Recognizing that there are simply too many speaker brands and models out there for general consumers to be able to make any sense of, Sound & Vision Magazine recently evaluated a huge selection of speakers, and named their “Top Speakers in Every Class”.  Among the included categories are 5.1 home theater systems, compact home theater, stand alone subwoofers, and two channel holdouts.

Read Top Speakers In Every Class.

I’m digging this Nomad Travel Speaker, which was apparently inspired by vintage luggage.

It comes with a dedicated Aux input, and a built in AM/FM tuner, and is available online for $72 from Urban Outfitters.

Here’s another set of stupidly overpriced speakers for all you rich audiophiles out there.

For a mere $180,000 you can solidify the destruction of your eardrum with the Grande Utopia EM speakers, which can be mechanically adjusted to point in whatever direction you want without having to move them at the base. While the price may be outrageous, these look pretty bad ass.

Grande Utopia EM via BornRich

These speakers dubbed the Speaker Buddies were created by Alex Underwood as an homage to a often neglected material: Expanded Polystyrene, a lightweight material that is often regarded as useless.  The speakers work in pairs, and depict child-like postures, meaning certain bedroom dj’s will finally have an audience.

via Home Tone

Opting not to follow the traditional route of installing obnoxiously loud sub woofers into the trunks of their cars, this group of Trinidadian teenagers from Queens, NY instead chose to modify their bikes with several massive speakers.

The bikes range in size and have fierce names such as “Tinnitus Rex”, or the above pictured “Basszilla”. There’s even a movie about these kids called Made In Queens thats directed by Nicholas Randall and Joe Stevens. Check the trailer:

via The Tastemakers Society

My post about the boombox pillow got me feeling all nostalgic, so I started looking around for more pictures of oversized boomboxes., I mean you can never have enough pictures of those to throw on flyers and such right?   After a bit of browsing I finally came across an artist called Lyle Owerko, who assembled a series of photographs called The Boombox Project, which depicts a “visual timeline of the era of the boombox”.  The series includes 15 photographs, and an excellent introduction that briefly explains the fascination that surrounds the boombox.  Here’s an excerp:

Initially, it became identified with certain segments of urban society, hence adopting epithetic nicknames, like ‘ghetto blaster’, and ‘jam box’.  But as the masses began to embrace the gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and chrome plated gadgetry an inherent form of portable entertainment and expression was born.

The photos are definitely worth checking out, especially if you used to walk around with one of these.  For the full introduction, and complete set of boombox photographs visit his website.

If you’ve been trying to give your studio a more modern look, then the DMT-100 speakers by Proclaim Audio should definitely do the trick. The design features a stationary woofer pod, as well as treble and midrange pods that rest on adjustable arms that can be moved to achieve optimal sound quality based on the shape of the room they are in. However, unless you happen to have bags of money sitting around, they might be slightly out of purchasing range with their $25,995 price tag.

Like most other dj’s I have amassed a large amount of music equipment, most of which I don’t use anymore and never got around to selling or giving away. If you happen to have floor speakers that don’t work anymore think twice before trashing them, and convert them into something cool like this dude did. Father Rhyme of Good Rubbish took a pair of Technics SB-2560 and converted them into swing door cabinets. Perfect for stashing records or cd’s!

Via UnPlggd

I’m kind of digging the design on this iPod Phonefone speaker made by Science & Sons. The really interesting thing about the piece is that it uses no power, but instead it “exploits the virtues of horn acoustics to boost the audio output of standard earphones to up to 55 decibels”, which sadly is rather low, or about the equivalent of the volume on a laptop.  I was ready to get one for my desk, but then I saw the $500 pricetag…sigh.

Buy one here.