Audio

Dave Michels: Whole House Audio Via The Squeezebox Duet

squeezebox-touchWe do love our Squeezeboxen. In fact, we love ’em enough that we have four of the little beasties scattered around here. They are at the core of our strategy for “whole house audio.”

The strategy is simple, nothing fancy or even built-in. In each room where we like to listen to music or internet radio we have a Squeezebox3 and a pair of self-powered monitor speakers. When we entertain a crowd, we sync up the whole shebang so that we have music throughout the property but independent control of volume in each room.

Read More

Immersive Audio: Sound All Around You

Ok, this is me diving into the deep-end of something that very possibly literally no-one in the world cares about. That’s just so typical of me. Actually, I know that a few people are starting to clue in about this because I’ve heard it come up here and there in conversation, most recently at the Sept 15th HDComms event in NYC.

This post is actually the third in a series. In the first (Pink Floyd: The Making Of Money & Directionality) I took a quick look at pop music recording practices and specifically the practice of recording things “close-mic’d” the adding ambience through synthetic means. In the second in the series (Codecs, Wideband & Stereo: A Conversation At Amoocon) I followed a conversation in the hallway at AMOOCON 2009, noting aspects of the discussion pertaining to “stereo” or the conveyance of directionality.

Once we get beyond PSTN audio quality, when wideband is accepted as normal, then “dimensional” or “immersive” audio becomes a new frontier for exploration in telephony. In fact, in some limited ways we’re already doing this in larger video conference room & telepresence suites.

Read More

Skype’s FREETALK® Everyman Headset

everyman-160You’ve caught me in an especially curmudgeonly state of mind. But you’re just going to have to deal with it. Consider yourself warned!

A couple of weeks ago a plain brown box arrived in the mail. It contained a sample of Skype’s new FREETALK® Everyman Superwideband headset. At the time this product was announced I couldn’t help by wonder why a new headset could be such a big deal? I mean, really now, I have a box full of headsets collected over the years. How could a low-end headset, no matter how special, merit such fanfare?

Read More

Pink Floyd: The Making Of Money & Directionality

pink-floyd-dark-side-of-the-moon-160On the surface this might seem a wee bit off topic, but bear with me as I will get there eventually. My thanks for Crunch Gear’s John Biggs for pointing out this You Tube clip documenting the making of the song “Money” by Pink Floyd. I’m a fan of the band and have also followed their individual solo careers in more recent years.

Further, I’m a big fan of Alan Parsons, who engineered a number of the bands recordings. Alan appears in the clip as well. He’s a master recording engineer which is something that I especially admire, having spent a portion of my youth in such endeavors myself.

Read More
Back To Top