A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of recorded sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm that produced sound waves coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to watch the DVD content, which could be a movie, a recorded TV show, or other content.
A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audiobooks. CD players may be part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, personal computers, or portable CD players such as CD boomboxes. Most CD players produce an output signal via a headphone jack or RCA jacks. To use a CD player in a home stereo system, the user connects an RCA cable from the RCA jacks to a hi-fi and loudspeakers for listening to music. To listen to music using a CD player with a headphone output jack, the user plugs headphones or earphones into the headphone jack.
A boombox is a transistorized portable music player featuring one or two cassette tape players/recorders and AM/FM radio, generally with a carrying handle. Beginning in the mid 1990s, a CD player was often included. Sound is delivered through an amplifier and two or more integrated loudspeakers. A boombox is a device typically capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music. Many models are also capable of recording onto cassette tapes from radio and other sources. In the 1990s, some boomboxes were available with MiniDisc recorders and players. Designed for portability, boomboxes can be powered by batteries as well as by line current. The boombox was introduced to the American market during the late 1970s. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s, some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase. Some larger boomboxes even contained vertically mounted record turntables. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes.
ZEN is a series of portable media players designed and manufactured by Creative Technology Limited from 2004 to 2011. The players evolved from the NOMAD brand through the NOMAD Jukebox series of music players, with the first separate "ZEN" branded models released in 2004. The last Creative Zen player, X-Fi3, was released at the end of 2011.
A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored on a compact disc (CD), Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Blu-ray Disc (BD), flash memory, microdrive, SD cards or hard drive; most earlier PMPs used physical media, but modern players mostly use flash memory. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records.
TASCAM is the professional audio division of TEAC Corporation, headquartered in Santa Fe Springs, California. TASCAM established the Home Recording phenomenon by creating the "Project Studio" and is credited as the inventor of the Portastudio, the first cassette-based multi-track home studio recorders. TASCAM also introduced the first low-cost mass-produced multitrack recorders with Simul-Sync designed for recording musicians, and manufactured reel-to-reel tape machines and audio mixers for home recordists from the early 1970s through the mid-1990s. Since the early 00's, TASCAM has been an early innovator in the field-recording and audio accompaniment to video with their DR-series recording platforms. TASCAM celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021.
Yepp was Samsung Electronics' digital audio player brand until Samsung decided to retire most of their family brands in February 2011. From then on, their MP3 players were simply branded "Samsung" worldwide until they discontinued all of them in late 2013. The brand included a wide range of hard-drive based as well as flash-memory based players. The name is claimed to be an acronym for "young, energetic, passionate person".
Audio-Technica Corporation is a Japanese company that designs and manufactures professional microphones, headphones, turntables, phonographic magnetic cartridges, and other audio equipment.
Various accessories for the PlayStation 3 video game console have been produced by Sony and third-party companies. These include controllers, audio and video input devices like microphones, video cameras, and cables for better sound and picture quality.
A headset is a combination of headphone and microphone. Headsets connect over a telephone or to a computer, allowing the user to speak and listen while keeping both hands free. They are commonly used in customer service and technical support centers, where employees can converse with customers while typing information into a computer. They are also common among computer gamers and let them talk with each other and hear others while using their keyboards and mice to play the game.
Wireless speakers are loudspeakers that receive audio signals using radio frequency (RF) waves rather than over audio cables. The two most popular RF frequencies that support audio transmission to wireless loudspeakers include a variation of WiFi IEEE 802.11, while others depend on Bluetooth to transmit audio data to the receiving speaker. Sony, JBL, and Anker Innovations are some of the top manufacturers of wireless speakers as of 2024.
The Archos Generation 6 (Gen6) product series is represented by misc "Internet Media Tablets" or "IMT", e.g. the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet This series of tablet computers developed by the French company Archos that features a resistive touchscreen for video, photo, audio, internet browsing and other multimedia applications. The individual numbering of the distinct models seems up to now to roughly resemble the length of the display diagonal in inches.
Home audio refer to audio consumer electronics designed for home entertainment, such as integrated systems like shelf stereos, as well as individual components like loudspeakers and surround sound receivers.
Beats Pill is a line of portable Bluetooth speakers produced by Beats Electronics, presently a subsidiary of Apple Inc. The speakers are characterized primarily by their capsule-like form factor. Several models have been released of the Pill since their launch in 2012, with the most recent version released in 2024.
AirPods Pro are wireless Bluetooth in-ear headphones designed by Apple, initially introduced on October 30, 2019. They are Apple's mid-range wireless headphones, available alongside the base-level AirPods and the highest-end AirPods Max.
