It’s Worse Than That, He’s Dead Jim!

While I’m very active in VOIP matters I have other interests as well, one being what used to be called “stereos” and is now referred to as “home theatre” or “audiophilia.” I’m not into the “Golden eared” silly stuff like the unbelievably expensive interconnects that so offended James Randi that he tried to call them on their bluff. But I do like to play with music playback gear.

Most recently I especially like the combination of the Logitech Squeezebox and some professional powered monitor speakers. I also occasionally read www.diyaudio.com.

The whole reason for bringing this up in the VOIP space is that this week seems to have brought forward the concept of “SAF” with respect to the new Snom M3s. SAF = Spousal Approval Factor.

FWIW, with respect to loudspeakers, SAF varies inversely with the volume of the enclosure.

When I left for England last weekend our home phone line was still coming into the old Panasonic KX-TG4000. We’ve used it for over 5 years, but more recently only for the home line. My wife likes having multiple cordless handsets, although we currently only have one that still works.

Apparently, some time this week that one handset stopped working. That means that the only place to answer our home phone was at the base unit in the master bedroom. Not very convenient for her.

Luckily, I had another Houston area DID setup to ring the Snom M3 systems. And I had the Snom registered with OnSIP, so she simply started using the Snom cordless phone that I’d left in a charging stand in the kitchen.

This is good for the forthcoming review as it lets me get a really good handle on its S.A.F. It seems that she likes the little Snom phones. She’d like a couple more handsets so that we can put one in every significant room in the house.

I was able to “reboot” the Panasonic cordless handset by removing its battery, then reinstalling it and letting it power-on from fully off. I expect that it’ll misbehave again soon. It’s a good thing that we’re trying out new gear as we’ll soon need it to be on the front lines.