Apple has updated the company’s iTunes Match service to include 19 additional countries. The list includes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, bringing iTunes Match availability to 37 markets in total. Apple debuted the iTunes Match service late last year. For an annual charge, customers can scan and match tracks from their iTunes libraries and replace them with tracks in the iTunes Store and store them in iCloud. Apple lets customers download up to 25,000 tracks without DRM restrictions, with the ability to match any track in a supported audio file format.

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Apple’s iTunes Match service, which lets you store your entire music collection, including music you have ripped from a CD, or purchased or downloaded elsewhere, is now available for developers for testing. Apple’s iTunes Match service automatically scans your music library and checks your digital music files against Apple’s 18 million plus music library. If Apple has the song, you’re able to play it back at full quality, effectively transforming your library into an iTunes-approved one for only $25/year. Apple is giving developers a three-month extension on the normal 12-month subscription package for their troubles.

That’s what it’s looking like according to a leaked image from Apple.pro, a site that has in the past leaked details and images on Apple products before their announcement and release. From what we can see, the seventh generation iPod nano would keep the same form factor as the existing model, though would add a relatively large camera sensor to the back of the small multi-touch music player. We’re betting that we’ll see the new iPod nano with camera appear at one of Apple’s traditional fall music events later this year.

[Via 9to5Mac]

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If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have insisted that no ear buds in the sub-$1,000 price range sound better than my trusty Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10vi headset. I would have been wrong. I still insist that no buds I’ve tried sound better than my 10vi buds — and I have tried many, many pairs — but now I add the caveat, “when coupled with the iWOW 3D.”

I recently mentioned SRS in passing within my review of the HTC Arrive, and I’m certainly glad I did because the team at SRS saw my review and reached out to chat. They also decided to send me an iWOW 3D to play with, and to be frank, I was skeptical at best. Sound is a funny thing. Just about everyone fancies him or herself an expert when it comes to sound, it seems, and while I would deny it if you asked me on the street, I’m the same way. Deep down, I think of myself as a sophisticated audiophile with a discerning ear that can rival even the most experienced sound hounds. The truth is that I do have formal training as an audio engineer, but that hardly qualifies me as an expert. The sound quality of recorded music and the quality of headphones delivering said music, like so many other things in life, is largely a matter of opinion and personal preference. But it’s also science.

There are many factors that might make one pair of headphones better than another. The materials used, the components used, the shape, the fit and countless other factors combine to reproduce sound in a very unique way. While this topic is of considerable interest to me, it is also far too complex to cover here. What matters is that in the end, those of us who might refer to ourselves as audiophiles have put a great deal of time and effort into finding headphones that suit our particular taste. Once said headphones have been identified, we will almost certainly swear up and down that they’re “the best.”

I landed on the Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10vi headphones — at least where ear buds are concerned. For my taste, it doesn’t get any better unless you’re willing to part with an obscene amount of cash for custom buds (and I’m not). The unique shape fits perfectly in my ears and in my opinion, they reproduce music from a wide range of genres better than any other buds I’ve tried. With one or two exceptions, I find the difference between the 10vi buds and competitive offerings to be fairly substantial. As such, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that a tiny $60 accessory could have such a dramatic impact on the sound delivered by my precious 10vi buds.

SRS describes the iWOW 3D as follows:

The iWOW 3D is a premium plug-and-play audio enhancement accessory for iPad, iPhone and iPod, designed to retrieve and restore audio cues that are buried within the original source audio, to provide an immersive three-dimensional sound stage with renewed depth and clarity, as well as improve bass response for any speaker configuration.

I describe the iWOW 3D as a swift kick in the buds.

Forgetting all the jargon, here’s what you need to know: the iWOW 3D lumps its magic into three realms of signal processing. The first is “wide surround.” This does exactly what it sounds like it should do — it effectively spreads out the sound and creates a wider audio image that is truly impressive. Think of it as the difference between a two-speaker sound bar and a real surround sound setup.

The second thing it does is fix bass frequencies and delivery. You might not have known the bass was broken on your current headphones, but it is. Apple offers some great EQ settings in iOS that help in some respects, but the results are often muddy and they never sound quite right with each different genre of music. The iWOW 3D’s bass enhancer makes bass sound massive, but not to the point where your speakers will be crackling. It seems like the perfect bass tweak and if you crank the volume up to about 75%, your head very well may explode — but in a good way.

Finally, the iWOW 3D finesses the high and mid-range frequencies to compensate for all that new-found bass. The result, when all three effects are combined, is sound more impressive than I ever thought I would hear coming out of a cell phone. It’s pretty remarkable. There’s a free companion app that allows users do enable and disable each of the three effects individually, but I could easily live without it. All three effects are on by default and that’s the way it should stay.

While there’s plenty to love about the iWOW 3D, there are also a few problems of varying degrees that I have with the gadget. First, there is a big white indicator light on the front of the unit that lets you know when it is enabled. Indicator lights are great, but this one is huge and annoying. A tiny white LED on the side would have been sufficient.

Slightly more important is the hiss. Like many powered audio devices, the iWOW 3D emits a low-level hiss when connected and turned on. It’s faint and you can’t hear it at all when music is playing, but it’s annoying at first during parts of a track that are silent or very quiet. It’s also annoying at first while watching movies or TV shows. I say “at first” because after a while, it gets to a point where you adjust to the sound and forget about it unless you intentionally concentrate on it.

Last but certainly not least is an Apple-imposed limitation: while connected through the iWOW 3D, in-line remotes and microphones will not work. This means you can’t pause or skip backward or forward with button clicks on your headset’s remote, and you can’t talk on the phone until you unplug the device. This is Apple’s fault, as the 30-pin dock connector does not make these functions available, but it’s a pretty big limitation nonetheless.

Those qualms aside, I’ve really enjoyed the iWOW 3D in the couple of weeks I have been using it. So far I’ve had three other people check out the device as well, and the results have been the same in each case. Eyes widen, jaws drop ever so slightly, and the listener is wowed.

But hearing is believing. The SRS iWOW 3D can be ordered from SRS’s online shop for $59.99.

A recent report filed by Reuters aims to shed some light on how online retail giant Amazon plans to commandeer market share of digital-music downloads from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The current state of music downloads in the U.S. has AmazonMP3 with a 1.3% market share, while Apple’s iTunes holds a 26.7% share. To try and narrow this market gap, Amazon is doing what it does best: deep discounting. The online retailer’s Daily Deal has been a huge success in boosting sales. Recently, the company offered Kanye West’s new album — My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — for $3.99 on its release date. Amazon reportedly sold 59,000 digital copies of the new album, while iTunes sold 163,000. The less than 3 to 1 gap in sales is notably impressive.

Not everyone thinks the strategy can succeed. A “senior major-label distribution executive” was quoted as saying, “Amazon is growing, but they are growing in millimeters,” and went on to speculate that the strategy “doesn’t seem scalable.”

Amazon does have a broader price advantage over Apple as new tracks sell for 99-cents on the company’s site; new tracks in iTunes sell for $1.29. Amazon also has 100 albums on-sale for $5 every month. What digital music store are you using?

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Hollywood Style Awards sponsor Klipsch hit us up and dropped us a pair of its brand new Image ONE stereo headphones to give away. Klipsch’s Image ONE headphones bring the company’s unique high-performance sound quality to an on-ear form factor for the first time. The cans are also among the first on-ears to feature an in-line remote and mic for use with Apple’s iPhone, iPad or iPod lines.

Here’s how you can enter:

• Just drop a comment below in the comments section of this post and you’ll automatically be entered to win
• We’ll run the contest for a week, until December 19th at 11:59PM
• The contest is open worldwide, but you must be at least 18 years or older
• Follow us on Twitter and Facebook if you’d like!
• Remember, one comment per person — if you comment more than once, you’ll be disqualified

Good luck!

Yesterday, there were internet rumors aplenty after Apple posted a cryptic message about iTunes on its homepage, and today, we have to wonder no more. After a long holdout, it looks as though the music catalog of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Star, and George Harrison — better known as The Beatles — will be available for download from the iTunes Music Store.

It is a fairly well-known fact that Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, has a soft-spot for the gang from Liverpool and has been actively trying to get the group’s music on his company’s digital music store for some time. Multiple publications have cited pricing disagreements between Apple, Inc., Apple Corp (the band’s holding company), and record label EMI as the reason for the deal’s delay.

The Beatles’ appearance on iTunes will mark the first time the group has made its work legally available in a digital, downloadable format. Albums will retail for $12.99 and the band’s entire box set can be purchased for $149.

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According to blog Symphonic Distribution, Apple will be extending the length of song previews in its U.S. iTunes Music store from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. The information comes courtesy of an email being sent around to “label representatives” that reads:

We are pleased to let you know that we are preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States. We believe that giving potential customers more time to listen to your music will lead to more purchases.

The communication goes on to say that the letter legally modifies the U.S. Digital Music Download Sales Agreement that was previously in effect. The communication did not mention when the new music preview length would be implemented or if there are plans to expand the offering worldwide.

[Via TiPb]

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Let’s just go ahead and just throw this out there: EarSonics’ SM3 in-ear headphones are not a “stocking stuffer” item. Furthermore, they are — in all likelihood — not going to interest the majority of you. So what are they? They are $379.00 worth of skull-thumping, head-bobbing, eardrum-titillating, in-ear bliss. If you’re an audiophile, and take sound very seriously, you should definitely take a look at the SM3s.

Designed by French audio firm EarSonics — a company that specifically caters to musicians, sound engineers, and audiophiles — the SM3s are a serious piece of technology. Built with three drivers — 1 low, 1 mid, and 1 high, all with three-way passive crossover — the buds can respond to frequencies between 20Hz and 18kHz. The SM3s also have a sensitivity rating of 122dB/mW (if that doesn’t get your head bobbing, nothing will).

In all seriousness, the sound emanating from the SM3s is so crisp it is hard to explain. They make our new Bose in-ear headphones feel like they were purchased at Family Dollar. We could only crank the volume on our computer and iPod up to about 75% before the sound got so loud, and so clear, we couldn’t stand it.

The cords running from the 3.5mm jack to the buds of the SM3s are twisted, making the cord extremely hard to tangle and get into knots — even if you manage to get a snag, a quick pull on one end will usually take care of it. The 3.5mm jack is “L” shaped which we like; we find that headphones that have a vertical 3.5mm jack, like the stock iPod earbuds, often bend when put in a pocket or bag (eventually leading to wire breaks). Our two criticisms of the SM3s were:

• Jamming three drivers into in-ear buds requires space, for that reason there is a little extra hardware that is hanging out of your ear. In our opinion, for the sound quality you get, it’s well worth it, but you will have to get used to it.
• At times, we wish the “low” driver was pumping out just a tad more bass; you really notice it when listening to hip hop but don’t miss it when listening to classical music.

The buds come with a carrying case and four sets of foam/rubber buds to make sure you get the fit you want. Hit the read link to read more.

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We checked out Sonos’ Controller app for the iPad a little while ago before it was in final form, but last night, dear music lovers, the highly-thought out remote went live in Apple’s App Store. Pricing is set to free in typical Sonos fashion. Well, what do we think about the app? It is an incredibly rich remote experience that in some ways even performs better than the regular desktop application. The larger screen of the iPad means more information, more control, and makes using the music player and service incredibly easy and rewarding. Video of the app after the break!

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According to analytics company Nielsen, digital music sales in the United States were flat during the first half of 2010; showing no positive growth from 2009. The data should be concerning to record labels as digital music sales rose 28% from 2007 to 2008 and 13% from 2008 to 2009. Nielsen’s Jean Littolff spoke with Reuters and explained: “I think this is a plateau, it doesn’t mean that this digital consumption is going to drop significantly.” Nielsen cited lack of consumer confidence and confusion over the plethora of ways to acquire your digital music online as possible reasons for the sudden slowdown. How about you? Are you buying less music these days?

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You know we love us some Sonos gear around these parts, and Sonos’ latest announcement definitely caught our attention. Today at CEDIA, Sonos introduced the Sonos Wireless Dock. Its purpose? To let you inject all of your tunes from your iPod or iPhone seamlessly into your existing Sonos wireless network. This means regardless of however many zones you have set up, all of your music will be instantly, and of course wirelessly accessible. While there’s a good chance you’d have most of the music you’d want to play from your iPod already on your computer, and your computer already hooked up to the Sonos network, the product makes sense if you’re a notebook type of guy (something not always connected), or if you have a bunch of guests that come over. Just plug in their iPod and you’re rockin’ out. It launches “by the end of October” for $119.

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Any Apple fans out there waiting to grab the brand new iPod touch hotness? If so, you’re going to be pleased to learn that Apple’s newest iToy has hit the FCC for certification and has been mercilessly torn down. You’ll find that Apple A4 CPU, an internal antenna, 802.11 b/g/n, and a 3.44 watt-hour battery. Not to mention the Retina Display, front-facing camera for FaceTime, and rear-facing HD-capable shooter. Delicious.

[Via iClarified]

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Well, well, well… That rumored touch screen square iPod nano is looking pretty solid right about now. Thanks to our lovely friends in manufacturing in Asia, 3rd party cases have started showing up online for the new iPod nano device. We’re not talking just one either, more like a whole heap — every color possible, too. In addition to cases, there is also a mockup along with sizing dimensions that has surfaced as well. We have to ask, is an incredibly small touchscreen iPod nano something that interests you, or will you stick to an iPod shuffle? Image of one of the cases after the break!

UPDATE: As one of our readers points out… what if this is just Apple’s new Shuffle? Would be pretty amazing, right?

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According to an iLounge source, the upcoming fourth generation iPod touch will be changing shapes once again. If true, it is said to be more flat than curved, with a flat surface and curved edges; much like the top of your MacBook Pro. Additionally, the back is rumored to not be modeled after the iPhone 4′s all glass surface; so we’re guessing stainless steel or aluminum. There is that much-awaited rear camera, though what’s not clear at this point is a LED flash next to it or a second microphone for audio capture while shooting video. Lastly, that tiny, tiny Apple-branded touch screen display we saw? Well, according to iLounge, it is indeed a new iPod nano, and won’t have anything to do with an iPod shuffle. September 1st is close enough, friends.

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