Yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show, I sat through the T-Mobile and Verizon 4G press conferences and wanted to ask, “but what about voice?”

You can’t help but be impressed with the massive 4G build-outs. We’ll be able to stream higher-quality video or download an MP3 file in record time. Yet, no one at either company spoke of any improvement in the quality of the voice calls. They seem to have forgotten that — for most people — a cell phone is for making phone calls. Any improvement in the bandwidth allotted for the audio would be a welcome feature.

Part of the problem: Consumers aren’t pushing for better audio because they assume it naturally flows from a faster network. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. There’s also the issue of whether your Bluetooth headset would be able to pass that higher-quality audio on to your ear. And that’s about to being addressed by the Bluetooth SIG.

How would better audio help your mobile phone? Spoken words would be more intelligible, even in situations where there’s a fair amount of background noise. And when participating in a voice conference, you would find it easier to distinguish one person’s voice from another.

Some carriers outside the U.S. are just beginning to open up their audio bandwidth. It may be labeled as HD Voice or Voice HD. Until then, don’t assume that the move to a 4G network will necessarily expand the frequency range of your phone call.

Two days before the show doors open, CES provides a sneak peak for the press. The three-hour event is called CES Unveiled, and it’s a chance to get a first look at some of the products that will soon be on the show floor.

At this year’s CES Unveiled, there were two Bluetooth products designed specifically to communicate with the iPhone. This will likely to be a big trend at the show, given the ease of installing apps onto this popular mobile phone.

One of the products is O’Car from Oxygen Audio. It lets you control all the usual car stereo functions over Bluetooth using your iPhone’s touch screen. In addition to functioning as a high-end car radio, you can play your iTunes music library, listen to Internet radio stations, make hands-free calls and access your favorite iPhone apps for your car.

The second Bluetooth-to-iPhone product is the Smart Baby Monitor from Withings. The baby monitor part of the product includes a high-resolution 3-megapixel camera, extra-wide-angle lens and infrared LEDs for night vision. Using your iPhone, you can see and hear your baby, control the music that plays in the room, and receive alerts to your baby’s sleep disruptions as signaled by excessive movement or sound.

Another interesting Bluetooth product shown at CES Unveiled is designed to solve one of the biggest complaints with cell phones: missed calls. The pipSqueak from seekerpnd.com is a small device that notifies you by vibration or sound whenever your mobile phone receives a call. A screen on the pipSqueak shows the identity of the caller. If you need extra time to answer the call, you can tap a button on the pipSqueak, and a recorded voice will notify the caller that you will soon be answering the call. If you don’t want to take the call, you can press and hold the button to send the call directly to voicemail.

If you’re wondering why CES Unveiled is held two days before the show opens, you can understand why the press is so tired at the end of CES. For us, the four-day tradeshow is a six-day tradeshow, as we have two extra days of press events and press conferences as a build-up to the actual show.

You don’t have to look far to find free MP3 ringtones on the Internet. They’re pretty much everywhere — including here on Beepzoid.

The problem for iPhone owners is, how do you convert them for your iPhone? iTunes can convert them for you, though the process is a bit confusing unless you have step-by-step instructions.

Here are 10 steps you can use to convert a standard MP3 ringtone into an AAC-based ringtone that’s compatible with your iPhone.

1. In iTunes, choose “Add File to Library” from the “File” pull-down menu.

2. Browse to the file you want to convert. Select it and open it.

3. Click on the newly created icon for the file to select it. You should find the icon in the Albums view of the Music Library, most likely labeled as “Unknown Album, Unknown Artist.” Once selected, the icon will have a blue border.

4. Choose “Create AAC Version” from the “Advanced” pull-down menu.

5. You can now delete the two new icons that were created for the Albums view — you won’t need them anymore. To delete an icon, right click it and select “Delete” from the menu options.

6. Now you’ll need to find the converted file in order to rename it. On my PC, the file is saved along this folder path: My Documents/My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Unknown Artist/Unknown Album.

7. Change the extension of the converted file from .m4a to .m4r.

8. Back in iTunes, select the Ringtones Library. Then choose “Add File to Library” from the “File” pull-down menu.

9. Browse for the renamed .m4r file. Select it and open it.

10. Your converted MP3-format ringtone should now be available as an M4R-format ringtone for your iPhone.

That’s the method I used to convert MP3 ringtones to iPhone ringtones for Beepzoid’s Vintage Phone Ringtones page. I can’t guarantee this process will work for you, but it has yielded consistent results for me with minimal fuss.

In the distant future, a mathematician discovers that civilization will undergo a 500-year collapse, followed by a 30,000-year period of great pain and suffering. He has calculated a path that could reduce the dark time to just 1,000 years. Unfortunately, the ruling regime has held his findings to be treasonous.

That’s the premise of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It was given a one-time Hugo award in 1965 for “Best All-Time Series,” beating out Lord of the Rings (the first Dune book wasn’t published until that same year).

Based almost entirely on a series of short stories he published in “Astounding Magazine” from 1942 to 1950, Asimov was inspired by Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the Foundation stories, we view the events through the eyes of the mathematician’s followers, as they attempt to navigate through the treacherous historical currents.

Why hasn’t Hollywood turned the Foundation series into a big-budget movie? The short answer is, they’re working on it. In January, the rights were sold to Columbia Pictures. Roland Emmerich is set to direct, and Robert Rodat is busy working on the script. Rodat is best known for having written the script for Saving Private Ryan.

In the meantime, you can read the books. Or you can listen to an excellent eight-part BBC radio production that captures much of the intelligence, drama, and intrigue of Asimov’s original stories. The radio programs are available free through the Internet Archive. Here’s a link to download the radio series. If you just want to sample the radio programs, you can use this link to stream the first episode.

If you’ve been waiting to buy a Blu-ray player because the technology isn’t quite there yet, take a look at Oppo’s BDP-83. With a $499 list price, it would be considered a mid-priced model. Yet it runs rings around other Blu-ray players, including units that cost a thousand dollars or more.

Remarkably, it doesn’t take forever to load a Blu-ray disc. A major annoyance with other models is the length of time it takes for the Blu-ray copy protection to verify the disc is legit. With the Oppo BDP-83, Blu-ray discs load almost as fast as DVDs.

I have only a handful of Blu-ray discs, so I’ll be using the BDP-83 mostly for DVDs. The BDP-83 provides the best image quality I’ve seen with DVDs, due in large part to the high-quality scaling and de-interlacing provided by the built-in VRS processor from Anchor Bay. My DVDs have never looked better. They have richer colors, deeper tones, and silky smooth movement.

Other standout features include the ability to play most video and audio files directly from a USB thumb drive (also handy for firmware upgrades). There’s support for BD-Live content with 1GB of internal storage. The player is compatible with SACD (Super Audio CD) and DVD-Audio discs, as well as the latest high-end audio formats — Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. You say your receiver doesn’t know how to decode those audio formats? No problem. The Oppo BDP-83 can handle the decoding and route the audio through its 7.1-channel analog outputs.

The only downside I’ve encountered is the lack of multi-region support. Oppo’s DVD players could handle DVDs from other countries, once you’ve input a special code. As a condition for being granted the Blu-ray license, the company has agreed to not allow that loophole with its Blu-ray players. The region-code restriction is for both DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Oppo is one of the most customer-oriented companies around. They provide excellent support and are responsive to users’ needs. I had previously purchased two Oppo DVD players and wouldn’t hesitate to buy another. If you’re shopping for a feature-rich player (as opposed to the least expensive player available), you’ll find the Oppo models often represent the best overall value.

Today, Olympus announced its latest portable high-quality audio recorder, the LS-11. I’m a fan of the LS-10, the predecessor of the LS-11. I use the LS-10 for all the interviews I conduct — either over the phone or in person. Both devices can record uncompressed 24 bit/96 kHz linear PCM format audio for high-quality digital stereo. I sometimes use the uncompressed 24-bit mode to record ambient sounds when traveling.

One of my favorite features is the programmable function key. I have mine set to toggle the LCD backlight on or off. The backlight can turn itself off automatically, but I like to turn it off manually to optimize battery life and eliminate a potential distraction.

Many of the main functions are handled externally with analog controls. That’s a real plus in my book. When you’re fumbling to start or stop a recording, or adjust the volume, you’re better served with proportionally large and clearly marked dials and buttons.

The LS-11 expands the LS-10′s onboard memory from 2GB to 8GB. Both models have an SD card slot that can handle the higher-capacity SDHC cards, as well as standard SD cards. The LS-11 adds the ability to place index marks within a file during recording or playback. It also allows for rudimentary file edits. Olympus claims the LS-11 can record up to 23 hours on two AA batteries.

My only complaints with the LS-10: It takes too long for the device to go from being off to being ready to record, and changing the volume level while recording can sometimes be noisy.

These aren’t cheap products. The LS-11 will be available in September with an estimated street price of $399.99. If you look around, you can find the LS-10 for less than $250. Here’s a link for more information on both models.

You may have tried some Internet radio services and decided they aren’t worth the trouble. That’s what I thought until I encountered Slacker.

At CES, I spoke with a Slacker representative at the RIM (Research in Motion) booth. I learned the streaming service now supports the BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPod Touch, as well as the company’s own Slacker G2 handheld device. You can also stream the radio stations directly from slacker.com.

These aren’t traditional broadcast radio stations. You can choose from more than 100 pre-programmed genre stations or create your own stations by building playlists based on your favorite artists. Slacker has the legal rights to millions of songs, and the audio quality is very good.

You can use Slacker for free, though you’ll be limited in how many times you can skip past a song you don’t like, and you won’t be able to customize a station down to one artist. You’ll also have to listen to the occasional commercial (every five songs when I tried it). Alternatively, you can pay $3.99 a month and have unlimited skips, unlimited song requests, and no ads.

Slacker’s BlackBerry application has a significant advantage over the iPhone/iPod application. The company worked with RIM to allow the BlackBerry to cache stations to the SD memory card. You can store songs on the card and listen to them later when you don’t have a cellular signal. That could be handy when you’re flying on a commercial airline.

The i2i Stream was one of the more interesting products I saw this year at CES. Many competing products use Bluetooth’s A2DP profile for their wireless audio, including the Kyocera Wireless Music Gateway, RIM BlackBerry Bluetooth Music Gateway, and Nokia A2DP Bluetooth Gateway. Most of them work quite well.

Aerielle takes a different approach with its i2i Stream product. When you open the two-module pack, you may wonder which is the transmitter and which is the receiver. It doesn’t matter. They’re identical, and you can add additional modules to receive the same signal.

You can also configure the modules for multiple streams, and that’s where this product becomes more versatile than the current products that use A2DP. Any i2i Stream transmitting module can stream to any i2i Stream receiving module. Simply press the lit channel-button in the center until the color matches between the transmitting and receiving units. It’s that simple.

The i2i Stream does have an annoying feature that I hope is fixed in the future. The linked modules continue to display the linked color, even after you’ve paired them. That isn’t so bad. The problem is the transmitting unit flashes continuously. If you’re in a darkened room, you’ll probably want to cover it with something.

The modules also automatically turn off after a few minutes of silence, which means if you mute the sound during a commercial break, you’ll have to turn on the units again when the program resumes (best to avoid using the mute).

Otherwise, the modules worked fine. You can expect about 5 to 7 hours from a USB-power charge. I had no problem transmitting well over 30 feet. The audio quality was very good with no static or dropouts, even though the i2i Stream communicates on the sometimes congested 2.4 GHz band.

When Sennheiser launches a new flagship set of headphones, they’re well worth a listen. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the company had a sound booth where you could compare their former top headphones, the HD 650, with their new top headphones, the HD 800.

The HD 650 is well known as having a clear, uncolored sound that comes very close to accurately representing the original sound. Sennheiser provided a selection of CDs that you could test with the headphones. I settled on a Diana Krall album.

The HD 650 sounded fine, but then I tried the HD 800. Holy cow, what a difference. The music was much clearer. The stereo separation was the best I’ve heard from a set of headphones. And the overall sense of presence was amazing. It was obvious when returning to the HD 650 that they sounded dull in comparison.

How does the HD 800 achieve such an incredible sound? It features two 56mm sound transducers, which are currently the largest available in a set of dynamic headphones. Also unusual, the vibrating part of the diaphragm is a ring rather than a circular surface area.

There are many of innovations, but the end result is a total harmonic distortion of less than 0.02 percent and a frequency response from 6 to 51,000 Hz. And as the Sennheiser representatives pointed out to me several times (they seemed particularly proud of this), the HD 800 is handmade.

You know the HD 800 headphones won’t come cheap, though the $1,399.95 list price was actually less than I expected. They won’t be available until February, so there’s still time to figure out how in the world you could possibly justify such an expenditure.

You can’t get a big bass sound from a little speaker. No way, no how.

Well, there’s another truism out the window. I took a chance and ordered a foxL from the soundmatters website last week — without having heard it. I had read the glowing reviews and figured it would be worth a try, especially at $20 off (it’s on sale through October 1).

I can confirm the foxl is truly remarkable. I had real doubts that a small (5.6 inches by 2.2 inches by 1.4 inches) and lightweight (9.5 ounces) speaker system could outperform speakers ten times its size.

It operates up to five hours with the rechargeable battery. An AC-power adapter/charger is included, though you can also recharge it via a USB connection. When AC powered, the audio output doubles from 2 watts to 4 watts. Unfortunately, the internal battery isn’t user replaceable. You’ll have to send in the entire unit to have the battery replaced.

In addition to having foot-stomping bass, the audio sounded clear across a full range of frequencies with very little distortion. On the downside, there’s no stereo separation because the two internal speakers are only a few inches apart. If your MP3 player supports a lossless audio format, you’ll be amazed how well it performs alongside a foxL. It could be an ideal companion for a small laptop or projector (movie night, anyone?).

A more expensive model — the foxL mb — adds a microphone and Bluetooth radio. If your cell phone or laptop supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile, you’ll be able to use the foxL mb as a handsfree speaker phone or to stream your music wirelessly.

Why didn’t anyone do this before? After all, it isn’t rocket science. Scratch that. Maybe it is rocket science. It turns out that the soundmatters founder and audio designer, Dr. Godehard Guenther, is a former NASA engineer.