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OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

teenage.engineering

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Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#161

Post by amorroxic »

JohnBooty wrote: post #133

I have not heard this speaker, but like many portable speakers, the design is distinctly suboptimal even by portable standards. In a portable device, stereo is actually not desirable. Two reasons. One, you will certainly not experience the intended effect of stereo (the illusion of spatial separation) when the drivers are so close together. Two, the drivers will actually interfere with each other. Not only are you no…

Thank you for the perspective here. A wish there was a way to bookmark comments on HN..

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#162

Post by grzm »

amorroxic wrote: post #161
JohnBooty wrote: post #133

I have not heard this speaker, but like many portable speakers, the design is distinctly suboptimal even by portable standards. In a portable device, stereo is actually not desirable. Two reasons. One, you will certainly not experience the intended effect of stereo (the illusion of spatial separation) when the drivers are so close together. Two, the drivers will actually interfere with each other. Not only are you no…

Thank you for the perspective here. A wish there was a way to bookmark comments on HN..

You can use favorites for this feature.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#163

Post by whywhywhywhy »

andor wrote: post #50

"ambient mode - zone out to a drone generated by snippets of a radio broadcast" This sounds really cool. Is there anything like it available in software?

Similar in concept: http://youarelistening.to/ but just overlaying not melding the two.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#164

Post by dimnsionofsound »

mnw21cam wrote: post #146
thelazydogsback wrote: post #119

Exposed, non-protected woofers looks cool - but I can imagine a butter-side-down Murphy's law event happening to me within a week of getting that thing...

Also, 4-inch woofers? That's pretty small to be attempting to produce any serious amount of bass. (Source: I made myself a bass amp for my bass guitar when I was a teenager. It had a 12-inch woofer, and needed it. I don't think speakers have broken the laws of physics quite that well in the intervening years.)

You’d be surprised what modern neodymium drivers in a well designed enclosure can accomplish bass-wise. Though you are right in that the laws of physics have not changed, and something has to give, usually what has “given” is the increase in power output of small amplifier boards, thus allowing DIYers (like myself) and manufacturers alike to throw more power into lower efficiency, but higher mass (and thus more bass in a smaller enclosure) drivers.

With Hoffman’s iron law where you can have two of efficient, low, or small, it seems like efficiency is what has gone down to get more bass extension while keeping enclosures small-ish.

I’d be happy to provide photos+construction details of one of the portable speakers I made, and frequency response measurements if you’d like, to illustrate this.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#165

Post by IvanGoneKrazy »

sanitycheck wrote: post #113
amagumori wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it’s a weird situation where I feel like a lot of the people who the OP-1 is aimed at either can’t afford it, period or aren’t going to pay $1300 on a “toy”. Because of its market positioning it ends up being this unattainable luxury item that only professional/ established musicians use, instead of a MPC-esque everyman’s tool. The “toy” design positioning and huge price tag work in tandem to keep it unattainabl…

I'm not going to try to defend this expensive radio thing, but regarding the OP-1 I don't think $1300 is an "unattainable luxury item", I'd reserve that label for something like a proper Leica camera. There are plenty of ways to spend a lot more on a musical instrument - buy a decent saxophone, or a Moog One! I just found a ukulele online for $1500. The OP-1 seems overpriced because it's very small, but that's also t…

It's worth noting that the price of an OP-1 was much lower when it initially launched. I bought mine directly from TE for $850 + shipping + import duties. A re-launch of the product bumped the price to where it is currently.

I also agree that the current price, while high, is not leagues above what other music gear is priced at. Take a single synthesizer, a sampler, add a keyboard, a sequencer, effects pedals, and a mixer and you can easily exceed $1000. The OP-1 has multiple synthesis engines, multiple sequencers, multiple effects, and sampling capabilities (you can even sample from FM radio, sound familiar?)

While the OP-1 may not win awards for any one of those features, it does unify all of them into a portable package. The OP-1 has also served as a gateway drug for me. I've since purchased even pricier synth gear :)

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#166

Post by ddingus »

dvtrn wrote: post #58
ddingus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they believe they will sell in the US?

Do you believe it wont? teenage engineering has a very consistent following among audio geeks around the globe, as other comments are enthusiastically alluding to, I'd have already bought one if they weren't already sold out

Oh I think it will. And analog FM works in many places around the globe, including the US.

They should do well with that thing.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#167

Post by munificent »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #107
somesortofsystm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who has made an entire album with the OP-1 and as well full tracks with his Operator collection. As always, its not the instrument - its the musician.

For what it is worth, your friend would be in addition to most modern artists. Chvrches' first album was mostly OP1, Death Cab used it heavily on their latest, The national made aggressive use, TS's Folklore is layered with it everywhere and It was used in Billy Ellish's latest works too. the OP1 is basically standard equipment for most modern bedroom to indie producers.

> the OP1 is basically standard equipment for most modern bedroom to indie producers.

That's going a little far. The thing with music gear is that if you look for people using it, you see it everywhere. But you don't see people not using it. You can't easily google "albums recorded without using an OP-1" and get useful results. So that gives you a very skewed impression about how popular any given tool is.

I'd be surprised if more than 1% of indie releases in the past few years used an OP-1. Heck, it's be surprised if more than 10% used any hardware synth, much less a quirky boutique one like the OP-1.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#168

Post by ddingus »

joezydeco wrote: post #136
vel0city wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HD Radio is a digital radio standard in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Many new cars are sold with HD Radio. Many new cars are sold without HD Radio. Go look at some new car listings, you'll find tons without HD Radio. Many will only say AM/FM. Sometimes they'll also mention Radio Data System (RDS), the thing that shows a snippet of text with song titles and station names. Some will mention HD Radio Ready, as in you can…

It was a rhetorical response to the statement "The US digital radio effort has been complicated and slow to ramp up" . The answer was "it exists and has been ramped up for a while". And I'm not even talking about SDARS.

Compared to analog FM, in the US, adoption has been slow.

When they run ADS on the HD streams, we will know it is much closer.

Some regions are almost there. Many are not.

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#169

Post by ddingus »

baybal2 wrote: post #86
ddingus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US digital radio effort has been complicated and slow to ramp up. Many digital streams are commercial free in an attempt to drive receiver adoption. Many cars still ship with no digital capability. Ordinary FM makes reasonable sense here.

USA drew a short stick in the digital radio battle, by deciding on using a proprietary standard. The rest of the world has the DMB vs. DAB competition driving the adoption, and technical improvements, while USA still had the same HD Radio of 10 years ago, and near no mobile receivers.

I agree, BTW.

We could have had a much quicker, cheaper system.

Then there is the whole artificial highs above about 8khz thing...

Re: OB–4 – Portable high fidelity loudspeaker

#170

Post by ddingus »

joezydeco wrote: post #54
ddingus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US digital radio effort has been complicated and slow to ramp up. Many digital streams are commercial free in an attempt to drive receiver adoption. Many cars still ship with no digital capability. Ordinary FM makes reasonable sense here.

What is HD Radio, then? https://hdradio.com/get-a-radio/new-cars/

It is that thing we are seeing a slow adoption of in the US :D
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