By Andrew Liszewski

Designed to let you enjoy music during a hike or camping so you can still hear what’s going on around you and make sure your fellow adventurers haven’t been abducted by a grizzly, the Music Strap attaches to the shoulder straps of any backpack and pumps out your tunes through a set of 1W speakers powered by a pair of AAA batteries. It includes 20 inches of audio cable for connecting your music player of choice, 27.5 inches of speaker cable and even a pair of velcro straps to keep everything looking neat and tidy. $29.99 available directly from Lucky Bums.

[ Lucky Bums Music Strap Backpack Speakers ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I think more busts have been made of Beethoven than any other figure in history, and I’m sure it has something to do with his hair. At about 6 inches tall this one’s on the small side but manages to be far more useful than just a decorative element for a music studio. The holes bored into his chest facilitate a 2 watt speaker inside with volume, bass and treble controls located just below. He’s powered by 4xAAA batteries or your PC’s USB port, and includes a double-ended audio cable for connecting it to any device with a headphone or line out jack. ~$38 (£25.00) from Urban Outfitters.

[ Beathoven Speaker ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I usually only expect to find rock-disguised speakers in the pages of a Hammacher Schlemmer or Sharper Image catalog, built and designed in some name-less overseas factory. But this little monolith comes from Creative under their Sound Blaster brand. You can use it as a standard speaker if you feel like running cables to your backyard (not that you have to use it out there) or it will communicate with Creative’s Sound Blaster wireless music system, making things a whole lot more convenient.

Now since it doesn’t use wi-fi you’ll need one of Creative’s $99.99 USB wireless transmitters in order to send music to the speakers, but thankfully they’re currently throwing one in for free if you pony up the $199.99 for the Wireless Rock. Other notable features include a weatherproof design allowing you to leave it outside 24/7 and a removable rechargeable battery good for 6 hours so you don’t even need to run a power cable.

[ Creative Sound Blaster Wireless Rock ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Like with the Lexon bamboo calculator I brought you last week, this wooden Emotion Speaker manages to overcome it’s some technological limitations (ie FM radio?) with a lovely design. Hand-made from apricot wood the speaker features a built-in rechargeable battery good for about 10 hours of playback and a 3.5mm headphone so it can be connected to any audio source. The inclusion of an FM radio is actually a detriment in my opinion, since you’re left with an unsightly telescoping antenna to deal with, but it’s made from wood so removing it probably only requires an afternoon of careful whittling. $49.99 from Pyramid Distribution.

[ Motz Tiny Wooden Emotion Speaker ] VIA [ The Gadgeteer ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I guess if you’re an iPod/iPhone accessory maker, the easiest way to make your product appeal to the Apple crowd is to basically rip-off the design of another Apple product. In this case it’s an iPod dock/speaker that looks like it was constructed from a discarded iMac of yesteryear. But in its defense, this particular dock does bring something relatively unique to the table.

Instead of featuring a traditional speaker, it uses resonance to transmit the sound from your iPod, iPhone or anything you connect to the 3.5mm line-in jack, through a hard surface such as a wooden table, a marble floor or glass windows. The audio output is rated at 12W, though I have no idea how loud that translates to with a resonating object, but there’s a built-in amp as well which should help boost the intensity. The arm holding the actual dock does articulate if you were wondering, though at just a couple of inches in length I can’t see how that’s beneficial in any way. ~$42 available from Chinavasion.

[ Resonance Speaker and iPod/iPhone Docking Station ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I can’t vouch for the sound quality of these portable speakers, but when you consider they’re from MUJI, you can rest assured that plenty of attention has been put into their design. They’re powered by 2xAAA batteries so they should have a little bit of oomph, at least when compared to a non-powered speaker this size, and the clever folding design even includes a place for the short line-in cable to hide. $37.50 from MUJI’s online store.

[ MUJI Portable Folding Speakers ] VIA [ Acquire ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Instead of re-modeling your living room or other parts of your home to hide a set of unsightly speakers, the Klipsch LightSpeaker system lets you stash them in pre-existing 5 or 6-inch recessed lighting fixtures. Each unit is composed of a 20-watt full range speaker with a 2.5-inch wide dispersion drive, but they also feature a 10-watt fully dimmable LED bulb rated for 40,000 hours so you don’t have to sacrifice lighting for sound.

Of course having to run speaker wire to each unit would completely negate the convenience of its design, so the whole system is wireless, relying on a 2.4GHz transmitter with a (somewhat limited) range of 50 feet that can support up to 8 different LightSpeakers at one time. And using an included remote you can setup two separate listening zones in your home with different music sources for each. “Coming soon” for around $600.

[ Klipsch LightSpeaker System ] VIA [ Uncrate ]

By Evan Ackerman

Somewhere in South Korea lives a chicken. This chicken lays eggs that are, in fact, reasonably attractive and potentially useful computer peripherals. Break one open (the two halves are joined by magnets) and inside you will find 4 watts of yolk-y audio goodness with a built-in digital amplifier. Designed for things like PMPs and Netbooks, the Eggy speakers are USB powered, and while the picture makes them look seamless and slick, the USB wire and audio-in wire and the wire that connects the left and right speakers are sure to make a mess of things, and I also have no idea where the little speaker stands come from. So, the concept is pretty cool, but in real life things may look a bit different.

S&J Co. has the right idea here: instead of designing electronics, just wait for some freak of nature to design them for you… If you have an infinite amount of chickens laying an infinite amount of eggs, you’re pretty much guaranteed that one of those eggs will be a pair of speakers (or anything else you want, for that matter). I’m sure S&J Co. doesn’t actually have an infinite amount of chickens (an infinite amount of anything presenting some significant logistical challenges), but that doesn’t preclude them from getting lucky with a finite amount of chickens, which is obviously what happened.

The Eggy speaker will be putting on an appearance at CES 2010, and if S&J Co. picks up some distribution channels, we should all feel very sorry for their poor mutant chicken.

[ Press Release ]

By Evan Ackerman

As a matter of form, it is necessary for me to object on scientific grounds to these speakers being called “DNA” speakers. DNA is a double helix, not just two wiggly polymer strands… I mean, I guess it’s possible that these speakers are DNA after a helicase enzyme has zipped through and broken all of the hydrogen bonds, but if that’s the case, then it really should have said so on the box.

Oh, wait. DNA stands for Dynamic Neural Audio? Never mind then. ‘Course, I can’t tell you what “Dynamic Neural Audio” means either, but I can tell you that these speakers are bendy, powered by USB or AC or batteries, come with an integrated volume control, and cost $40.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Craziest Gadgets ]