Category Archives: audio

android, apple, audio, music industry

Qobuz lossless streaming and hi-res downloads available in the UK

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The French music streaming and download service Qobuz went live in the UK this month.

Qobuz has some distinctive characteristics. One is that unlike most music services (including Apple iTunes, Amazon MP3, Spotify and Xbox Music) Qobuz offers an option for uncompressed music both for streaming and download. For streaming, you can choose 16/44 CD quality, while downloads are available up to 24 bits/176.4 kHz.

High resolutions like 24/176 appeal to audiophiles even though the audible benefit from them as a music delivery format may be hard to discern. See 24/192 Music Downloads … and why they make no sense. Getting true uncompressed CD quality is easier to defend; while it may still be hard to distinguish from MP3 at a high bitrate, at least it removes any anxiety that perhaps you may be missing the last degree of fidelity.

Despite the technical doubts, better-than-CD downloads may still be worth it, if they have a superior mastering or come from a better source. This seems to be the case for some of the selections on HDtracks, for example.

One complaint I have heard about some sites offering high resolution downloads is that some of the offerings are not what they appear to be, and may be upsampled from a lower resolution. This is the audio equivalent of padding a parcel with bubblewrap, and strikes me as bad practice even if you cannot hear the difference. Qobuz says it does no such thing:

Les albums vendus par Qobuz en qualité “Qobuz Studio Masters” nous sont fournis par les labels directement. Ils ne sont pas ré-encodés depuis des SACD et nous garantissons leur provenance directe. Nous nous interdisons, pour faire grossir plus vite cette offre, les tripatouillages suspects.

which roughly translates to

The albums sold by Qobuz ‘Qobuz Studio Masters’ are provided directly by the labels. They are not re-encoded from the SACD and we guarantee their direct origin. We refuse to accelerate the growth of our catalogue by accepting suspicious upsamples.

It strikes me as odd that Qobuz insist that their hi-res downloads are “not re-encoded from SACD” but that its highest resolution is 24/176.4 which is what you get if you convert an SACD to PCM, rather than 24/192 which is the logical format for audio captured directly to PCM.

Qobuz has mobile apps for Android and iOS, but not Windows Phone. There is a Windows 8 store app, but I could not find it, perhaps for regional reasons. There is also integration with Sonos home streaming equipment.

I had a quick look and signed up for a 7-day trial. If I want to subscribe, a Premium subscription (MP3) costs £9.99 per month, and a Hi-Fi subscription (16/44) is £19.99 per month.

Navigating the Qobuz site and applications is entertaining, and I was bounced regularly between UK and French sites, sometimes encountering other languages such as Dutch.

I installed the Windows desktop app is fine when it works, though a few searches seems to make it crash on my system. I soon found gaps in the selection available too. Most of David Bowie’s catalogue is missing, so too Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. You will not go short of music though; there are hundreds of thousands of tracks.

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I also tried downloading. I installed the downloader, despite a confusing link in English and French that said “you are going to install the version for Macintosh.”

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The downloader quietly downloads your selections in the background, just as well for those large 24/176 selections.

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If you hate the idea of lossy compression, or want high-resolution downloads, Qobuz is worth a look. It would be good though if the site were less confusing for English users.

You can subscribe to Qobuz here.

audio, music industry, video

High end home entertainment with a Cornflake flavour

Tucked away on a side street off London’s Tottenham Court Road is The Cornflake Shop, which appeared back in the Eighties to sell high-end audio equipment with a more considered service than was available from the multitude of hi-fi shops which, at the time, thronged the main road.

Since that time the audio industry has changed and many dealers have struggled or closed. Hi-fi today, for most people, means an iPhone dock or a set of powered speakers. Despite those challenges, on a recent visit to London I was interested to see that the Cornflake Shop lives on; in fact, they have just opened a new showroom called the Art of Technology, Realised and whose window declares “The Smart App-artment”.

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I could not resist a visit. Inside it has a striking animated graphic projected on the wall and framed artefacts – a typewriter, an old tape recorder.

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I chatted with them about the state of the audio industry and was told that the their business had transitioned to something more like automating the home, but still with a strong element of home entertainment; they aim to have every installation include a fine music system. However they will still sell you just a CD player or a pair of loudspeakers if you ask, and now intend to renew their focus on high-end audio alongside the other things they do.

Go downstairs and a series of subterranean showrooms demonstrate various home environments.

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The back room, if that is the right word, is amazing; racks of networking gear, home entertainment controllers, music and video servers. They use Sonos for multi-room audio and Kaleidoscope, which lets you legally rip Blu-Ray to a server, for video.

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Would someone really have something like this in their home, I asked? Oh yes was the answer.

Then it was time to listen to some music. These striking Martin Logan loudspeakers from the Reserve ESL series combine electrostatic drivers for the mid-range and treble with a conventional sub-woofer.

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Spot the valve amplifier. What on earth are valves doing in an ultra-modern home entertainment setup? The answer is simply that they like the sound. There is an element of retro here.

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We played a couple of tracks, selected from an iPad app, and a music video, for which a large screen slid elegantly into view. It sounded good but I did not stay long enough to be able to comment in detail.

The Cornflake Shop always had its own individualistic and slightly quirky approach and it is great to see that this continues. You will get something stylish for your money that will deliver high quality home entertainment. But how much back-end kit do you need in the modern home? If you are looking for the minimum amount of wires and the smallest amount of equipment, this might not be the place for you.

apple, audio, music industry, rants

Dear audio industry, fix mastering before bothering with high resolution

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The audiophile world (small niche though it is) is buzzing with a renewed interest in high resolution audio, now to be known as HRA.

See, for example, Why the Time is Right for High-Res Audio, or Sony’s new Hi-Res USB DAC System for PC Audio, or Gramophone on At last high-resolution audio is about to go mainstream, or Mark Fleischmann on CD Quality Is Not High-Res Audio:

True HRA is not a subtle improvement. With the best software and hardware, a good recording, and good listening conditions, it is about as subtle as being whacked with a mallet, and I mean that in a good way. It is an eye opener. In lieu of “is that all there is?” you think “wow, listen to what I’ve been missing!” … The Compact Disc format is many good things but high-res it is not. It has a bit depth of 16 and a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. In other words, it processes a string of 16 zeroes and ones 44,100 times per second. Digitally speaking, this is a case of arrested development dating back to the early 1980s. We can do better now.

As an audio enthusiast, I would love this to be true. But it is not. Fleischmann appears to be ignorant of the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, which suggests that the 16-bit/44.1 kHz CD format can exactly reproduce an analogue sound wave from 20–22,050 Hz and with a dynamic range (difference between quietest and loudest signal) of better than 90Db.

Yes there are some ifs and buts, and if CD had been invented today it would probably have used a higher resolution of say 24-bit/96 Khz which gives more headroom and opportunity for processing the sound without degradation; but nevertheless, CD is more than good enough for human hearing. Anyone who draws graphs of stair steps, or compares CD audio vs HRA to VHS or DVD vs Blu-Ray, is being seriously misleading.

Yes, Sony, you are a disgrace. What is this chart meant to show?

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If shows that DACs output a bumpy signal it is simply false. If it purports to show that high-res reproduces an analogue original more accurately within the normal audible range of 20-20,000 Hz it is false too.

As an aside, what non-technical reader would guess that those huge stair steps for “CD” are 1/44,100th of a second apart?

The Meyer-Moran test, in which a high-res original was converted to CD quality and then compared with the original under blind conditions (nobody could reliably tell the difference), has never been debunked, nor has anyone conducted a similar experiment with different results as far as I am aware.

You can also conduct your own experiments, as I have. Download some samples from SoundKeeper Recordings or Linn. Take the highest resolution version, and convert it to CD format. Then upsample the CD quality version back to the high-resolution format. You now have two high-res files, but one is no better than CD quality. Can you hear the difference? I’ve yet to find someone who can.

Read this article on 24/192 Music Downloads … and why they make no sense and watch the referenced video for more on this subject.

Still, audio is a mysterious thing, and maybe in the right conditions, with the right equipment, there is some slight difference or improvement.

What I am sure of, is that it will be nowhere near as great as the improvement we could get if CDs were sensibly mastered. Thanks to the loudness wars, few CDs come close to the audio quality of which they are capable. Here is a track for a CD from the 80s which sounds wonderful, Tracy Chapman’s debut, viewed as a waveform in Adobe Audition:

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And here is a track from Elton John’s latest, The Diving Board:

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This everything louder than everything else effect means that the sound is more fatiguing and yes, lower fidelity, than it should be; and The Diving Board is far from the worst example (in fact, it is fairly good by today’s standards).

It is not really the fault of recording engineers. In many cases they hate it too. Rather, it is the dread of artists and labels that their sales may suffer if a recording is quieter (when the volume control is at the same level) than someone else’s.

Credit to Apple which is addressing this to some extent with its Mastered for iTunes initiative:

Many artists and producers feel that louder is better. The trend for louder music has resulted in both ardent fans of high volumes and backlash from audiophiles, a
controversy known as “the loudness wars.” This is solely an issue with music. Movies, for example, have very detailed standards for the final mastering volume of a film’s
soundtrack. The music world doesn’t have any such standard, and in recent years the de facto process has been to make masters as loud as possible. While some feel that overly
loud mastering ruins music by not giving it room to breathe, others feel that the aesthetic of loudness can be an appropriate artistic choice for particular songs or
albums.

Analog masters traditionally have volume levels set as high as possible, just shy of oversaturation, to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). With digital masters, the goal
is to achieve the highest gain possible without losing information about the original file due to clipping.

With digital files, there’s a limit to how loud you can make a track: 0dBFS. Trying to increase a track’s overall loudness beyond this point results in distortion caused by
clipping and a loss in dynamic range. The quietest parts of a song increase in volume, yet the louder parts don’t gain loudness due to the upper limits of the digital format.
Although iTunes doesn’t reject files for a specific number of clips, tracks which have audible clipping will not be badged or marketed as Mastered for iTunes.

Back to my original point: what is the point of messing around with the doubtful benefits of HRA, if the obvious and easily audible problem of excessive dynamic compression is not addressed first?

None at all. The audio industry should stop trying to mislead its customers by appealing to the human instinct that bigger numbers must mean better sound, and instead get behind some standards for digital music that will improve the sound we get from all formats.

apple, audio, gadgets, mobile, smartphones

DTS Headphone X surround sound from stereo is astonishing though Z+ music app disappoints

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I first heard the DTS surround sound from stereo demo at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The technology is called Headphone X. It was astonishing. You went into the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 theatre – it was in association with Qualcomm become some DTS technology is baked into the latest Snapdragon chipset – sat in a plush armchair, and donned stereo headphones.

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The next thing you knew, sound was coming from front left. Then front right. Then rear left. The illusion was amazing, and I was not the only one who removed their headphones temporarily to check that they really were the sole source of the sound.

I interviewed the DTS folk about the technology, and also spoke to the guys at Dolby. Nothing new, said the Dolby folk, we’ve had virtual surround sound for years. Yet, the demo at the Dolby stand fell far short of what DTS was showing.

Now you can try it, if you have an Android or iOS device. Download the Z+ app and listen to the demo.

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I tried this on someone today, and his “Wow!” reaction showed that the demo is still astonishing. You know it is an illusion, but it sounds as if you are seated in the middle of a room with five or more speakers.

If DTS has proved that surround sound from stereo is possible, what are the implications? Surround sound has not failed exactly, but its inconvenience has limited take-up. Many surround mixes of music albums are now hard to find, because they were made for long out of print SACD or DVD-Audio releases. What if you could easily download all these mixes and enjoy them with stereo headphones or earbuds?

An enticing thought, but there are caveats. The Z+ app, for example, is disappointing once you get beyond the demo. The only album it plays is the Hans Zimmer soundtrack to the Superman film, Man of Steel. One track is included for free, and the others are in-app purchases. It sounds good, but the surround effect is less convincing than it is in the demo. I heard better music demos in Barcelona. I also get superior sound on the iPhone than on the iPad (it is an iPhone app), though I might be imagining it, and in both cases I get occasional stuttering, though that may be because I am not testing on the latest generation Apple hardware.

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An app that only plays one album is not a revolution in sound, and if this is to go mainstream, DTS needs to sell its technology to one of the major music download or streaming services and have it built-in to the client app. It has made a start, with its Qualcomm deal which is meant to be in shipping chipsets from “the second half of 2013” according to the information in Barcelona. My guess is that any problems with stuttering will be removed when there is hardware support.

How does it work? The DTS guys told that it “it’s psychoacoustics. You’re triggering the brain with responses that induce it to say, this is from here. It’s a combination of timing and frequency. That’s traditional virtualisation.” After that, they explained, they apply room acoustics that take the illusion to another level. This could be the room acoustic of the studio, achieving a holy grail for audio engineers, or that of the listener’s own room or a concert hall, for example. The room acoustic can be user-selectable, though this is not a feature of the current Z+ app.

There is a caveat that might upset hi-fi enthusiasts. Think about it. Virtual surround sound is delivered in stereo, which seems impossible, but then again we only have two ears. Our ears are designed to hear sounds more clearly if they are in front of us. Therefore, to simulate a sound coming from behind you, do you need to make it less clear?

I put this point to a guy from DTS, that parts of the music are in a sense deliberately distorted or muffled. “That occurs naturally by our head,” I was told. So is the fidelity of the sound reduced in order to achieve the surround illusion? “No differently than speakers in a surround system would do anyway,” he said.

Another caveat is that, by design, the system only works with headphones. Of course, if you have a full surround system in your room, you can play surround mixes in the normal way, turning to the DTS technology only for headphone listening. Headphones are also unable to recreate the effect of a sub-woofer which you can feel in your chest. “It’s a physical element. We’re not going to be able to replicate it,” said DTS.

Headphones are unbeatable though if you want to recreate the acoustic of a different room, such as the studio where the music was mixed. Further, for a mass market, delivering surround sound through a mobile device and standard earphones is the right approach.

The Z+ app is disappointing, but I would nevertheless encourage anyone with an interest in audio technology to download it and try the demo. Headphone X has huge potential and I shall follow its progress with interest.

audio, mobile, reviews

Review: Plantronics Voyager Legend UC B235 Bluetooth Headset

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A high quality wireless headset is a valuable accessory for frequent phone users. The Plantronics Voyager Legend UC (87670) is a high-end device suitable for softphones like Skype as well as smartphones and tablets, and replaces the Voyager Pro UC. The UC means Unified Communications and means it comes with a USB Bluetooth adapter for wireless desktop connections; it is also bundled with a dock and charger case.

If you want to use Microsoft Lync, look out for the special B235–M (Microsoft) version (87680). If you only want to use it with mobile devices, look for the Voyager Legend (without the UC).

I have been impressed by Plantronics headsets in the past, and this one too is an excellent device though I encountered a few niggles getting started.

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In the box is the headset and USB adapter within a dual-purpose case/charger, a USB power adaptor, a desktop dock, a USB cable, and a few different sizes of ear gels and foam covers.

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The headset itself has a similar basic design to the earlier Voyager Pro, though the call/answer button has been repositioned and there is an additional button on the microphone boom.

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I am happy to see the call/answer button repositioned, since I found it awkward on the Pro. The ease of use of the buttons is critical, since you will often be operating them with the headset fitted, which means by feel alone. It takes practice of course, but the buttons on the Legend are well designed in this respect.

Another difference between the Pro and the Legend is the USB connection, for charging or wired connection to a PC. Whereas the Pro had a standard micro USB port, the Legend has a recessed magnetic connector. There is an adaptor supplied which converts this to a micro USB

The magnetic connector also enables the Legend to connect when in the case. The case has an external micro USB port so you can charge it in the case.

Note that the case also has a battery. According to Plantronics, if the case is fully charged, it can charge the headset twice before needing its own recharge, greatly increasing the effective talk time of the headset.

If that is not enough, you can also charge by sitting the Legend in a small desktop dock.

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The buttons on the Legend Pro are as follows:

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On/Off: self explanatory

Volume: a rocker switch which lets you increase or decrease volume to one of 9 positions. A tone sounds when you adjust the volume, and a voice announces when you reach maximum or minimum. Maximum volume is not that loud, perhaps to protect your hearing. It is fine provided the input volume from your device is reasonably loud, so check that if you have problems.

Call/Answer: Multi-function button. If there is an incoming call, tap to answer. During a call, tap to end call. Press and long hold to enter Bluetooth pairing mode. Press and hold for 2 seconds (indicated by a tone) to enter voice dial mode, or on iPhone, Siri. Double tap for redial of last inbound or outbound call.

Voice: Multi-function button, new in the Legend. Tap to use voice commands. During a call, tap to mute or unmute microphone. During music streaming, press and hold to play or pause.

The multi functions take a little bit of learning, but this does not take long.

Using the Voyager Legend Pro

There are apparently three microphones, nose-cancelling digital signal processing, and stainless steel windscreens in the Legend, and it shows in good voice quality; the results I got were consistently clear.

Pairing with the devices I tried – two phones and a PC – was straightforward. I used voice control (other than with the PC which is pre-paired using the supplied USB receiver). Tap voice, say “Pair mode”, go to Bluetooth devices on the phone and connect.

You can pair with two phones simultaneously. If you are making a call using voice control, and two phones are connected, it seems to default to whatever it thinks is “phone 1”.

I got good results both with the smartphones and with Skype on the PC. On the PC, the only thing that caught me out initially was that I had to press the Call button to enable Skype audio, even though Skype thought it was connected to the headset.

The incoming sound quality is fine for voice but disappointing for music. You cannot expect a mono headset to compete with high-end ear buds for audio, but I recall the Pro being a little better in this respect.

When I first connected to an Android phone, some features did not work properly. The basics worked, but voice dialling always seemed to call the wrong person, and pause/resume of music did not work. I connected to a Windows Phone 8 device, which proved more reliable. Then I reconnected to the Android phone, and everything now worked there too. The reason, I suspect, for some unpredictable behaviour is that many of the clever features of the Legend depend on the Bluetooth stack on the mobile device, hardware and software. Note that the things you can do with voice dialling and how well it works depend mainly on your mobile, not on the headset, though a good microphone like this one helps.

The headset is comfortable and I can happily wear it for long periods. As mentioned above, the button placement is better than on the Pro, and for this reason alone I prefer it.

Smart features

The Legend has a few smart tricks which distinguish it:

1. Voice commands. There are 9 voice commands you can use after tapping the voice button, such as “Pair mode”, “Check battery”, “Am I connected”, and “Redial”. Since the number of commands is limited, accuracy of recognition I found good. Note that voice dialling is engaged using the Call button, not the voice button, which is confusing. The reason is that voice dialling is more a feature of whatever mobile you are connected to, than it is of the headset itself.

2. Sensors. The Legend recognises when you put it on or take it off. Putting on the headset will answer a call, taking it off will pause streaming audio, for example. The call button is locked when the headset is not being worn.

3. Vocalyst is a subscription service you can use with the headset. A code for a year of basic service is included in the box.  You can connect to email, Twitter or Facebook, check news and sports, and so on. I did not try this; it does not look business-ready with limited Exchange support, for example.

4. Headset update. If you download the MyHeadset updater you can customise the Legend. I used this to replace the US voice with a UK voice, a nice feature.

5. Apps. I installed a couple of Android apps, MyHeadset which shows battery life, and FindMyHeadset which plays a tone if you have lost your headset but it is within range. The Spokes PC app also shows battery life and enables UC presence features and other settings.

Conclusion

This headset is excellent. The charger case is a great idea, but note that it does not hold all the accessories; I would like to keep the USB adaptor in there.

The new voice button is on the whole successful, within its limited goals.

I liked the ability to pair with two phones, the option for a UK voice, and the improved call button placement over the Voyager Pro.

There is still scope for improvement in usability and features, but much of the experience is down to how well Bluetooth is implemented in your particular mobile device, and how up to date is its specification.

On the desktop this is ideal for Skype and other softphones.

Specifications

Bluetooth version: 3.0 with A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution), AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control), HFP (Wideband Hands-free) 1.6, HSP (Headset) 1.2, Phone Book access (PBAP), SSP2 (Secure Simple Pairing).

Headset weight: 18g.

Battery life: 7 hours talk time, 11 days standby.

Charge time: 90 minutes.

Operating distance: 10m.

    

audio

Linn music downloads: is the Studio Master worth the extra cost?

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I was interested to note from this feature in the Financial Times that more than half of the music downloads sold by Linn, a UK audio company, are of the “Studio Master” at 24 bit, 192kHz, rather than the cheaper MP3 or 16 bit, 44.1kHz as used for CDs. Apparently the MD Gilad Tiefenbrun had projected that the Studio Masters would only be 5% of sales, but in fact:

Even though Studio Master albums cost £18 compared with £5 for an MP3 version, these highest-quality recordings account for more than half of all downloads. That proportion rises to 90 per cent for classical recordings.

The question: why? Here are sample prices, in this case for Claire Martin’s Too Much in Love to Care:

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The prices range from £8.00 in 320k MP3 to £18.00 for the Studio Master. CD quality is £10.00. These are substantial differences. You could have more than twice as much music for the same money in MP3, and 80% more music in CD quality.

Linn says of the Studio Master:

If absolute sound quality is what you want then this file is best for you.

However, whether a Studio Master is audibly different from CD quality, if mastered to sound the same, is disputed. A well-known study, which has never been disproved as far as I am aware, found that music could be played through a 16/44.1 analog to digital to analog loop without listeners being aware of the difference. Science bears this out, to the extent that for music at normal listening levels the Shannon/Nyquist theorem indicates that the entire original music signal can be recovered up to half the sampling frequency, in this case 22kHz which is beyond the range of human hearing.

MP3 uses lossy compression, making the choice of CD quality over MP3 understandable (especially for only 25% extra cost), but even here most people struggle to hear the difference between MP3 at 320k and its original source. The folks at Hydrogen Audio have studied this obsessively; there is plenty of objective evidence.

Why then do people buy the Studio Master? Here are a few contenders.

1. Ignorance. Linn says (or strongly implies) that it sounds better, and Linn should know.

2. Anxiety. The buyer wants the best sound and is not sure whether or not the Studio Master might sound better, so rather than take a chance decides to cover herself with the premium download.

3. For further processing. When you process digital audio, the quality degrades. Studios therefore work with high resolution audio as they may process the audio multiple times. Given that most listeners are not running studios, I think we can dismiss this for most purchasers.

4. The Studio Master is mastered to sound better. This is an interesting possibility. Here is a comment from Linn’s forums:

When I converted the original 24bit FLAC file into an MP3 myself I was unable to hear any differences between them. But When comparing the Linn MP3 and 24bit FLAC versions I can hear a difference. This suggests to me that the difference I hear is due to Linn using two differently masterered versions for their MP3 and 24bit FLAC files.

The implication is that the MP3 and lossless versions could sound the same, for practical purposes, as the Studio Master; but either by accident or design it does not.

5. Is it possible that contrary to the evidence referenced above, high resolution audio (ie more than CD quality) does sound better? Certainly many people believe this. However, in my experience the number falls dramatically if you include only those who have done objective blind listening tests to verify it. Further, those who do experiment with objective tests invariably discover that the audible differences (if they exist) are very small.

The frustrating aspect of this is that in practice most CDs that you can buy, or MP3s you can download, sound worse than they should. There are many reasons for this, of which the biggest is probably the “loudness wars”, in which the dynamic range of 16/44.1 audio is squandered for the sake of the overall loudness of the audio, using compression and clipping to reduce the difference between the loudest and quietest passages.

Other common problems are that the best source tapes are not used, or that (in the case of older recordings) noise reduction damages the audio quality, or that the frequency response is adjusted for increased “boom and tizz” in the belief that this may sound more impressive.

High resolution recordings, such as those available on SACD, are generally (but not always) less prone to these problems, because they are designed for a more discriminating market. In other words, they sound better not because of high resolution itself, but for other reasons. Purchasers however may attribute the quality to the high resolution, making them inclined to purchase Studio Masters from Linn.

On the other hand, if Linn masters this music to sound the same in all formats, there is no reason the same logic should apply.

My suggestion: try one of Linn’s sample downloads. Do your own conversion of the Studio Master to CD quality or 320K MP3 and see if you can hear the difference using something like Foobar ABX. If you cannot tell the difference, there is no reason to buy the Studio Master unless Linn is deliberately making the other formats sound less good.

apple, audio, mobile, reviews, smartphones, tablets

Review: Three-in-one Jabra Revo headphones and headset: wired, wireless and USB

If headphones are judged on versatility, the Jabra Revo wins the prize. It works wired and wireless, it’s a USB audio device, it’s a headset with remote control, and as a final flourish it folds into a moderately compact size that you can slip in the supplied bag.

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You might think that the result of this flexibility would be a fiddly and complex device, but this is not the case. The Revo has an elegant design and looks modern and sleek. The construction feels high quality as well; these headphones are lovely to handle.

In the solid plastic box you get the headphones, a drawstring bag, a USB cable, an audio cable (with four connectors on each 3.5mm jack, suitable for a headset connection to a mobile phone or tablet. The cables are braided for tangle-free connections, and bright orange so you will not miss them.

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There is also a “Getting started” leaflet which I recommend you read, since not everything is obvious.

Step one is to charge the headphones. This is done using the USB cable. No charger is supplied, but you probably have a few of these already, or you can plug into any PC or Mac. A red light comes on while charging, and turns off when charging is complete, which takes about two hours from flat.

Step two is to pair the headphones with your mobile device. For this you can put a three-way on/off/pairing switch, tucked under the right-hand earphone, into the pairing position, for pairing in the normal way. Alternatively, just put it to the On position, and touch an NFC-enabled device to the left earphone (as I noted, not everything is obvious). This should then pair automatically, subject to a prompt on your mobile device.

I had mixed success with NFC. A Sony Xperia T smartphone failed twice, with a message “Could not pair Jabra Revo”, but worked on the third attempt. A Nokia Lumia 620 worked on the second attempt.

More than one device can be connected simultaneously, though only one at a time will play. I found this worked; I could play music on one device, then press play on another device and it automatically switched.

The good news is that Bluetooth audio worked well for me, with no skips or stutters, perhaps thanks to Jabra’s long experience with mobile communications. Volume was low to begin with, but note that the back of the right-hand earphone is also a touch volume control, and with a few strokes you can get more than enough volume.

There are also buttons at the centre of each earphone.

The right-hand button is multi-function, and does play/pause, or answer/end call, or reject a call if you hold it down, or redial last number if you double-tap.

The left-hand button is for the Jabra Sound App for iOS or Android. It is meant to launch the app, but this did not work for me with the Sony Xperia.

If you want to use the headphones wired, just plug the audio cable into the headphones. No battery power is required. If you want to use them as a USB device, attach the USB cable to a computer, wait for the drivers to install, and it works. I tried it with Skype and got reasonable results, though the microphone quality is less good than that of the headphones.

Jabra Sound app

If you have an Apple iOS or Google Android device, you can download the Jabra Sound app. This is a music player which claims to optimise sound for the headphones. The app is free but requires a code, supplied with the headphones, to activate it.

Using the app, you specify which Jabra headphones you are using. Next, you can set Dolby Processing, Mobile Surround, and Equalisation. If you turn Dolby Processing off, the other options are disabled as well.

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I am a sceptic when it comes to this kind of processing, and the Jabra Sound app did nothing to convince me that it is worthwhile. I listened to I.G.Y. by Donald Fagen, which is a well-recorded track, and found that adding “Mobile Surround” made it noticeably worse, less natural and less clear. The equalizer could be useful though, particularly as the Revo are not the most neutral headphones I have heard.

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Jabra Sound is a music player and only works with local music files. You cannot use it with Spotify or Google Play or other streaming services.

Revo in use

The comfort of these on-ear headphones is good, though tastes vary and I found them just a little stiff. Then again, wireless implies mobility and a firm fit is no bad thing.

How about the sound? There are a couple of points to note. First, all connections are not equal. I found that the wired connection sounds best, followed by the USB connection, followed by the wireless connection. That does not mean that wireless sounds bad, but I did find it slightly grainy in comparison. Only slightly; if you think Bluetooth audio means low quality sound, think again.

Second, the Revo seems to accentuate the bass, a little too much for my taste. This may be good marketing as many people seem to prefer this kind of sound, but if you want to hear what the mastering engineer intended you may prefer a more neutral sound.

These points aside, the sound is sweet, clear and refined. They are not reference quality, being easily bettered by, say, high-end Sennheisers, Judged purely on the basis of sound quality for the price, the Revo is nothing special. On the other hand, this is a bundle of smart technology, considering that it is also a wireless headset with a built-in touch volume control. This makes it hard to make a fair comparison. Given the capabilities of the product overall, the sound quality is decent.

I have mixed feelings about the touch controls. The ability to control volume and skip music tracks using taps and strokes is elegant, but inevitably there is more scope for mis-taps than with conventional buttons, and I found the volume control imprecise. That said, it is great to have volume and play/pause on the headphones themselves.

Conclusion

The Revo has a lot going for it. Elegant design, high quality construction, good wireless performance without any skips or stutters, and unmatched flexibility – remember, this is a headset that you can use for phone calls as well as for enjoying music.

On the negative side, the tonality is a little bass-heavy and the sound quality good but no better than it should be considering the premium price.

If the flexibility is something you can make use of, the Revo is a strong contender.

Specifications:

Driver size 40mm
Impedance 32 Ohm
Frequency response (no tolerance given) 20Hz – 20,000Hz
Sensitivity 119 dB at 1v/1kHz
Weight 240g
Battery life 12 hours playback/10 days standby
Charge time 2 hours
Wireless range 10m

 

audio, mobile, reviews

Review: RHA MA350 Earphones

I have just spent a happy few hours comparing earbuds, ranging from a freebie supplied with a budget smartphone to my favourite Digital Silence DS-421D.

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The reason was to assess the RHA MA350 earbuds. These are well-specified for the price, made of aluminium and supplied with a small bag and three sizes of tips.

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The cable is braided for tangle-resistance. There is no microphone, but if you want a headset you can get the similar MA 350i which does have a microphone and remote but costs about £15 more.

Comfort is good and the earbuds felt secure. With three sizes of tips you will probably find one that fits nicely.

What about the sound? This is what counts from my perspective, and for the money I am impressed. No, they are not the equal of the Digital Silence which has active noise cancelling and costs four times more. They are miles better than the worst models I tried though.

Cheap earbuds can be really nasty, with a small, boxy, shouty sound. These by contrast sound sweet, clear and crisp. The soundstage is a little constricted and the depth limited compared to the best, but they are never harsh or annoying.

Like many earbuds, they are bass-shy, but not in the least tinny.

The MA 350 are advertised as “noise isolating” and I think that is fair. In a noisy environment they do an excellent job at shutting out sound, as good as you can expect from earbuds without active noise cancelling.

The tangle-free cable works well, but there is one small annoyance. The right and left markings are faintly inscribed on the cable protector rather than on the body of the earbud, and you have to squint closely to see which is which.

If you are looking for decent earbuds at a reasonable price, these are easy to recommend. I also noticed the generous 3 year warranty, and the fact that replacement tips are easy to get hold of.

The Manufacturer’s specifications are as follows:

Drivers 10mm Mylar
Frequency response (no tolerance given) 16-22,000Hz
Impedance 16 ohms
Sensitivity 103dB
Rated/Max power 3/10mW
Weight 11g
Cable 1.2m braided

 

audio, music industry

You cannot resell music downloads, says New York court. Bad news for ReDigi

1 Comment

A New York court has concluded (PDF) that you cannot resell music downloads.

The case is Capitol Records vs ReDigi, a web site which lets you trade in pre-owned legal downloads.

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The argument from District Judge Richard Sullivan is that reselling a music download is impossible, because you cannot transfer your download, you can only copy it:

Simply put, it is the creation of a new material object and not an additional material object that defines the reproduction right … the fact that a file has moved from one material object – the user’s computer – to another – the ReDigi server – means that a reproduction has occurred.

But by that argument, don’t you make a “new material object” every time you copy your iTunes download to a new directory?

Sullivan says:

As Capitol has conceded, such reproduction is almost certainly protected under other doctrines or defenses, and is not relevant to the instant motion.

The concept of “fair use” does not protect ReDigi either, according to the judgement, since it is a commercial transaction and not merely storage or personal use.

This is a decision with far-reaching implications. In essence, it says that once you pay for a music download, your money is gone forever. Your download collection has no resale value, nor can you legally transfer it to anyone else. The only way you might get your money back, oddly, is if your collection were destroyed; I have seen provision in some insurance policies for downloaded assets.

Who is going to stop you from transferring your collection to another person privately? That is different, a question of enforceability rather than legality.

You are better off buying a CD; the used CD market is deeply depressed, but does at least exist. Ripping a CD to your hard drive is illegal in some countries (including the UK, as far as I am aware) but I do not know of anyone being pursued for this, and there is a better argument for personal, non-commercial, fair use.

If the music industry could convert us all to streaming subscriptions, that would make more sense in the digital world. That said, it is unfortunate that streaming services like Spotify pay very little to artists in comparison with download services like iTunes.

audio, gadgets, reviews

Review: Bayan Audio StreamPort Universal Bluetooth streamer

Problem: you want to play audio from your mobile device on powered speakers or through your home hi-fi. Usual solution: connect a cable from the earphone socket on your device to the powered speakers or to an input on your hi-fi. That is a little fiddly and untidy, so how about a wireless solution instead?

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This is where Bayan Audio’s StreamPort Universal comes in. This little USB-powered box in effect enables any audio system for Bluetooth. Simply connect the output from the StreamPort to your hi-fi or powered speakers, using either a 3.5mm jack socket or right and left phono sockets, and then pair it with your mobile device. Audio output is then redirected to the StreamPort and you can enjoy the music at full quality.

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In my tests the StreamPort worked exactly as advertised – well, nearly. You put the StreamPort into pairing mode by holding down power for 8 seconds. A Sony Experia T Android phone connected easily, I fired up Google Music, and was able to play one of thousands of tracks at what sounds to me very decent quality.

Next I tried an Apple iPad 2. Again, it paired first time. I started BBC iPlayer and was able to watch a recent broadcast with excellent sound over hi-fi speakers. A Windows 8 tablet also worked well.

You can pair up to four devices, but only one at a time will be active. If the “wrong” device grabs the connection, turn Bluetooth off on that device. If you pair a fifth device, it will simply forget one of the other pairings.

So what didn’t work? Well, the StreamPort supports NFC Secure Simple Pairing, which means you can connect a device simply by tapping it. I tried with the NFC-enabled Xperia T and got the amusingly polite message, “Unfortunately content sharing has stopped.” I am not sure whether this should have worked, but I put the failure down to this being a relatively new protocol; perhaps it would work with the newer Xperia Z. Note that Apple devices do not currently support NFC at all.

I also experienced very occasional audible stuttering, which is unfortunate, though most of the time everything was fine. Still, this could be annoying. I heard it on music on the iPad and on the Windows tablet, but BBC iPlayer was fine. I guess it may depend on the underlying bitrate and how much data is being transferred. I am reluctant to pin the blame on the StreamPort; rather, it is a common problem with Bluetooth audio, it may or may not be something you experience, and shows that the implementation of the standard (or the drivers) on devices has a little way to go before it is rock-solid everywhere.

Is the quality as good as it is through a cable? Generally not, though how noticeable the loss of quality is in the realm of “it depends”. It is a digital connection, so in some circumstances (if the analogue output is poor) it could be better.

Bear in mind that if you are using a mobile device as the source, you are probably not looking for the best possible sound quality; but you will probably be pleasantly surprised by how good it can sound.

The actual quality will depend first, on the quality of the source, and second, on what audio protocol the source negotiates with the StreamPort. Bayan states that best quality will be from Bluetooth devices that support aptX compressed audio. The protocol used is generally invisible to the user, so all you will notice is how good it sounds. Generally a more recent device will sound better. At a minimum, your Bluetooth source has to support version 2.1 and the A2DP profile, otherwise it will not work at all.

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In the box is the StreamPort, two audio connection cables, a USB cable for power, a USB mains adaptor, and a brief manual.

Two final thoughts. One is that Apple has its own AirPlay system for wireless audio; but thanks to the rise of Android we are seeing more Bluetooth audio devices coming on the market. Since Apple devices work with Bluetooth audio, but Android and other devices do not work with AirPlay, this is an obvious response to demand.

Second, it is reasonable to expect Bluetooth audio to be built into an increasing proportion of new playback equipment. Of course, in this case you will not need the StreamPort. It is not that common yet though, which makes the StreamPort a handy accessory. Recommended.