61–69 of 69 posts
I've spent countless hours searching for a small, good quality passive speaker. In a roughly 4 inch cube size. That comes with an good (acoustically) box/enclosure. Plenty exist in various forms (kits) but I never know if they sound as good as even laptop or phone speakers. Which is a low bar, but still can't find good reviews.
I really wish someone would come out with a $25 "box" that sits on top of my bookshelf speaker that allows me to Airplay to it and power said speaker with a ~50w class-D amp. Then if I have multiple ones, it would allow them to pair and setup stereo or surround sound. I might even pay $50 for it. Kinda like a Sonos Amp but not at that price point.
I really wish someone would come out with a $25 "box" that sits on top of my bookshelf speaker that allows me to Airplay to it and power said speaker with a ~50w class-D amp. Then if I have multiple ones, it would allow them to pair and setup stereo or surround sound. I might even pay $50 for it. Kinda like a Sonos Amp but not at that price point.
Whats the justification for Sonos Amp being 31 times the price you're willing to spend? Niche problem or is the tech inside it worth that?
Anything involving Sonos with wires increases support cost. Simply involving wires produces new ways for people to screw things up (as if supporting their wireless-only customers wasn't expensive enough).
And those who are using wires but not screwing things up gain the ability to expand and improve their audio systems in their own ways, without paying the Sonos tax to do so. They can buy/upgrade whatever speakers they want from any manufacturer in the world, while keeping the same Sonos Amp. That represents lost opportunity, so the amp gets taxed harder.
(The tech inside the Sonos Amp isn't particularly novel. It's just a small Linux box with a trick proprietary software stack and some audio hardware.)
Would love for Pine64 to thrive. I don't own any of their products, but I am glad they exist.
I have their Pinecil and PinePower Desktop. They're really great products, I use the PinePower daily to charge my stuff at my desk and the Pinecil made soldering a joy, now I no longer dread it and can enjoy tinkering with hobby electronics again.
Everyone I know who is vaguely-serious about soldering has their own favorite brand/method/voodoo, so they're not interested in the soldering irons even if we do a direct comparison and the Pinecil performs better. (There's no accounting for taste, I guess.)
But the PinePower box is different. I've helped them sell a few of those to various geeky friends. They do what they're supposed to do, handle all of the various fast-charging standards that small portable widgets tend to use, and they do it in a usefully-informative way.
So it's wonderful for charging stuff and can easily earn a permanent place in a household, and a person can very clearly see if a given charging cable is being difficult for whatever reason that it is without goofing around with extra parts like USB power analyzers.
I hope they stick around. They seem to be one of the good ones.
I've spent countless hours searching for a small, good quality passive speaker. In a roughly 4 inch cube size. That comes with an good (acoustically) box/enclosure. Plenty exist in various forms (kits) but I never know if they sound as good as even laptop or phone speakers. Which is a low bar, but still can't find good reviews.
A 4-inch cube doesn't leave much room for a passive speaker to be very good (depending on one's definition of "good"). We've got hard physical constraints with loudspeaker systems, and they show up as tradeoffs. Very broadly speaking, in practical terms, this takes the form of a tradeoff betwixt enclosure volume, efficiency, and low-end frequency extension. It's impossible to improve all three of these at once. This…
Clearly it can be done, its just noone seem to be investing in RnD enough.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A 4-inch cube doesn't leave much room for a passive speaker to be very good (depending on one's definition of "good"). We've got hard physical constraints with loudspeaker systems, and they show up as tradeoffs. Very broadly speaking, in practical terms, this takes the form of a tradeoff betwixt enclosure volume, efficiency, and low-end frequency extension. It's impossible to improve all three of these at once. This…
A lot of words explaining how something is hard to do because physics but in my layman experience any speaker I heard that didnt cost $500+ sounded horrible regardless of size, while my M1 Macbook Air sounds better than all of those, while keeping tiny formfactor. Clearly it can be done, its just noone seem to be investing in RnD enough.
A Macbook comprises an entire audio system, with amplification and DSP and everything else that a passive speaker -- by its very nature -- can never provide.
I explained this once. If you read through it, and take the time to understand it, and then think that you can explain it with superior brevity, then by all means: Feel free. :)
If you have questions, then: Please ask them.
If you think you can also defy what are commonly accepted to be real physical constraints and produce a tiny passive practical speaker that sounds great, then: By all means, do that as well! The proceeds of this kind of success can make you very wealthy -- maybe not Mars-mission wealthy, but probably at least beach house, private flights, and built-to-spec Porsche 911 GT3-level wealthy. You'll then be able to take time to decide what your next venture is, or perhaps decide to just live with that level of lavishness doing whatever makes you happy until your days run out.
People with fresh ears are born every day.
I've spent countless hours searching for a small, good quality passive speaker. In a roughly 4 inch cube size. That comes with an good (acoustically) box/enclosure. Plenty exist in various forms (kits) but I never know if they sound as good as even laptop or phone speakers. Which is a low bar, but still can't find good reviews.
A 4-inch cube doesn't leave much room for a passive speaker to be very good (depending on one's definition of "good"). We've got hard physical constraints with loudspeaker systems, and they show up as tradeoffs. Very broadly speaking, in practical terms, this takes the form of a tradeoff betwixt enclosure volume, efficiency, and low-end frequency extension. It's impossible to improve all three of these at once. This…