The CES in Las Vegas is producing all sorts of new stuff. Altec Lansing just announced their new T612 speaker system, designed to work with an iPhone, or any of the new iPod family of products.

The press release speaks of, “rich sound, beautiful design and the ability to share music with others,” which is perhaps a little over-the-top. The T612 complements key features of the iPhone, including support for incoming calls. If a call comes in while music is playing, the iPhone gives priority to the call by pausing the music. Once the call is completed, the iPhone is re-docked in the T612 and the music resumes playing at the same song and place.

Presumably, the speakers do not allow you to “share your phone call with others,” at the same time. they feature internal GSM shielding which should hopefully prevent you form tuning in to your next door neighbor’s musical preferences.

It looks like all the other Altec Lansing speaker boxes and if you are interested, the official press release is here. The Altec Lansing T612 speaker system will be available in February from the usual suspects – Price $199.95.

French company, Waterfall Audio has just announced two examples of its spectacular glass loudspeaker enclosures – and they are coming to the U.S. The speakers are named after two famous waterfalls in Africa and South America, the Victoria EVO and Iguasçu EVO. They consist of slender, hand-crafted glass towers designed to convey the impression of floating speakers with internal “stretched” driver wiring utilized to keep heavy speaker-cabling at floor level for a clean, elegant look.

The Victoria EVO measures 40 inches x 10 inches andis designed with a three-way/four-driver system that includes Waterfall’s proprietary, down-firing, 8-1/2-inch passive woofer.

The Iguasçu is slightly shorter at 34 inches x 10 inches but uses the same drivers, including the passive woofer, in a two-way/three-driver arrangement.

Both models use Waterfall’s ADT (Acoustic Damping Tube) technology – designed to achieve near-total damping of mid- and low-frequency “back-wave” artifacts, along with precise damping control of midrange reflections which allows the speakers to produce accurate, high-end performance.

The designs also feature low-distortion, custom-alloy-diaphragm drivers designed and manufactured by French partner Atohm.

The drivers and base are crafted from precision-machined cast aluminum with solid-metal multi-way connectors integrated into the floor-level base of each speaker and optional grilles individual to each driver.

How much and when? You may ask – $5,400 for the Victoria, and $3,900 for the Iguasçu. Early 2008 is all I know at the moment. Who says French ingenuity is dead?

Waterfall.

According to several source, most people don’t buy a home theater speaker system because of the difficulty of running wires around the room. What exactly is so difficult about this is beyond me and if you are incapable of doing this simple task I suggest calling an electrician next time you buy any electrical gadget.

Either way, this is apparently the thinking behind Acoustic’s new wireless home theater system. It’s for people who are unable to use wires.

The system comprises five extruded aluminum satellite speakers, each having two three-inch drivers and a one-inch tweeter plus a 125-watt class D amplified subwoofer with a 10-inch woofer.

The front left, right and center speakers are attached in traditional way to your surround sound speaker – with wires (call the electrician). The rear channel speaker outputs of the receiver connect to the system’s wireless transceiver. The transceiver turns the speaker signal into a 2.4 Gz signal and sends it to the wireless speakers, which have their own 50-watt amplifier. The rear speakers still need to be plugged into an electrical outlet so call that electrician again.

They provide reasonable sound quality if you don’t mind some background interference, but this is basically a $400 speaker system for $800. Me? I’ll stick with wires thanks.

Klipsch describe their iGroove SXT iPod Speaker system as their, ”most compact and affordable iPod speaker,” ever. Not far wrong – it’s small and cheap.

Around $150 for what could almost be considered HiFi is quite a deal. Full specifications include:

Frequency response 60 Hz – 20 kHz
Crossover frequency 6 kHz
Maximum acoustic output 90 dB SPL @ 1m
Tweeter 3/4 inch tweeter
High frequency horn MicroTractrix™ Horn
Midrange 2.5″ woofer
Amplifier Class D
Enclosure material ABS plastic enclosure/dock and remote
Enclosure type Tuned port
Inputs 30-pin iPod docking connector, 3.5mm mini Auxiliary input
Dimensions 4.75” x 12” x 4.625”
Weight 4.0 lbs
Features IR remote, iPod ® docking station with charger
Finishes Black with silver accent and black cloth grill

It’s a well designed piece of kit and Marshal Rosenthal over at E-Gear certainly liked it. He quite rightly points out that people who have grown up listening to music through crappy earphones will be impressed with the sound quality possible from an iPod after listening to this. Me? I grew up during the age of the genuine HiFi and am not so easily impressed. As usual, I fail to see how something with speakers this close together can be considered to be “stereo,” but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve had a listen. Money-wise, it looks a good deal and Amazon have still got stocks.

Sharp’s DK-AP2 speaker system for the iPod range looks like something that would live on a cylon’s bedside table. Assuming cylon’s have beds that is. One look at it convinced me it was going to sound awful, but a few minutes later I was pleasantly surprised to discover it doesn’t sound half bad.

I hesitate to call it HiFi, or even stereo with the speakers this close together, but I will say it sounds better than it looks, although the ridiculously small remote control could almost be considered “pre-lost” and will almost certainly fail the Knowles destructotest™. I wonder why they even bothered including one.

In this highly competitive sector of the market, it’s going to be hard to beat some of the established iPod speaker systems, so I imagine Sharp are going for the “if you can’t beat them, out outlandish them,” approach. Just about the only places this is going to look at home is the aforementioned cylon’s sleeping pod, or a particularly un-hip NY bachelor pad complete with wall to wall chrome and glass Ikea shelving systems. The daily maid is not going to be too impressed with how hard it is to dust though. At least there are no flashing disco lights on this one.