PhatBoyG.com » Audio

Shure MPA-3C iPhone Music Phone Adapter Unboxed

Chris — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:05:42 +0000

I picked up the Shure MPA-3C Music Phone Adapter from the Apple store today. The adapter includes a microphone and narrow plug and is compatible with the iPhone. So far I’ve only tested the playback quality and it seems to be on par with the straight through wired connection, so no change there.

Bass In Sedans

Chris — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:32:58 +0000

I’m posting this mostly for me, but as a general piece of information, this offers a good explanation of how bass works in a sedan. In my old Honda (search the articles), the trunk and passenger compartment were sealed off from each other as show in figure 4. This prevented the cancellation of sound waves shown in the previous figures.

1993 Honda Accord Stereo System

Chris — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:56:20 +0000

In digging through some old pictures, I came across the pictures of my car audio system from 1994. This was built into a 1993 Honda Accord EX with the sole intention of entering IASCA competitions. While the scene has certainly changed since I was in the game, the sound remains the same. Loud, quality audio systems that reproduce a concert-level music atmosphere.

The system took first in every competition entered, and even took best of show in the 1994 Car Toys season finale. I managed to snag enough points for a nationals invitation, but bought a house and didn’t have the funds to compete at the national level.

The system consisted of the following components:

Alpine In-Dash CD Player
Alpine 6-Disc CD Changer
Alpine ???? 7-Band Parametric EQ
Alpine 3656 Active Dividing Network
(2) a/d/s/ PQ-10 Amplifiers (bridged to 2×100 for tweeters and midranges, one amp per channel)
(1) a/d/s/ PQ-20 Amplifier (bridged to 2×200 into the subwoofers)
Boston Acoustics Pro series 6.5″ midrange and 1″ tweeter, custom mounted into stock locations
Clifford Alarm System with Remote Start, Window and Sunroof Automation
Optima Red Top second battery
1F Stiffening Cap

You can see pictures of the system in the gallery.

Nice Double Din Rig from Pioneer

Chris — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:04:25 +0000

Saw this from CES, looks like a winner. Available in March for under $1000, it includes navigation, DVD video playback, solid high-speed iPod integration, support for AAC, and numerous other features. Look for this one to get some serious penetration.

Pioneer AVIC-D3

There is also a community for the AVIC line of receivers at AVIC411.COM.

UPDATE: Pioneer has the full details on the D3 posted online. Looks like iTunes AAC support is included now as well. I wonder if that includes Apple Lossless Codec support for playing ALC tunes from your iPod via the D3.

Vista Goodies: Volume Mixer

Chris — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 05:55:58 +0000

Add this in the column of really cool features that you didn’t expect. When you double-click the volume icon, you get a lovely set of mixer pots. These let you adjust the volume of all the running applications, in addition to a master fader. Talk about sweet, you can finally silence IE without diminishing the volume of your iTunes library.

Audio as a whole seems to be handled a lot better in this new version of Windows. It seems like the OS does high-quality audio internally now instead of the nasty KMIXER sampling we had before. Time will tell, however, and more advanced tools come out to check into the details.

Bedroom Theater Audio

Chris — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 02:41:26 +0000

With kids, it’s rare that I get to enjoy the great home theater experience in the main room. The TV in there is old (55″ SDTV, 10+ years old) and will soon be due for replacement. When that day comes, it’s hard to justify anything hard core because I never to get watch TV in there and the 5.1 system mostly goes to the likes of The Incredibles or NEMO.

That being said, I watch almost all movies in the bedroom on a 37″ 1080p HD LCD. It’s a solid experience, using a Sony 5-disc HDMI player that upconverts to 1080i (yeah, no P, bummer I know). The sound however sucks. I use the built-in speakers and it is just lame all around.

I recently discovered the Yamaha YSP-1100. It’s a 42-speaker bar that sits until your TV and provides a theater surround sound from a single position. The box has some video inputs and switching, and eliminates the need for a receiver, wires and a ton of speakers. The system seems cool, but with no support for HDMI, it seems like this awesome product is due a refresh in the spring (yeah, even though it just came out in September).

If this box had three HDMI inputs, at least one component video input (converted to ride along the HDMI output to the TV), I would have one in a heartbeat. That way I could hook the DVR (Motorola STB w/HDMI output), DVD Player, HTPC (w/nVidia HDMI output), and PS2 to a single box and feed the need on the TV Monitor. Until then, I’m going to have to wait until it gets better because the current config isn’t quite gravy.

FYI: Gravy === The SHIT!

Shure e500 Arrival

Chris — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:30:45 +0000

Well, they’re here and they are very impressive. I’m surprised at the improvement compared to the e4c, I didn’t expect them too be such an improvement.

The sound is less congested, bass is greatly improved, treble is brighter and more defined, everything that I grew to dislike when comparing my e4c to my previous Beyerdynamic DT-880′s is now gone. Soundstage is wide, the treble my god is so much better.

I’m very happy so far, I’ve listened to Shpongle, Ott, Barenaked Ladies, Collective Soul and some various artists and I can’t complain yet. Rock music is drastically improved over the e4c, which felt lifeless with rock but very good with electronica. I haven’t heard anything yet on the e500 that has disappointed me.

Shure e500

Chris — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 13:26:03 +0000

Well, word is people are starting to get the first production run of the new IEM from Shure this week. Several have posted on head-fi that their earphones have arrived, along with their early impressions. Even the iPodLounge crew piped up with a glowing review of them.

Mine have not arrived yet, but once they do you can be sure I’ll post my comments on them. My current units (Shure e4c) are still doing quite well, but this new release from Shure is a major technological upgrade compared to the single-driver setup in the e4c and expectations are quite high for their sound.

iUbi Blue PMP2500B – Apple, are you listening?

Chris — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 06:51:10 +0000

Check this out: iUbi Blue PMP2500B

Apple needs to get on the ball if they expect to compete with something like this. The feature set is amazing, the screen is a wonderful 480×272 (same as the PSP), codec support is awesome, USB-to-go is crazy cool, and it can record video from a number of sources in MPEG4 30fps. I’m thinking that is going to make for one hell of a personal media system. Oh, and it has Bluetooth support for wireless headphones! And a real powerful headphone amplifier to push serious plugs with some real sound.
That means whatever Apple comes up with better be damn good. I realize it probably won’t matter, but Apple at least needs to match the screen quality. Marketing will be a win for Apple if they take the low road and only support a few formats and really limit the feature set, with that attitude they might be a contender for Bose runner up with inferior products with a quality name.

But we’re talking about Apple, they’ll surely shock us all with the power of the real video iPod that has yet to come. We expect no less from them. But if they churn out some crap that doesn’t have near the feature set for an expensive price tag, they will lose. And with Microsoft rumored to have their own personal portable player coming soon, it would be a shame to see Apple lose some of that wonderful market share they enjoy.

Sorry, somewhat of a rant, but I really want to be able to watch episodes of 24, Alias, CSI, etc. on a portable player while I’m stuck in downtime or bored at work (not as if that EVER happens). And every announcement of a slick new player from somebody other than Apple makes me show a little less love for the company that could.

Shure E500 In-Ear Monitors Coming Soon

Chris — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:52:07 +0000

I’ve been a long time fan of high-quality audio, be it home, car, computer and now portable. I run my iPod with ALC (Apple Lossless Audio) not because I like being able to only fit 60 albums on my 30G unit, but because I cannot stand the audio degradation of AAC, MP3 or any other audio compression technology. Now, before you start screaming “golden ears wannabe” or other magic monkey-juice analogies of those that can hear well, let me explain. On a stock set of earbuds from an iPod headphone output, you aren’t going to hear the difference between 60Hz and 90Hz, the design just doesn’t matter. And you can completely forget about phase and separation.

I currently run a pair of Shure E4c in-ear monitors on my rig. I find the midrange absolutely stunning, with solid bass response and a respectable treble response. They are nowhere near as accurate on the top end as my previous Beyerdynamic DT-880 dynamic open cans, but those aren’t really useful on the road (or even working in the yard). The E4c IEMs have a solid 30-35 dB of noise isolation, making it easy to hear the music without completely destroying your hearing in the process. They are also very detailed, making the sonic imperfections of AAC (particularly the iTunes Music Store variety) very obvious.

Most IEMs use a single driver, some of the higher end ones use two drivers. The new E500′s use three drivers — one tweeter and two woofers. This is expected to offer a very wide response curve that should meet the needs of everyone that looks for an IEM that is accurate. I’m hopeful for more top-end extension and the same solid bass that I get with the E4c. Yeah, I don’t ask for much. These are supposed to land sometime at the end of May or early June, so stay tuned for a review.

Shure Press Release