting on the base cups. I eyeballed it about a third of the way up from the base of the cup, along the seam.br clear="all" br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/cutting_hole_in_back_of_cup.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /Cut a cross with one long and one short axis in the back of the speakers. Insert the earbuds all the way through the holes until only the wire is outside the cup.br clear="all" br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/inserting_earbud.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /Now, reach in with your finger and push the flaps of paper out a bit to create an indent where the back of your earbud can rest. Pull the earbuds back through the hole until they're nestled against the back of the cup.br clear="all" br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/taped_earpud.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /I chose to tape the bases of the earbuds to the back of the cup to make sure the speaker portion is facing out towards the mouth of the cup and not dangling down or pointing to the side of the cup.br clear="all" br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/finished_speaker.jpg" width="494" height="300" style="display:block;" /Poke the toothspick or skewer through the bottom of the base cups, and slide the speaker cups on where you made your initial cut. Tada! You've got yourself a pair of speakers.br clear="all" br img src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/11/itunes_equalizer_for_coffee_cup_speakers.jpg" width="494" height="309" style="display:block;" /Now these aren't very loud (for comparison, the speakers on my MacBook were much louder). And the bass response is abysmal. So I tweaked the equalizer setting in iTunes a bit. The stereo picturing is pretty good if placed equidistant from your ears and pointed toward you. If you want to listen to music quietly but don't want to put headphones on, or are concerned about ear fatigue or hearing damage, it's just the thing. I could see coming up with these in a pinch, MacGyver-style, on a camping trip. How would you improve them to make them louder? Share your ideas and pictures in the comments. div class="related"a href="http://www.zagga.org/new.html"CupSpeakers/a [via a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/papercup_ipod_speakers.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890"Make/a]/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=4452a285004c25f4a28c6cba82db0f16"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=4452a285004c25f4a28c6cba82db0f16"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=4452a285004c25f4a28c6cba82db0f16" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Q8fBvtyz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=1vTzsWyP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Q20kWKUR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Q20kWKUR" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=SMYwvabi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=SMYwvabi" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRermGc9kDc" height="1" width="1"/

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Portable Audio

Rather than just introducing these five items individually, Sony reckoned the world at large may pay more attention if they were unveiled in one fell swoop. To that end, we're left staring at a new pair of noise canceling headphones (MDR-NC7; $50), travel speakers (SRS-M50; $50), a universal remote (RM-VL610; $30), EX Series earbuds (MDR-EX36V; $30) and stereo Bluetooth headphones (DR-BT160AS; $160). While the first two are pretty self-explanatory, color lovers will appreciate the three swappable back plates for the remote, and the water-resistant BT 'phones pack a built-in microphone, rechargeable Li-ion cells and A2DP support. Everything should be available now if you look hard enough, and the full release with all the gory details is waiting just after the break.

Gallery: Sony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote

Continue reading Sony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote

Sony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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pFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/homeentertainment/" rel="tag"Home Entertainment/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/peripherals/" rel="tag"Peripherals/a, a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/portableaudio/" rel="tag"Portable Audio/a/pdiv style="text-align: center;"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-18-08-small_dr-bt160as_l.jpg" alt="" /br //div Rather than just introducing these five items individually, a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/Sony/"Sony/a reckoned the world at large may pay more attention if they were unveiled in one fell swoop. To that end, we're left staring at a new pair of noise canceling headphones (MDR-NC7; $50), travel speakers (SRS-M50; $50), a universal remote (RM-VL610; $30), EX Series earbuds (MDR-EX36V; $30) and stereo Bluetooth headphones (DR-BT160AS; $160). While the first two are pretty self-explanatory, color lovers will appreciate the three swappable back plates for the remote, and the water-resistant BT 'phones pack a built-in microphone, rechargeable Li-ion cells and A2DP support. Everything should be available now if you look hard enough, and the full release with all the gory details is waiting just after the break.br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-and-remote/"Sony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote/a/strong/pa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-and-remote/1164386/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-18-08-sony-dr-bt160as_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-and-remote/1164385/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-18-08-sony_srs-m50_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-and-remote/1164384/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-18-08-sony_mdr-nc7_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="http://www.engadget.com/photos/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-and-remote/1164383/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/11/11-18-08-mdr-ex36v_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/divpa href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/18/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-an/" rel="bookmark"Continue reading emSony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote/em/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/18/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-an/"Sony unveils five new audio accessories: headphones, speakers and remote/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/18/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-an/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1375105/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/18/sony-unveils-five-new-audio-accessories-headphones-speakers-an/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7-qX3gYaYoL1EulsvHjWzeslXu8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/7-qX3gYaYoL1EulsvHjWzeslXu8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=ZqsbtH9S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=ZqsbtH9S" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=PYOH6Dqg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=PYOH6Dqg" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/VsU7HacGrRk" height="1" width="1"/