Sony LinkBuds Clip: Do you NEED the best open earbuds?

 

Sony Linkbuds Clip Review! These are the best open ear buds I’ve ever used, but do you need the BEST at this price?

• Linkbuds Clip on Amazon https://amzn.to/48M4vre
• Linkbuds Clip on B&H https://bhpho.to/4uzPZvg
• Linkbuds Clip on BestBuy https://bestbuycreators.7tiv.net/VO6zoE

I tried these OTC Hearing Aids! Maybe I AM losing my hearing?

 

Sony CRE-C20 OTC Hearing Aids! 

I have mild hearing loss, and I spent a couple weeks using these hearing aids from Sony. No prescription needed! The experience was really interesting. Would these be the right fit for you? 

Let’s chat! 

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To learn more about and purchase Sony’s CRE-C20 OTC Hearing Aids, please visit: https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/626412061;433211426;p;gdpr=$%7BGDPR%7D;gdpr_consent=$%7BGDPR_CONSENT_755%7D

Sony WH-1000XM6: But what if you spent MORE on headphones? (Part 3/3)

WH-1000XM6 Review PART 3! 

ALRIGHT! 

The XM6 are incredible travel ANC Bluetooth cans, but what if we SPENT MORE than what Sony was charging? Will we get more for our money moving up the food chain, or are we likely to get a COMPLETELY different kind of product? 

Let's Chat! 

Shop the XM6 on B&H https://bhpho.to/3KuHQGz
Shop the XM6 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4esZg1a

Shop the Edifier Stax S5 on Amazon https://amzn.to/40BopRR 

Part 1 - EQ Fixes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrpOzS5DZ-s 

Part 2 - Budget Battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS2hTualE_c

Sony WH-1000XM6: Beaten by a BUDGET Headphone? (Part 2/3)

Incredible audio technology has fallen to lower and lower prices. Will spending less than ONE QUARTER the price of the Sony's give you ONE QUARTER the goodness? 

Let's chat... 

PART 1 - How I made the XM6 Sound Better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrpOzS5DZ-s 

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Shop the XM6 on B&H https://bhpho.to/3KuHQGz
Shop the XM6 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4esZg1a 

More info on Sonoflow Pro https://onemore.pxf.io/g1mjmg

Sony WH-1000XM6: How I Made Them Sound Better (Part 1/3)

I've eagerly been anticipating the release of the XM6, but my first impressions were a little disappointing.

This is still the best TRAVEL premium headphone on the market, but depending on your ears, they might need a little EQ help. 

Here's what I did to change up the sound and LOVE these cans! 

Shop the XM6 on B&H https://bhpho.to/3KuHQGz
Shop the XM6 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4esZg1a

Sony Bravia Theater U vs The 8-YEAR-OLD LG Tone Studio - Neckband Speakers!

Playing with the Sony Bravia Theater U (a wireless neckband speaker) inspired a little trip down memory lane. Let's see how far this idea has evolved over eight years. If you want a premium portable speaker solution, Sony has a wild option to offer!

Sony Bravia Theater U on Amazon https://amzn.to/4cL7AIG

Mike Rock the new Announcer for the Chelsea Lately show on E!

Hey all!
Just a great little bit of news about a VO pal-o-mine.

Mike Rock (whom I've written about before), just booked the announcer gig for the Chelsea Lately show on E!

For those of you that haven't read up on him, he was the voice of the Kleenex "Monk" commercial, and also narrated the show Property Ladder on TLC.

What's also kind of exciting about this news is that Mike booked this gig on the road. Visiting his folks, he got the audition from Abram's through email, he punched his Sony ECM-MS907 microphone into his MacBook, jumped into a closet, sent off an mp3, and he became the voice of a show. Incredible!

Voice actors, it's becoming more and more necessary to have a basic understanding of digital audio! It's just too easy now, and it's a vital tool in getting yourself work.



Anywho, congrats Mike, and you've just given me a reason to catch the show!

Sony to license Beatles for use in music, commercials, films

Not sure how I feel about this.

It’s perfectly legal, but it will still seem to some listeners like the sound of someone making off with England’s crown jewels.
Forty years and more after the Beatles changed rock music forever, their songs have truly arrived in the 21st century as part of the rap/hip-hop art form — with the express permission of their publishers. Although there are hundreds of covers of ”Yesterday,” “Something” and the rest, this approach of ”interpolation” — essentially rerecording a portion of a song — of the Beatles’ compositions represents new access to the most famous catalogue in the world. These developments may ultimately signal a fresh attitude toward Beatles masters appearing in everything from commercials to movies.

That's not true. I don't like this idea.

read more | digg story

MSN via AP, Thanks Mrs. Audio Guy!!!

Blu-Ray Playback Problems Linked to Copy Protection?

You all know how I feel about DRM and copy protection.
I'm pretty much against any ACTIVE protection. I'm a big fan of watermarking and passive protection. Basically any protection that prevents people from playing the content equals, and anything that will link the content back to who originally owned it equals good.
I think content needs to be payed for, and if you buy something and are dumb enough to put it up on the web, well that's your problem...

My problem with active protection is that it doesn't work. It only prevents the paying customers from watching it the way they want to. Anyone who wants to get around it will.

Case in point, Sony's latest batch of Blu-Ray's "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and "Day After Tomorrow", both chock full of Sony's latest copy protection, dont play well with older Blu-Ray players by Samsung and LG. There have been other problems reported with BD+ Copy Protection, but usually with special features content not the movies themselves.

Highdefdigest.com has the scoop:

The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200
and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the
discs at all. Less catastophic issues (error messages and playback
stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to
play back fine on all other Blu-ray players (including the PlayStation
3), although users have reported lengthy load times of up to two
minutes.
It has been widely speculated that these issues stem from the use of
BD+ copy protection on the two discs. We contacted Fox for comment, but
so far there's no official word from the studio.
Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that
both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on
firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update
within "a couple" weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4
days.

Read the rest here.

Sony euthanizes Sony Connect

So long Sony Connect, we hardly knew ye. I don't even use iTunes, so truthfully I've never come close to checking out Connect. I'm also not fond of content being locked down into a particular format that can only be played on a particular player. MP3 might not be technically the best, but man, I can play them on my grill if I need to.

This story from Arstechnica discusses some of the challenges facing Connect customers.

Sony's love for proprietary formats and desire to create a closed music-hardware ecosystem à la Apple did it in. Its insistence on sticking with a proprietary format supported only by its own digital audio players garnered little love from consumers distracted not only by the iPod, but by the large number of WMA-compatible PlaysForSure devices.

Sony has posted a Connect Music Service Phase Out FAQ, which offers technical guidance to those who purchased music from Sony's online story. Sony's SonicStage software and older hardware will continue to support ATRAC, but the company says that those who purchased DRMed ATRAC content should rip the music to CD and then re-rip it to MP3 if they want it to play on the new Walkmans. Sony also notes that consumers will be able to continue to use the music in their SonicStage libraries and on players supporting ATRAC after Sony Connect closes. The Connect eBook service will continue to operate after the music store closes.

At least Sony will continue to support DRMed music sold through Sony Connect. When Google decided to close the virtual doors to the Google Video Store earlier this month, the search giant informed its customers that the closure would render the videos unplayable, offering them a Google Checkout credit in lieu of an actual refund instead. After heavy criticism, the company then had a change of heart, promising to issue refunds for purchased videos along with the Google Checkout credits. That's one of the dangers of DRMed content—if the company behind it decides to get out of the business, you may be left unable to view or listen to your content.

That and this quote from the Digg story is just plain fun.

If a music store closes on the Internet and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? Sony has decided that it wasn't cut out for the online music business after all.

read more | digg story

Sound Forge vs Audition .... Ready FIGHT!

Following up on my call for help from yesterday, here is a WAY over detailed shoot out between the two programs.

Just to spoil the results, Adobe just edges out Sony, but I'm not sure I completely agree. They slam Sound Forge for not being multitrack, but that was the whole point of SF9, was to add multi.
Is it AS good as Adobe's, most certainly not, but you CAN do it.

I call rigged...

Sound Forge 9.0

Adobe Audition 3

Calling all Engineers! FAVORITE NOISE REMOVAL???

Get it? All Caps, since I'm yelling over the noise.

So, I use two PC's. I've almost always used Sound Forge (currently on v9) to do my sound design work. Recently I've been hearing all about how Audition is awesome, and I should totally switch.
I downloaded the demo and started tearing into it, and it's nice, but I can't see what the advantage is.

Sadly, AudioGuy is developing a reputation as the "GoToGuy" for cleaning up other peoples mistakes. While I'll never speak ill of working, it bothers me that I can't seem to get hired to just prevent the mistakes in the first place. Lately a lot of my work has been in cleaning up audio for low budget shorts and podcasts, and a lot of that cleaning has been noise removal. Bad mics, improper Lav placement, uncontrollable environment, bad ADR, theres a lot of noise out there.
So, throwing some files I'm working on into Audition and cranking up the NR plugin, I have to say I was a little disappointed.

Spectrum view is cool. I haven't seen yet where it really is better than waveform, just brings different information to focus first. Selection of noise to remove is great, but the actual settings to remove the noise just dont do it for me. Compared to the SF/Sony NR plugin, it's just too easy to hollow out the piece I'm working on.

So I put this out there to anyone who might catch it. What NR plugin SHOULD I be looking at? Since a lot of my freelance work involves cleaning, if something can really outperform SF/Sony, I'd love to give it a shot!

Quick Follow up to My Last Post...

Sound Forge 9 is good. VERY good.
But if you've already got SF8, and say a good sequencer like Acid, then I'm not really sure it's worth the upgrade price.
Here's what's frustrating. I've already spent money on 8, and the noise removal plugin. Upgrading to 9 only gives me multi track.
I can't really justify that cost, though I really want to have that latest and greatest.

If you don't have SF8, GO GET THIS NOW!

NEW SOUND FORGE! HOW THE F@CK DID I MISS THIS!?!?!

Yup,
We're up to SF9. I'm downloading the trial now. True Multi-track, built in noise reduction (finally), iZotope plugins, it looks all good!

Here's a brief review from Studio Monthly.

I'm stoked. I use SF more than any other audio program. Sure, sequencers like Sonar have grown up to include an impressive suite of editing tools, but if you quickly and easily want to get in and surgically edit audio there's nothing better than SF.