Let’s get loud–without earphones

Music has become ubiquitous, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the tunes stored in our smartphones and MP3 players. Thousands of songs are available at the touch of a finger, and more can be accessed via the Internet through streaming services or YouTube.

We generally keep the songs to ourselves, the acoustic goodness enjoyed as a solo affair through earphones.

As a result, a certain sense of community has somehow been lost in time—the convenience of portability overwhelming an age-old tradition of listening, for example, to one’s album collection with friends on a bulky boombox.

But even the most powerful of mobile phone speakers can’t hold a candle to a good personal stereo or laptop to play music.

SuperTooth Disco 2

Then again, technology has filled the void by way of portable Bluetooth speakers. The latest and perhaps one of the best to be made available in the country so far is the SuperTooth Disco 2.

SuperTooth is a brand known for its line of portable Bluetooth speakers and accessories. The Disco 2 represents its most portable effort yet to amplify the sounds that we play on our phones and laptops.

At first glance, the Disco 2 immediately attracts, bearing an understated hourglass figure design—a refreshing look compared to the more gaudy and flashy speakers that we see in store shelves at the malls. It’s a bit heavier than other portable Bluetooth speakers, but this is explained by the 16-watt power output.

Unfortunately, the speaker can’t be charged via USB, and instead needs a 14-volt adapter that you have to carry around. But thankfully it comes with a carrying case.

Setting up the Disco 2 is very easy, requiring only a single-button press on the speaker itself, and a usual Bluetooth pairing with our phone. This is a great change from portable speakers with tangling wires, and finicky early Bluetooth speakers that took ages just to pair with a phone.

If needed, though, the Disco 2 still has a good old-fashioned 3.5-millimeter audio jack that can be used to connect to a laptop or an older music player that doesn’t have Bluetooth.

The sound it produces generates no less a good impression. Its maximum volume can fill up a medium-sized room; appropriately powerful bass and good midrange characterize its sound reproduction. But the higher treble ranges are drowned out past the Disco 2’s medium volume setting, and the entire unit rattles and distorts when the bass gets really heavy.

When testing the Disco 2, we also discover that the range is exactly as SuperTooth describes it—a good 10 meters. We are able to transmit audio to the Disco 2 even through concrete walls, though, of course, this noticeably lowers the range.







The connection it keeps with the phone is reliable, though one time, a strange, stuttering sound is heard for a few seconds.

The Disco 2 is not just your average, throwaway wireless speaker system. It’s a well-designed piece of audio equipment that breaks your music free from the personal tethers of earphones, while not being cumbersome, like having a laptop or large wired speaker setup will.

It brings back the wonderful experience of listening to music with friends, perfect for small gatherings or group parties.

Log on to www.supertooth.com.ph  and follow SuperTooth on Facebook (www.facebook.com/SuperToothPH)

Dancing with myself

THE FIRST time I got hold of the SuperTooth Disco 2 stereo speaker, I couldn’t figure out how to operate it, even with a manual.

That’s what happens to a 50-year-old geezer like me, who, despite having been a music fanatic all my life, still don’t know how to download a song on my smartphone—not entirely due to ignorance, but because I prefer listening to it without earphones.

Somehow I feel sad, disturbed even, when, for instance, I see people riding the MRT looking oblivious to everything around them as they get lost in the privacy of hearing their downloaded songs through headsets on their phones. Although I get curious when they start nodding their heads or tapping their feet, they end up looking stupid when they start singing loudly along to the lyrics of a song that has been muted from the outside world by their headsets.

Perhaps the good thing about the whole scene is that the rest of humanity in the train is spared of the atrocity of hearing what might turn out to be a lousy-sounding song, if it’s played through loudspeakers.

But back to the Disco 2. I had to seek the assistance of Anton, the 22-year-old techie son of a friend, to operate the portable wireless speaker, which, it turned out, needed to be fully charged to appreciate its optimum performance. That would take some two hours of plugging its adapter to an electric socket.

That’s about the only “hassle”; otherwise, it took just a few seconds to “pair” the Disco 2 to his smartphone. When Anton successfully turned the Disco 2 on with a Miles Davis tune from the legendary trumpeter’s 1969 album, “In a Silent Way,” the sound was rich and full, swirling and enveloping the den of the house of Anton’s grandparents at No. 13 Mayaman St. in UP Village, Quezon City.

When I took the Disco 2 to my apartment and plugged it into my laptop, I discovered that the audio playback’s quality depends on how the song was uploaded; if for example, the tune is from an HD (high-definition) audio clip from YouTube, then it’s guaranteed to give a splendid sound.

After listening to a “full album, stereo remastered” version of the Beatles’ 1965 album “Rubber Soul” from YouTube on the Disco 2, the more I was convinced that nothing beats music played on a speaker.

Now I’m looking for a good-quality version of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and Bruno Mars’ “Treasure” to download, to test whether the Disco 2 is appropriately named.

In any case, I won’t mind dancing with myself. Pocholo Concepcion

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

These Cheap Headphones Will Knock Your Socks Off

We test a lot of audio products around here — so many, in fact, that it’s getting harder to differentiate between many of them. But these RHA SA 950i headphones set themselves apart from the crowd with a triple punch: They’re relatively cheap, they’re feather-light, and most importantly, they crank out some spectacular sound.

The minute I first held these unusually small over-the-ear headphones in my hands, I was astonished. Something this substantial has no business being so light. They weigh hardly anything — a mere 3.7 oz (105g). I handed them to a few of my colleagues here at the Midwest Test Facility, and all of them immediately had a look of surprise on their faces — even those who don’t care at all about headphones and their associated gadgetry.

Placing the headphones on my ears, their light weight proved to be a pleasing characteristic. I could hardly tell I was wearing them — they were so light they might as well have been weightless. Although the headphones clamped onto my oversized noggin more tightly than I would have liked, I quickly became acclimated, realizing it was good to have them pressing up against my ears firmly enough to form a proper seal, and to keep them from falling off my head if I started feeling energetic. After wearing them nonstop for a couple of hours, I hereby declare them officially comfy-cozy longtime.






Next it was time to get down to some serious listening. I started out with some righteous funk, cranking it up a bit. Whoa! These babies were loud. And where have I heard sounds like this before? The most noticeable attribute of the sound quality was the forceful bass, reminding me of my favorite headphones for low frequencies, the Beats Studio by Dr. Dre.

Heck, I thought, why not break out those stellar $300 Beats headphones and compare them with this relatively cheap $59.95 product? Would it be a fair fight?

While I was at it, I picked out another pricy pair of cans, the Soul by Ludacris, to see how this humble pair of sound muffs stood up to the monsters of the headphone midway.

In mid-listen, quickly taking off these headphones and placing the Dr. Dre phones on my head, I realized the more expensive headphones did sound somewhat cleaner (but not by much), and their signature bass response was almost equaled by these RHA headphones.

When I replaced those with my overall favorite headphones, the Soul By Ludacris, the result of my comparison was the same. The bass response was equal, and the highs and midrange were comparable as well. I can only conclude that when you spend four or five times as much on an audio product, you certainly expect it to sound at least twice as good — but in this case, these cheap headphones were nearly the equal of the much more expensive Dr. Dre and Ludacris models. The only difference I could discern was slightly better presence and a bit less distortion with the two high-end pairs.






So how would I describe the sound of these RHA SA 950i headphones?


The highs are extremely well-defined and relatively free of distortion — tightly tuned snare drums, cymbals    and bell trees shimmered with their clear high-end frequency response.

The midrange sounds realistic, with the headphones able to faithfully reproduce the subtle sounds of classical guitar and the clear tones of the human voice with aplomb.

And then there’s that bass. Wow. It felt like the headphones were dancing on my head, just like the Dr.     Dre’s do. The sound was firm, clear and clean, and when I cranked the volume up, it was almost scary.



These little British headphones knocked my socks off. After intense listening to a variety of musical styles, and comparing them with my favorite headphones, I can only conclude this is the best value in headphones I’ve ever seen. Unless you’re an audiophile or you’re lucky enough to have inherited golden ears, I don’t think you’ll be able to tell the difference between these and headphones costing five times as much.

They’ll be available soon for $59.95 on Amazon in the U.S., and although that’s still plenty of money, when it comes to this kind of sound, this is one of the best bargains of the year.

source: mashable.com