Tag: Audio

The Audiophile Experience: Loving What You Have

This past year, I’ve been quite obsessed with researching more about audio equipment. And by researching, I mean, mostly purchasing.

Based on what I’ve discovered, audio is a lot more difficult to experience compared to video. They instruct you quite a bit within an IT about how to manage video equipment with all the essentials like HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, etc. and then everything related to display technology like In-Plane Switching, Twisted Nematic, and Vertical Alignment, but it really doesn’t feel like they train you much about audio. Perhaps it’s because most office environments just use HDMI for their audio or something like that. But it is kind of frustrating when there’s a whole area out there to explore that you’re just not trained on.

I’m definitely not what you would call a “sound guy“. In fact, most of the audio equipment that I’ve bought this past year barely scratches the surface. The equipment I bought mainly consists of Sonos speakers (which I reviewed in a previous post). And another pair of AirPods. This time, the AirPods Max. I initially had gotten the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless after a recommendation. But I had decided to return them after a few months due to me finding them a little uncomfortable, as well as frustrating to pair with my devices. Specifically, the cut off an audio on Windows, the compression with using the microphone at the same time as the audio. A lot of these are really just major Bluetooth limitations that they don’t have control over. But for a device that showed an MfI label on the box, it really didn’t feel like one.

Bluetooth is surprisingly behind when it comes to audio. Perhaps it’s just a low bitrate, but for something that’s existed for a long time now, it’s still kind of irritating that using a Bluetooth device isn’t as seamless as you would hope.

Although the audio on the AirPods, Max doesn’t sound nearly as good as the Sennheiser headphones I had, they still do sound pretty good. And I would definitely love to get a pair of wired Sennheiser headphones. The only real problem is that I don’t feel like I know enough about audio equipment to feel comfortable purchasing such an expensive pair of wired headphones. I’m worried that it may not fit with a 3.5 mm headphone jack (something that a few of my devices do not have). And I definitely don’t want to have to carry around an amplifier with me everywhere to be able to hear the music.

While Bluetooth may not be a very good experience for headphones when a vendor can only work so much with a specific platform, using a cable is. I find it pretty cool how iOS automatically stops the music if it detects that you’ve unplugged the headphone jack. And of course, it’s pretty easy to switch devices when you’ve got a cable that you can hot swap.

Despite already owning a pair of second generation AirPods Pro, I still feel like I can just buy buying the AirPods Max, despite having far less features due to their older chip, given how well they are canceling out wind (probably due to their design), as well as just being larger with the audio.

I still continue to use the AirPods Pro, though. Mainly because I find them more convenient for more active experiences, and also because I don’t want to get my AirPods Max damaged from sweat. 

Lossless Audio

Audio quality is really difficult to distinguish. At least when it comes to video quality. Just like video, you need a piece of high-end equipment to properly distinguish the difference. But unlike video, it seems like our ears just aren’t as well tuned to spot the differences in sound compared to sight.

The Wikipedia article for audiophile seems to mention that a lot of the ways people try to identify which version of audio sounds better is mostly speculation. And there’s been a lot of pseudoscience in the process.

Lossless audio on the music streaming service I use, Apple Music, is really confusing. Mainly because it isn’t clear which path you need to take or what things you need to buy to listen to it at its best quality without just wasting bandwidth on sound you can’t hear.

Apple Music supports lossless audio in Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). However, the AirPods Max only support it through a cable (something I don’t have a problem with), and according to some sources, only the newest version of the AirPods Pro with the USB-C case. I’m going to wager that the newest regular AirPods also support it, but I’m not too sure.

None of the devices in the ecosystem support Hi-Res Lossless. But frankly, that’s OK, mainly because I’ve heard that nobody would be able to hear all the frequencies as high and low as it supports. And the option is really just there for marketing purposes. 

Switching between the wireless and wired modes on my headphones, I don’t feel like I can hear a difference. But sometimes I wonder if I listen to them enough, I will. 

Equalizers

Equalizers (EQ) are apparently one of many tools that sound enthusiast have to make their music sound better. The only problem is that I get nervous, touching any of the settings, because I’m worried that I’m going to ruin how the music was supposed to sound.

Part of me knows that this is a pretty nonsense argument. mainly because the way we all hear sound is incredibly subjective and none of us hear things the same way. But I’m just worried that if I adjust the settings too much, I’ll never be able to hear the song the same way again.

My Own Hearing

I have really sensitive hearing, and one of the things that probably blows away a pleasant listening experience is the fact that I set up volume limits where possible to be pretty low.

I have the specifically set up on my phone. Where iOS provide you with the ability to set up a hearing limit.

I do try to care about my ears. Especially given that I will need them for a very long time. 

Conclusion

At the same time that all I do this, I think to myself.

It’s really stupid to be thinking about all these different things when I could just be enjoying the music.

But at the same time, it’s also really nice to have crisp sounding audio. I’ve never been to any concerts or anything like that. So I really don’t have a reference point as to what real life music would sound like. I used to play the piano when I was younger and took lessons about it. But the store I took them were at an organ shop and was mostly keyboards and other electronic instruments. So I can’t really use those experiences either.

A part of me says that I just really don’t have a vision for buying all this stuff. My listening preferences primarily consist of soundtracks, pop music, and sometimes classical and new age (for focusing on workloads). and a lot of the stuff in my library is a mixture of stuff artists that you’ve probably heard, and a selection of ones that you haven’t.

Either way, music is pretty important to me. So I’d like to continue listening to it whether that’s just in the background, or actively paying attention to it. 

Sonos Ecosystem Review

So, a while ago, there was this huge uproar over this company called Sonos, which is a manufacturer of wireless speakers, mainly because of a new version of their app that they deployed,

While the whole idea of this uproar was essentially to stay away from the speakers, it drew me in closer to the idea for some reason.

Basically, to talk about what makes Sonos speakers unique, there’s a little bit of background. In addition to being relatively high quality speakers (disclaimer: I’m not an audiophile, nor am I affiliated with Sonos), Sonos speakers are essentially within their own ecosystem that consists of speakers capable of having their audio playback grouped, ungrouped, and transferred between speakers. If this sounds familiar to what AirPlay (also available on speakers) or what select Google Cast devices can do, that’s probably because Sonos was the one to popularize the concepts behind it.

What separates Sonos from these devices however, is that unlike these services. Sonos speakers play audio directly from a streaming source. Which can be configured to either be a popular streaming service, or a local SMB library of your own music, and this is mostly the only thing they do. In addition, these speakers aren’t just individual endpoints to play to, multiple of the same speaker can be setup to work as if it was a stereo system. Essentially, these speakers let you create an entire home audio system without the need for excessive wiring or drilling through your home.

The app itself functions essentially as an audio remote, as well as the main place to manage the settings for your speakers and quickly setup new ones.

A screenshot of the Sonos App on an iPhone
The Sonos app is fairly simple. It’s primary purpose serving as a controller for your audio. With the media player at the bottom pulling out to reveal all the speakers on your network. Changing the output to another controlled device is as simple as tapping it from the list.

Despite needing to create an account for speaker setup and music streaming linking, the app has no cloud connection to it unlike most IoT apps. Meaning that you need to be connected to the same network as the speakers in order to control them and adjust their settings. However, other users can also download and join an existing system to their app, as well as start playing and controlling audio without needing to sign in or create an additional account (signing in is needed in order to adjust settings, however)

One of the major benefits Sonos puts off about their app is the fact audio can continue playing, even while there’s a phone call. Since the app doesn’t rely on any system media players and simply streams the audio directly to the speaker. I’ve personally found the app a lot nicer for playing streaming radio stations (something I can get through Apple Music as well as their own in-house, Ad supported, radio service. The latter I only really use for the Ad-free white noise and rain stations)

While I’ve never seen the original app, I can tell that the new app is likely built on some cross platform framework, and, while not as drastic as some users have complained (much of the work at Sonos had gone into damage control over the app as newer products were pushed aside, so it’s likely many of the greater issues had been worked out), I have had a few hiccups here and there with the mobile apps.

Other features

Music playback aside, the app lets you set up quite a few other features as well. For example, alarms can be setup within the app. Which basically just play a predetermined song at a certain time. There’s also sleep timers that can be setup as well, which basically work like most sleep timers on other platforms where the song fades out after a set amount of time.

The speakers themselves also work with Apple AirPlay, allowing Apple devices to cast audio to them, or asking a HomePod to play audio in a specific room. And can be setup to be controlled from Alexa, as well as Apple and Google Home. The former being a little more limited, and can only actually control playback from speakers currently using AirPlay.

One of the other features that can be setup is Trueplay, which as an equalizer that is setup either using an iphone held upside down and waved around the room, or by using a speakers built in microphones to measure the acoustics of a room, and adapt the audio to it. Whether or not you hear any enhancements will depend on the shape and size of your room, as well as the method of calibration you use. I personally found the former to sound a lot better.

The aforementioned microphones also can double up for speech recognition with a voice assistant. With Alexa being the main supported one through the Alexa built-in program. While I don’t actively use Alexa in my home. Alexa on the Sonos speaker is better suited as being a satellite to a home already using an Amazon Echo as opposed to being the main set of devices due to the inability for a Sonos speaker to function as a Matter controller for neither Wi-Fi nor Thread.

In addition to Alexa, Sonos also maintains their own in-house assistant as well called Sonos voice control. It mainly just functions as a companion to the main app, letting you perform some of the most common functions of it with our the need to actually open it. But other than that and a few other minor things, that’s mostly all it does.

API

In my opinion, one of the biggest saving graces to Sonos over the app fiasco was their well crafted local API. While they do have a separate cloud based API for more cloud based control (such as creating content providers the speakers can stream from, or 3rd party web apps), there’s a more local API as well relying on open standards like UPnP. While it’s not as documented as their cloud API’s, it’s still great that the speakers even have such a local API. While it won’t really save anyone if the company shuts its doors and all the cloud functions go offline. It still gives more ways for other apps to latch on.

One of these apps is on my list of favorites… Home Assistant. Sonos is actually a featured integration within HA. And the experience really shows as speakers are automatically discovered and added, and also update in real time. Including a couple of HACS cards that can even show you the exact playback time on a speaker.

Ironically, while writing this. The Sonos API documentation introduction has actually given me a better understanding of what Sonos products do compared to their actual marketing pages.

Verdicts

Personally, I would recommend Sonos to anyone with an Apple device, or anyone who is looking for something more streamlined for music compared to the bells and whistles of most smart speakers.

Compared to the competition of other smart speakers. The speakers can seem much more limited at a much higher cost. But overall, Sonos is really a product category that isn’t really in that of smart speakers Like Echo or HomePod. It’s not just a regular Bluetooth speaker (though some do have that functionality), but being an assistant isn’t it’s goal either.

I have found Sonos speakers much better for playing audio in part thanks to their well designed (if not well coded) app. And it feels like a device I actually want to play music to (and feel a twinge of guilt constantly that I’m not making the most of the one sitting on my desk aside from falling asleep to white noise). While AirPlay suggestions on iPhone make it a little easier to find a device to play music to, casting from any device can sometimes be frustrating (especially during the process of disconnecting). Considering the way you get most smart speakers to play music is by asking for a specific song, which can be wishing upon a star sometimes as you get the same song, but from a different album, or another song entirely. If all you are wanting to do at a given moment is just play something around the house, the app feels really well designed for that, even if it requires a few extra seconds of grabbing your phone. And the fact I can share that ability with my family, without the need for them to go through the process of signing up, was a really great design choice.

My only real concerns about Sonos have been a few class action lawsuits around the company and some general uncertainty around the amount of security updates products get, but other than that. They do work exceptionally well, and I wish I had the ability to acquire more of the speakers for my home.