Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We need physical audio kill switches

rubenerd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 443 posts

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#351

Post by jimador »

onion-soup wrote: post #11

Nothing will ever come close to convenience of analogue volume knobs. They give both immediate action and infinite granular control. Same goes for kitchen stoves. All the modern touch controls with step-based control is the absolute nightmare in terms of UI.

I loathe touch controls. We had them on our last stove and our cats would repeatedly walk across them.

They had a lock button, but every now and then one of their paws would stand long enough on the lock/unlock touch control to activate the entire panel.

We resorted to flipping the breaker any time we left the house. Guess none of those engineers had a cat.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#352

Post by CamperBob2 »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #254
WalterBright wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody knew what the hell all the icons meant Still can't figure out how to turn on the defroster in a new car. My old truck was simple - turn the knob to "DEFROST". My cat feeder invented all its own icons, trying to get it set up is a nightmare. I keep the instruction manual next to it. I hate Steve Jobs for convincing the world that written words are bad and random cute pictures are cool. Please, bring back "DEL…

Did Steve Jobs really do that? Unless you mean going from a text based CLI to a graphic UI but even those had plenty of words, especially those well thought out. When Jobs had to choose a washing machine for his family, he chose a Miele with plenty of words on it: https://9to5mac.com/2011/03/07/how-steve-jobs-picks-a-washer...

It absolutely was Steve Jobs's fault, although we're talking about the pre-NeXT Steve Jobs the Grey rather than the revenant Steve Jobs the White.

Around the time Walter was working on Datalight C, I was working at a computer game company in Austin that most geeks over the age of about 35 have heard of. All decisions of note at this well-regarded company were made by a figure of equal repute, someone with the tech chops of one Steve and the charisma of the other. This guy wasn't a Mac user himself, but there were a few Macs in use around the office, and he fell for the WIMP paradigm hard.

The games in the series he was known for were historically keyboard-driven, but the one we were working on at the time, the sixth, was the first to be developed on the PC rather than the Apple II and also the first to feature a GUI. So everything was icon-based whether it needed to be or not, because "that's how the Mac does it." Hieroglyphics were hot again, who could've seen it coming? Don't complain, just work like an Egyptian.

At the time this flavor of Kool-Aid was being consumed all over the place, from game companies to office/productivity software companies, and it unquestionably all went back to Jobs, or more accurately the cues Jobs took from PARC. We weren't alone in being ordered by management to Think Different(tm) by ripping off some guys in Cupertino.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#353

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

Thlom wrote: post #265
slowmovintarget wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very high-end or professional ovens will not have this. These are gimmicks for people with too much money, and too little sense. I don't want my toaster posting on Facebook. I don't want to link my refrigerator with my Google account. And no, I do not expect my microwave to post pics of my food to Instagram. I want a toaster that toasts properly and can be cleaned. I want a refrigerator that runs forever, doesn't lea…

Looks like some connectivity is creeping into the high-end stuff like Gaggenau as well, but at least they still stick to TFT screens and not huge LCD touch displays, and it looks like the connectivity stuff is actually useful for stuff like remote diagnostics. My Samsung fridge can connect to wifi, but lord knows why. I can adjust the temperature, but why I would want to do that on my phone and not on the appliance i…

My recent Samsung washer and dryer units have wifi options because I couldn't find any local available models without, but I'm also confused what the real use case is for it.

If I'm home to deal with them, I can hear them sing. Yes, they play cute little songs when they complete their loads. If I'm not home, it makes no difference to me whatsoever if my dryer can send me artisanally curated messages about the glorious dryness of my garments.

I could see a use case if you had some sort of home SCADA controller that was locally networked and could operate a vent fan based on appliances being in operation or tell your fridge and HVAC to switch to power-saving modes based on the local energy market's posted power prices. But that's invariably not what corporate interests are offering because their incentives are so totally divorced from that of the end users.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#354

Post by Natales »

ohazi wrote: post #350
Natales wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't judge all of us audiophiles with a blanket statement. Yes, measured hearing capacity is definitely a key metric to know (why invest in super tweeters when you can't hear past 18KHz for example), but room acoustics is probably the very next thing I'd look at. I've seen so much "expensive" gear in rooms that are absolutely horrid in terms of sound reflections. Just a carpet, curtains or a couple of cheap sound pa…

Thanks for the reminder -- I have an unassembled LX Mini kit in my closet that I should really build. I was fortunate enough to meet Siegfried at one of his listening sessions about a year before he passed away, and we had a fun conversation about physics and electronics. Very nice man, with the right mix of formal (with his super nice diagrams) and informal (with his scrappy, clever, practical designs).

I cannot agree more. I also had the pleasure of meeting him at his home in Corte Madera. After an hour of conversation and listening, of course I was really impressed with his creations, but during just a moment, I saw a glimpse of why he was really sharing his living room with a total stranger: it wasn't about the speakers or the tech. It was about music. He ultimately wanted to share his love of music.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#355

Post by sizzle »

onion-soup wrote: post #11

Nothing will ever come close to convenience of analogue volume knobs. They give both immediate action and infinite granular control. Same goes for kitchen stoves. All the modern touch controls with step-based control is the absolute nightmare in terms of UI.

Same goes for car audio and climate control

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#356

Post by dayjobpork »

nebulous1 wrote: post #221
mrkwse wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS disables the audio control of HDMI outputs because that is what the HDMI specification expects/defines. If you think of all the devices that output via HDMI, Windows PCs are the outlier (afaik, not sure how Linux handles it) in allowing separate volume controls beyond those on the output device. Satellite set top boxes, media streaming devices (e.g. Apple TV - I realise NVidia Shield and some Chromecast apps do…

> Satellite set top boxes, media streaming devices (e.g. Apple TV - I realise NVidia Shield and some Chromecast apps do have some software volume control), games consoles, and Blu-Ray players will all output a fixed audio signal, I genuinely think that statement might be false in more cases than it's true. Certainly in devices I've used personally, the majority have allowed you to control the output volume directly.

The nvidia shield it depends on the app. Kodi you can adjust volume in app and on the sound receiver, while Netflix just shows a message every time you hit the shield volume control. I hate the Netflix option, is my bloody hardware it should be my choice how to use it

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#357

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

m463 wrote: post #200
skohan wrote: post #126

I've been thinking the same about power switches lately. If I turn a flashlight, or an old radio on or off, I flip a switch and get the result I want. With my 65 EUR gamepad, or 300 EUR headphones, I hold a button and wait several seconds for the result. Why has UX regressed so much in these areas?

I have always wanted a flashlight with a brightness knob, that clicks to off. It is incredibly hard to find this. I have one somewhere, but the knob was a little silly: https://amzn.com/B07BDQS3XX I think a better design would be a ring around the circumference that you twist. But I agree - when it came to putting a good stereo in my car (when you used to be able to do such a thing) I always kept looking until I foun…

I have one of those flashlights (Sunwayman V25C), I love the UI. It's quite old, not sure if they're sold anymore.

You can try searching for "infinitely variable" flashlights. Jetbeam RRT01 is one such example.

For a little extra "oomph", there's also https://skylumen.com/collections/v54-lights?sort_by=created-...

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#358

Post by ufmace »

brandon272 wrote: post #29

I let my spouse, who likes the novelty of a touchscreen, talk me into a Whirlpool oven a couple years ago that is controlled by touchscreen. I had no idea it was possible to hate an oven so much. The only saving grace is that the stovetop elements are still controlled by knobs.

Reading all of these comments, I'm really glad I have a dumb gas stove with no special electronics, just an actual mechanical gas valve. Turn knob -> more gas -> bigger fire -> more heat into pot, and that's all there is to it.

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#359

Post by Gibbon1 »

microcolonel wrote: post #320
formerly_proven wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem mostly caused by using passive log-taper circuits, instead of alternate active volume control circuits that use linear-taper pots, which have sufficiently good tolerance and ganging in low-cost dual units. But these circuits require 1-2 op amps per channel and those 20 cents are too much in three-figure hardware. Ganged log-taper pots have something like +-3 or +-6 dB ganging mismatch even for relati…

You can also just use an ADC in the sound chipset, since your average consumer electronics Class D amplifier is going to be adequate at any digital level, provided the circuit is not designed by a lower primate.

I feel personally attacked

Re: We need physical audio kill switches

#360

Post by m463 »

slacka wrote: post #341
m463 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an audiophile literally means you like audio. It doesn't require you to purchase overengineered or overhyped technology any more than being a cycling enthusiast requires you to weigh your accessories in grams. :)

This may be true, but /u/Judgmentality just described to a T the one self-described audiophile that I am friends with.

You know, one thing I learned from getting interested in stereo equipment was the concept of overengineering.

I always thought... how can there be such a thing? maybe you let the non-recurring costs get a little high, but don't you end up with a better product in the end?

Turns out overengineering is a thing.

I had a friend who was a real sound engineer.

You just need a good (not overpriced) set of earbuds.

Post reply on HN