Subscribe
Add to Technorati Favourites
Add to del.icio.us

I belong to a small but forward-thinking group of people, I like to call "audiophiles without boundaries". AKA the "limitless audiophile". AKA "Beltists". AKA "Advanced Audiophiles" for "Alternative Audio". For we don't allow ideology and dogma to dictate the limits of our listening pleasure. Science yes, we have a great respect and interest in science. But dogma? No. Not even dogma masquerading as science, either. Our definition of "science" is not just limited to what the mainstream peddles as "correct thinking", while rejecting everything it hasn't yet had the inclination to accept.

The reason I call this group "the limitless audiophiles", is because I just treated a cell phone, a few minutes ago. The traditional audiophile, hampered by conventional beliefs, does not, can not, and will not try to improve the sound of a cell phone. It's not possible under conventional rules. This isn't the days of hobbyist kit amps where you can change out the tubes or stock electrolytic capacitors for higher quality equivalents. You can't change anything on a smartphone type cell phone. Especially current models you can't even get into. The electronics are too small, and even if they weren't, higher quality parts are not available. You're certainly not going to be changing the speaker on it! All you can hope to do to improve the sound from your smartphone is to upgrade your ear/headphones.  But that's not improving the sound of your smartphone. That's improving the sound of your earphones. And any jamoke can do that!

Yet, who wouldn't want to? When the ubiquitous smartphones have replaced cassette Walkmans, CD Walkmans, MP3 players, iPods etc. They are the number 1 portable device for listening to music. And there are no "high end audiophile" smartphones, per se. Your typical smartphone/cellphone today, regardless of its price, is going to come with a teeny tiny speaker that for sound quality, is way outperformed by a Japanese transistor pocket radio from the 50's. Their poor sound quality makes listening to the smartphone's mp3 player via speaker almost useless. Your only choice for listening to music on the devices is through headphones. Which is not always practical, and even that leaves much room for improvement. Also, wouldn't it be nice just to have a better sound quality overall, so ringtones are a bit less shocking to the ear?

Well, too bad! You can't do diddley squat about it. At least not if you're a "traditional audiophile". If you're a Beltist.... an "advanced audiophile", an "audiophile without boundaries?  You want to improve the sound of your cell? Hey, that's not a problem at all! Sure, we can improve cell phones! Although it may not be that common a practice among us, of course we can do it. As Beltists, we can literally improve the sound of anything. In fact, I've tweaked many of my own smartphones, and countless such cellphones from friends. The one I did tonight took nothing but a few minutes, and made a great difference; on both headphones and speaker. It went from tinny to rich, sonorous, warmer, smoother, improved in the timbral spectrum and more musically engaging. As well as less distortion and brightness.

The willful skeptic looks at a decades old science textbook and says "That's improssible! (sic). What you're doing is not in my bible! I mean, my science textbook!". I know the song of the willful skeptic all too well. It's always the same song, published on the Broken Record label. I say in return; "For the sake of argument... say you're right. I'm imagining my smartphone's sound is much better now, and so is everyone else I did this for. But, as the effect stays with us, what's the difference between it and placebo? There is none. If there is none between it and placebo, then there's no difference between it and a real change. In effect, your argument is moot".

Because that's what it comes down to. There is only one technique in the world that even purports to improve the sound and the image quality of a smartphone. (In actuality, the human listening to it!). That is the way of the limitless audiophile. I'm smart enough not to let ideology get in the way of good sound or listening and viewing pleasure. Neither should you!

Never let ideology get in the way of learning something new and novel.


- The Advanced Audiophile

Bookmark and Share

0 comments: