vacuum

Every year, countless vacuums fall to the wayside after accumulated hair clogs the rapidly spinning brushes at the base of the appliance and tangles up within its attachments. My significant other and her copious amounts of long hair can spell out at least five minutes of tediously cutting away tangles from the brush after a floor sweep.

Dyson recently unveiled a new attachment -- labeled the "Tangle-free Turbine tool" -- for its expensive line of vacuums that promises to reduce hair entanglements that occur while cleaning. Instead of a horizontal spinning brush, Dyson's $69 accessory uses a vertical axis of movement. The device features two flexible counter-rotating heads with built-in brushes that actually send hair past the spinners and into the vacuum bin. … Read more

Last year, Dyson released a very high-tech -- and pricey -- hand vacuum, the Digital Slim DC35. That model started out at $350 but has since come down to $300.

Now Dyson is serving up a new hand vac, the Digital Slim DC44 Animal, which improves upon the earlier model, offering better battery life (20 minutes of "fade-free" power instead of 15 minutes), increased suction, and an upgraded attachment for sucking up pet hair (there's an Animal version of the DC35 that costs $329). While those are certainly welcome upgrades, I'm not sure they merit a … Read more

Shameless marketing stunts are a dime a dozen, but that doesn't mean there isn't unmined territory out there. When the goal is to draw attention to a product, company or cause, all that is needed is a good idea and the internet. And a million dollars of gold plating.

The Million Dollar Vacuum (model number GV62711 from GoVacuum in case you are interested in purchasing), takes one of the most recognizable of household appliances and gives it a shiny new coat of bling. Why? To make it clean better, of course. (No, not really; 24k gold plating has … Read more

Cluttered kitchen countertops don't exactly scream out for new gadgetry. Even when the learning curve is small, space may simply be an issue. So when an interesting appliance comes along, sometimes it can fall upon deaf ears. Change it up and make it into a form factor that can be held in the hand and suddenly people might start to listen.

For many, the concept of a vacuum sealer is sound, but the space the large, blocky appliance normally requires makes it a no-go. The Caso Hand Held Vacuum Sealer features a rechargeable battery and cordless operation. Docking into … Read more

Q: What do you call a vacuum cleaner that doesn't suck?

A: A race car.

That seems to be the refreshingly unexpected answer Dyson's U.K. engineers would provide.

The crew got together earlier this month to shake the dust off with the "Dyson car challenge," a Pinewood Derby of sorts wherein the engineers competed to -- as the company puts it -- "create the fastest go-kart using a few Dyson spare parts and all the torque they could eke out from one of our handheld motors."… Read more

If you're a fan of Dyson's bagless vacuums but always wished that the company made a canister model that was powered by its Ball technology, that day has arrived: Dyson has introduced the DC39 Multi-floor and DC39 Animal canister vacs.

Dyson vacuums have never been cheap, and the new models, due out in mid-March, cost $449.99 and $499.99, respectively. Aside from its color and higher price, what distinguishes the Animal from the Multi-floor is the inclusion of an accessory that's specially designed for picking up pet hair. Both models are being marketed as "smooth … Read more

Audio Research Corporation (ARC), based in Minnesota, was in the vanguard of the American high-end audio movement in the early 1970s. By then mass-market transistor electronics had all but killed off the vacuum tube, but ARC's founder, William Z. Johnson, not only believed his tube amplifiers sounded better than solid-state gear, he thought tubes were technically superior. That's why ARC billed itself as a "high-definition" company since its start, decades before HDTV came on the scene. ARC was in large part responsible for starting the tube renaissance, and time has proven Mr. Johnson correct, as there … Read more

Audio Arts may be NYC's newest high-end audio shop, but you can tell it isn't really competing with the more established stores in the area. You see, the others carry a mix of high-end and mainstream brands to cater to the broadest possible market, but Audio Arts' Gideon Schwartz only sells products from the most esoteric manufacturers. That said, the services all of these NYC brick-and-mortar shops offer--side-by-side auditions of audio components and hands-on customer service--can't be duplicated by online retailers. Maybe that's why despite astronomical rents, NYC high-end retailers aren't just surviving, new shops … Read more

I've seen these types of things before, but now Iogear has jumped into the fray with a new surround processor for stereo headphones. The product, the USB Theater Sound Xperience, is a USB audio adapter featuring DTS Surround Sensation Headphone technology. Connecting directly to a computer's USB 2.0 port, the USB Theater Sound Xperience simulates a surround-sound effect over stereo headphones or stereo speakers. It's a PC-only compatible device and will not work with Apple computers.

I have no idea what it sounds like, but I love the design; it looks like a vacuum tube! Fear … Read more