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vidiashopnet · 7 years ago

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Bí quyết xây dựng hệ thống âm thanh như ý

Việc xây dựng một hệ thống âm thanh như ý với khoảng ngân sách vừa phải không khó như nhiều bạn tưởng tượng. Điều quan trọng đầu tiên là phải hiểu rõ bạn muốn hệ thống đó như thế nào? Chúng tôi xin giới thiệu với bạn một số suy nghĩ của một chuyên gia âm thanh Anh quốc David Price trao đổi xung quanh vấn đề này.

Một trong những công việc chiếm của tôi phần lớn thời gian chính là trả lời các câu hỏi của các bạn chơi âm thanh. Tuy nhiên hầu hết các lời khuyên của tôi không được đón nhận và thực hiện với vô vàn các lí do khác nhau.

Tôi có thể kể một ví dụ điển hình như sau: anh X muốn mua một CD transport và DAC tốt nhất trong mức tiền hiện có.

Tôi khuyên anh ta nên mua một CD transport A và bộ DAC B. Đến tháng sau tôi nhận được thư hôi đáp anh ta mua CD transport F và bộ DAC G và lúc này đã cảm thấy không còn thích âm thanh của hai sản phẩm đó nữa. Khi tôi hỏi tại sao anh không làm theo lời khuyên của tôi thì được trả lời rằng, anh ta muốn mua một bộ sản phẩm sao cho có thể phối ghép ăn ý về mặt thẩm mỹ với các thiết bị đã có, hoặc anh ta không thích kiểu dáng của hai sản phẩm tôi gợi ý, hoặc anh ta mua các sản phẩm khác chỉ vì giá của chúng dễ chịu hơn…

Có thể nhận thấy hoặc là họ không hài lòng với những điều tôi tư vấn, hoặc có thể họ chỉ muốn đùa cho vui. Nhưng điều cốt lõi tôi nhận thấy chính là những độc giả đó chưa hiểu rõ bản thân họ thực sự cần điều gì.

Nếu muốn mua một CD transport tốt nhất và không cần quan tâm đến giá cả thì có thể lùng sục ở Hồng Kong, Singapore, hay ở trên internet…

Nhiều khẳng định họ muốn tìm kiếm những “âm thanh hay nhất” nhưng không tính đến kiểu dáng, kích thước của thiết bị hoặc sự kết hợp về hình thức lẫn phong cách trình diễn với các thiết bị khác trong cùng hệ thống.

Có nhiều người khẳng định rằng, với họ “âm thanh hay nhất” là tiêu chí quan trọng nhất. Tôi đã chỉ cho họ thấy: nếu muốn mua một CD transport tốt nhất và không cần quan tâm đến giá cả thì có thể lùng sục ở Hồng Kong, Singapore, hay ở trên internet….Sau đó anh ta phải làm một số thủ tục có thể kéo dài đến mấy tháng như lien lạc với các đại lí bán hàng gửi danh sách sản phẩm muốn mua, cập nhật tin tức từ các site bán hang ở các quốc gia đó, làm thủ tục thanh toán, vận chuyển, bảo hiểm quốc tế và chịu thuế nhập khẩu…và có khi phải đổi biến áp nguồn sang 220V 50 Hz… và với ngần ấy sự nhiêu khê người mua đã thôi không còn giữ ý định tìm kiếm âm thanh tốt nhất nữa, mà chỉ dừng lại ở một sản phẩm tốt nhất trong số các sản phẩm mà họ có thể mua một cách dễ dàng ngay ngày mai.

Đọc đến đây chắc các bạn đã hiểu được vấn đề tôi muốn trình bày. Vì thế, lời khuyên quan trong tôi muốn gửi đến các bạn là hãy có một tư tưởng nhất quán và rõ rang. Nếu bản thân bạn không biết chính xác bạn cần một hệ thống như thế nào và tại sao bạn lai muốn một hệ thống như vậy, thì có thể bạn sẽ mất tới 20 năm ném tiền qua cửa sổ mà không nhận được một chút gì gọi là âm thanh đích thực.

Hãy cân nhắc xem bạn chỉ đơn thuần muốn có một hệ thống âm thanh, hay cụ thể hơn là một hệ thống âm thanh có những nét vừa hiện đại vừa cổ điển. Hoặc bạn có nên mua một bộ DAC theo công nghệ lấy mãu hiện đại nhất không nếu chỉ vì đã “trót nghe” ai đó nói rằng một thiết bị như thế là rất cần thiết. Bạn đã có sẵn thiết bị nào (turntable, ampli, loa) để phối ghép hay tất cả đều mua mới? Đó là một số điểm bạn cần cân nhắc trước khi quyết định “xây dựng” một hệ thống âm thanh, và điều quan trọng là phải xác định rõ ràng và nhất quán. Nếu bạn không biết bạn cần gì bạn sẽ không bao giờ tìm thấy giải pháp cho vấn đề.

Điều quan trọng thứ hai khi tiến hành lập một hệ thống âm thanh là tính thứ tự. Từ những năm 60 trở về trước mọi việc rất đơn giản, loa là thiết bị quan trọng nhất. Tất cả những việc mà đầu đọc đĩa than (turntable) của bạn phải làm là ổn định và không gây tiếng ồn ảnh hưởng đến màn trình diễn âm thanh (nhiều người Mỹ cho rằng đó là điều đòi hỏi cao nhất). Vào thời đó, cũng đã có nhiều quan điềm khác nhau. Theo Peter Walker của hãng Quad, thì ampli chỉ là một thiết bị bảo đảm được công suất ra loa. Còn theo Ivor Tiefenbru của Linn, đối với âm thanh hi-fi, ampli lại là thiết bị nguồn có ảnh hưởng đến các thiết bị còn lại.

Đến nay, theo tôi bạn nên đổng tình với quan điểm của Ivor, và nếu có thể bạn hãy bắt tay vào thiết kế thiết bị nguồn trước. Chẳng hạn như bạn có một cặp loa và muốn tận dụng chúng. Điều đó cũng không ngăn cản bạn đảm bảo tính thứ tự. Tất nhiên bạn sẽ không thể tự do lựa chọn thiết bị nguồn theo ý thích mà phải tìm kiếm môt thiết bị có thể kết hợp ăn ý với cặp loa của bạn. Khi hiểu được điều đó, bạn có thể phát hiện ra rẳng một ampli 4 sao có khi lại cho kết quả tốt hơn ampli 5 sao vừa xuất xưởng đang được các tạp chí hi-fi ca ngợi. Lí do đơn giản là ampli 5 sao đời mới kia không có khả năng hỗ trợ và phối hợp tốt với cặp loa của bạn.

Vậy bạn hãy nghĩ đến thiết bị nguồn đầu tiên hoặc lựa chọn thiết bị nguồn ph�� hợp với các thiết bị bạn đang có sẵn. Dù thế nào bạn cũng nên theo thứ tự như sau: thiết bị nguồn âm -> thiết bị khuếch đại -> loa -> giá đỡ -> thiết bị kết nối. Thứ tự này sẽ giúp cho hệ thống của bạn có một kết cấu logic, giúp cho việc tìm kiếm các khiếm khuyết và việc nâng cấp dễ dàng hơn.

Đến đây, bạn hãy lưu tâm đến vấn đề ngân sách. Trước thời kì âm thanh CD xuất hiện, bạn hoàn toàn đúng khi dồn tiền đầu tư cho các thiết bị nguồn analog. Ví dụ như các thiết bị nguồn thường chiếm từ 340 USD (Rega plana 3) đến 1020USD (Linn) trong một hệ thống âm thanh trị giá 1700USD. Một hệ thống với turnbtable 1020USD, ampli 340USD, ampli 595USD và loa 595USD kèm theo 170USD cho các phụ kiện khác.

Tuy nhiên, với một hệ thống âm thanh CD lại khác. Tại sao lại có sự khác biệt đó? Các turntable cao cấp là những thiết bị đòi hỏi kĩ thuật chế tạo tốt và các ưu điểm của các thiết bị này thường đẩy giá thành lên cao. Còn với các đầu đọc CD, chúng thường có điểm tương đồng trong kết cấu transport, DAC, bộ lọc digital. Sự chênh lệch giá thành của các đầu đọc CD thường từ các lí do về thương hiệu, dịch vụ tư vấn, bảo dưỡng hay chiến lược tiếp thị. Ví dụ như đầu đọc CD Cambridge Audio 640C 425USD có kết cấu linh kiện bên trong tương tự như đầu đọc trị giá 1.700USD của Musical Fidentily và Cyrus. Tuy về âm thanh, chúng không tốt như nhau nhưng giá thành không thể chỉ ra được sự khác biệt đó. Và trong mọi trường hợp, các đầu đọc CD đều cho âm thanh theo đúng chất âm CD, trong khi đó màn trình diễn âm giữa các turntable thường có phạm vi khác biệt khá lớn. Đó chính là lí do bạn không phải chi them ¼ ngân quỹ vào thiết bị nguồn âm digital có giá trị mà chỉ cần tập trung đầu tư cho các thiết bị nguồn âm analog.

VẬY NÊN PHÂN CHIA NGÂN QUỸ CHO TỪNG THIẾT BỊ LÀ NHƯ THẾ NÀO?

Nếu bạn muốn tạo một hệ thống nghe đĩa than trị giá 3400USD, bạn nên dành 50% số tiền cho turntable, chẳng hạn như Gyrodec SE được coi là sản phẩm bình dân với giá 1700USD. Kế đến là tay cơ (Michell TecnoArn và Origin Live OLI) cùng cartridge đời mới (Goldring MM 1042 giá 170USD hoặc Ortofon MC Rondo Blue giá 680USD) chỉ chiếm 10% tổng chi phí mà vẫn cho âm thanh đặc biệt. Bạn còn tới 40% nữa để đầu tư cho ampli và loa. Và nếu bạn vẫn có thể đầu tư them thì hãy quan tâm đến các thiết bị kèm theo. Ngay cả các hệ thống có giá từ 8500USD trở lên cũng có thể sử dụng các thiết bị kèm theo của Michell.

Với hệ thống âm thanh CD trị giá 3400USD bạn hãy chi 30% số tiền cho thiết bị nguồn, có thể là CD-T80 (1050USD) của Shanglin và đầu tư 40% cho ampli như A2 của Sugden. Khoản tiền còn lại được dành cho loa, cáp và giá đỡ. Tuy nhiên bạn vẫn có thể dành hết khoản tiền còn lại cho một bô loa ưng ý (như RI6 của Revolve) và đợi them ít lâu để có thể lựa chọn các giá đỡ của Custom Design và cáp của Chord Company Odyssey 2. Nếu bạn muốn đấu biwire thì hãy mua một cáp monowire loại tốt nhất thay vì mua cáp monowire thường thường bậc trung. Bạn chỉ sử dụng một khoản tiền mà vẫn có âm thanh hay và có thể đấu biwire bất cứ lúc nào. Khi muốn loại bỏ mớ cáp nguồn “hang cỏ” và đã có một khoản tiền nhất định, bạn có thể chọn dây nguồn của Missing Link, tuy chưa phải là loại tốt nhất nhưng sự kết hợp giữa giá thành và chất lượng trình diễn của dây nhãn hiệu này hoàn toàn tuyệt vời.

Tuy vậy, để có một hệ thống âm thanh hay không chỉ đầu tư tiền hợp lí. Một yếu tố khác cũng quan trọng không kém và không dễ nhận thấy chính là sự tương thích hay phù hợp.

Bạn muốn bỏ một khoản tiền lớn để mua một thiết bị mà ai đó từng khen là rất tuyệt vời hay muốn được nghe thứ âm thanh hay nhất mà chiếc ví của bạn có thể mang lại? việc lựa chọn sản phẩm thong qua các lời khuyên của các trang quảng cáo không phải lúc nào cũng đem lại cho bạn âm thanh hay. Những cách đó có thể mang lại cho bạn âm thanh rất tuyệt, nhưng cũng có thể rất mau nhàm chán. Tương hợp không phải là điều kì bí, mơ hồ trong âm thanh hi-fi, mà chỉ đơn giản là quá trình tìm kiếm sự thích ứng giữa âm thanh và người nghe, đòi hỏi bạn phải nghe thử sàn phẩm trước khi quyết định mua.

Không phải nhà phân phối sản phầm hi-fi nào cũng đúng nên thay vì nghe lời giới thiệu hoa mỹ của họ, bạn hãy nghe chính thiết bị trình diễn. Chỉ bằng cách này bạn mới có cơ hội nhận thấy các thiết bị trong hệ thống phối hợp với nhau ra sao, xem có đúng như điều bạn mong đợi hay như mọi người ca ngợi hay không.

Điều cuối cùng nhưng không kém phần quan trọng để đảm bảo tính lâu dài của hệ thống là khi mua thiết bị âm thanh, bạn nên tự đặt câu hỏi liệu thiết bị có thể phục vụ tốt trong 5 năm tới hay không, và nếu không thì bạn sẽ làm như thế nào. Các thiết bị nguồn âm analog và các mẫu loa cổ điển (các mẫu thiết kế theo kiểu KEF năm 60, 70) thường kèm theo linh kiện thay thế, hoặc có thể thay thế bằng các linh kiện hiện đại (ví dụ các môtơ DC có thể thay thế các môtơ AC cũ trong turntable, các loa con của loa có thể làm lại màng loa). Các nhãn hiệu nổi tiếng như Linn, Naim, Meridian và Quad thường có dịch vụ bảo dưỡng và linh kiện thay thế tốt. Trong khi đó các nhãn hiệu cung cấp sản phẩm “ba bảy hai mốt ngày” thường không có các dịch vụ như vậy. Thiết bị hi-fi và âm thanh hi-fi tạo nên một thú vui tao nhã, đưa người nghe đến với athanh trung thực theo khẩu vị, bạn cần có quan điểm nhất quán, sự khéo léo khi xây dựng hệ thống, quy trình nâng cấp logic và cả sự giúp đỡ của nhân viên phân phối sản phẩm.

Nghe Nhìn Việt Nam

Bài viết Bí quyết xây dựng hệ thống âm thanh như ý có nguồn tại Thiết Bị Karaoke, Xem Phim, Nghe Nhạc Số 1 Tại TPHCM.

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canchinhamthanh · 7 years ago

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Bí quyết xây dựng hệ thống âm thanh như ý

Tôi có thể kể một ví dụ điển hình như sau: anh X muốn mua một CD transport và DAC tốt nhất trong mức tiền hiện có.

Nếu muốn mua một CD transport tốt nhất và không cần quan tâm đến giá cả thì có thể lùng sục ở Hồng Kong, Singapore, hay ở trên internet…

Vậy bạn hãy nghĩ đến thiết bị nguồn đầu tiên hoặc lựa chọn thiết bị nguồn phù hợp với các thiết bị bạn đang có sẵn. Dù thế nào bạn cũng nên theo thứ tự như sau: thiết bị nguồn âm -> thiết bị khuếch đại -> loa -> giá đỡ -> thiết bị kết nối. Thứ tự này sẽ giúp cho hệ thống của bạn có một kết cấu logic, giúp cho việc tìm kiếm các khiếm khuyết và việc nâng cấp dễ dàng hơn.

VẬY NÊN PHÂN CHIA NGÂN QUỸ CHO TỪNG THIẾT BỊ LÀ NHƯ THẾ NÀO?

Nghe Nhìn Việt Nam

Bài viết Bí quyết xây dựng hệ thống âm thanh như ý có nguồn tại Thiết Bị Karaoke, Xem Phim, Nghe Nhạc Số 1 Tại TPHCM.

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stardeals · 2 years ago

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High-Resolution Audio refers to a collection of digital processes and formats that allow the encoding and playback of music using higher sampling rates than the standards used in CDs. For more information to visit our official website https://stardeals.ca/ or feel free to contact us 416 251-1111.

#Totem Bookshelf Speakers #Portable Headphone Amplifier #Yamaha Wireless Streaming Preamp #Sony High Resolution Music Player #Totem Bluetooth Speakers #Digital To Analog Converter Dac #Cambridge Audio Cd Transport

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h3-digital-cinema-audio-lights · 7 years ago

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SONOS: How it Started

Fans of business success stories know the familiar arc they follow:

Hero-entrepreneur dreams up a great idea, finds a sidekick or two to help it come alive, clashes with and defeats the entrenched incumbent, and rides to glory as the credits roll.

The story of Sonos might seem like that, from a distance. Its four founders – John MacFarlane, Tom Cullen, Trung Mai, and Craig Shelburne – conjured a daring vision based on technology that didn’t exist at the time. Fueled with the insight earned from success in the first phase of Internet-based business-building, they chose as their next mission a new way to bring music to every home – wirelessly, in multiple rooms, from PCs and the Internet, with awesome sound. They hired an amazing team who built amazing products from scratch, and music devotees all over the world found a new brand to fall in love with.

But what about a closer look?

What are the frustrations and failures they experienced on the journey? Are there larger lessons to be learned? The story of what Sonos did and is doing might be familiar to many. With first-ever details, what follows is the story of how.

"We had to reinvent how devices communicate with each other. We could not, and did not, limit ourselves to what existed at the time."

Part One “The View from Santa Barbara��

John MacFarlane moved to Santa Barbara in 1990 to get his Ph.D. from University of California-Santa Barbara. Instead he saw the promise of the Internet and built Software.com along with Craig, Tom and Trung. They merged Software.com with Phone.com in 2000 to create Openwave, and soon left with new, hard-earned wealth and unanswered questions about what to do next.

Whatever was going to be next, they knew they weren’t leaving Santa Barbara. The lifestyle, the ocean beaches, the weather – everything about the place compelled them to stay. It was, perhaps, the beginning of a habit of unorthodox choices to add both a degree of difficulty and a fresh perspective to the work. As Tom describes it, the view from Santa Barbara contained four big insights drawn, in his words, from being “at the core of the Internet as it was blowing up”: Four Big Insights First, the proliferation of standards meant the Internet is a programmable platform. Second, the collapse of costs for the brains and nervous systems of computers - integrated circuits, central processing units, and other technologies – meant these components were fast becoming commodities. Third, the four founders could see what the builders were buying, and thus they could see digitization just getting started all around them, with nearly unlimited possibilities for more. Finally, as Tom would say, they realized that for networking, “what would be large scale would become small scale.” Wide-area networks would create markets and bring reliable capability to local-area networks.

"We've always believed in music in every room."

With all of their experience, resources and insight, the four founders naturally turned to music in the home, and…

…not so fast.

John’s first pitch to his three partners was actually around aviation. The notion was an offering to enable local-area networks (or LANs) for airplanes, with passenger services provided within them. That idea did not generate the enthusiasm John had anticipated, so it was back to the drawing board.

But that drawing board soon became filled with inspiration from the four friends’ mutual love of music, and mutual frustration with the pain of storing hundreds of CDs, dealing with the tangled spaghetti of stereo and speaker wires, and enduring the expense of custom home wiring for multi-room listening experiences. This became the opportunity to apply their unique talents, resources and insight.

The vision was simple: Help music lovers play any song anywhere in their homes. The one problem, in 2002: Almost none of the necessary technology existed to achieve that. The next great startup involving music and technology would take root between the global hubs of both more than 90 miles from Los Angeles, and more than 250 miles from Silicon Valley. With a vision that was pure imagination.

Part Two“These Guys Are Kind of Nuts”

In 2002, great music in the home meant wires hidden behind bookshelves and furniture, connecting to speakers the size of bongo drums; audio jacks plugged into the right holes on the backs of receivers and players; physical media primarily in the forms of compact discs and tapes - and if you wanted a multi-room experience, an afternoon (or weekend) drilling through walls to snake wires from a central receiver to speakers throughout your home.

While the original Napster had risen and fallen as a means to find music online to play on the personal computer, digital music was still new, and the idea of streaming music directly from the Internet was far-fetched. Pandora, iTunes, Spotify, and the rest of today’s leaders in music streaming services did not exist, nor did the iPhone. The top Internet service provider in 2002 was still America Online via dial-up, and fewer than 16 million U.S. households had high-speed broadband.

Undaunted, the founders went to work scoping out their vision and seeking uniquely great talent to join them. Their first step was to translate what they imagined onto paper. According to Cullen, it took about three months and looked like this:

The second step - recruiting singular talent – took about as long. By spring 2003, the core of Sonos’ engineering and design team would be in place. Among the first in the door: Jonathan Lang (a Ph.D. in networking with a background in startups), Andy Schulert and Nick Millington (veterans of Microsoft and startups, with deep coding skills), and globally renowned product designers Mieko Kusano and Rob Lambourne, both from Philips.

Schulert felt the same affections for Boston as the founders had for Santa Barbara, Sonos opened its second office in Cambridge – with a promise to never view one office as more of a headquarters than the other. It’s worth asking how a no-name, long-shot company like Sonos could attract such world-class talent. Along with their earlier success with Software.com, the founders had a few big advantages: a reputation for technical expertise, an extensive network of great executives, engineers and designers, an eye for talent – and a bold vision that inspired the daring. “The question was, distributed intelligence or central intelligence? We chose distributed, not because it was easier – it wasn’t! – but because it was the right architecture for the experience we wanted to deliver.” This intrepid band went to work, holing up together in a large open room above the Santa Barbara restaurant El Paseo, with the afternoon smell of tortillas deep frying to make chips. The beginnings were not auspicious.

“The room was arranged like a school classroom, with rows of desks and John at the teacher’s desk, elevated,” recalled Nick Millington. “He’d be working on a prototype amplifier, testing it with sine waves, which was annoying. I was trying to get the audio transport layer developed, and it kept not working and making horrible noises, right in front of the CEO watching me work all day. So I invested in headphones.”

While the challenge of inventing a multi-room wireless home audio system might have been enough, the team also collectively had made bright-line decisions around ease of use – meaning setup would have to be fast and intuitive for anyone, it would have to integrate well with any technology or service, and it would have to deliver superior sound in any home environment.

The sum of all those noble user-oriented decisions is that technical problems threatened to overwhelm the small Sonos band of engineers and designers right from the start. Cross-technology integration meant choosing Linux as the technology platform, but no drivers existed at the time for audio, for controllers’ remote buttons or scroll wheels, or for the networking that was needed. The Sonos team had to build them.

Great multi-room music meant inventing a method to get audio instantly and wirelessly to multiple speakers without listeners noticing any gaps, ever. The team faced a choice: allow each speaker to go fetch music independently, or have a master speaker fetch and distribute.

As Jonathan Lang elaborates, “The question was, distributed intelligence or central intelligence? We chose distributed, not because it was easier – it wasn’t! – but because it was the right architecture for the experience we wanted to deliver.”

The team chose the latter as the best experience for the user, but that choice had its own domino effect: how (in 2003) do you manage buffering to guard against network interruption (which would stop music mid-song), and what happens if the user removes the master speaker from the group?

In what ultimately became one of Sonos’ key patented technologies, the team customized a process called delegation expressly for multi-room, wireless music to enable transition for any and all speakers without any drop-offs. Along with a novel approach to time-stamping the digital bits of music playing via audio packets, they made it virtually impossible for a Sonos system to play music out of synch – and easy for users to link and unlink rooms, and to fling music to and from any room in the home.

“There was a lot of FUD then that it was impossible,” recalls Nick Millington. “I basically started trying stuff, prototyping on PCs – just relying on judgment tests rather than academic tests.” “We had to reinvent how devices communicate with each other. We could not, and did not, limit ourselves to what existed at the time.” And soon, one problem was solved. But only on PCs hooked up to each other as nodes in a network, because Sonos still had to craft its own hardware – and the PCs were wired together, because the team was struggling with the wireless part. MacFarlane was encouraging, but also unyielding: the system had to work over WiFi.

In Jonathan Lang’s words, this meant “we had to reinvent how devices communicate with each other. We could not, and did not, limit ourselves to what existed at the time.”

The team recognized mesh networking as the key. By 2003, it was a concept that had seen use in highly mobile environments, like battlefields, but never applied in the home or to the stringent demands of music experience. To develop and implement, Sonos had two choices: an easier engineering solution at the expense of its ideal user experience, or making it simple and great for users and excruciatingly difficult for its engineers.

True to form, Sonos chose the latter. Speaking of the engineering team, Mieko Kusano observed, “These guys are kind of nuts. The harder the problem gets, the more intrigued they are to solve it.”

Lang explained why: “The alternative approach to networking would have been to use others’ access points. We were convinced that would lead to a bad user experience – for example, someone in the house hitting ‘print’ would stop the music. Which would be awful.”

The team dug in to add mesh networking capability along with the rest of its advances, and by September 2003, it was time to show John and the rest of the leadership team a prototype. As with most prototypes, some parts worked perfectly, some showed promise, and some parts flunked. The mesh network capability showed up as especially incapable. “Keep in mind that the notion of mesh networking existed, but not in any audio products. Almost no one anywhere was working on embedded systems with WiFi. There were no good Linux drivers with WiFi. We were building our own hardware that we hadn’t fully tested. Nick’s the best developer I’ve ever worked with, by far.” Sonos turned to Nick Millington, who had already established himself among his colleagues as an elite developer with his inventions in audio synch. It didn’t matter, either to him or to the rest of the team, that he brought exactly zero experience in networking to the assignment. With the help of faculty at UC-Santa Barbara, a consultant, and a vendor, Nick taught himself in six weeks about mesh networks while also building one from scratch for Sonos – on hardware Sonos was also designing from scratch.

His manager at the time, Andy Schulert, remembers: “Keep in mind that the notion of mesh networking existed, but not in any audio products. Almost no one anywhere was working on embedded systems with WiFi. There were no good Linux drivers with WiFi. We were building our own hardware that we hadn’t fully tested. Nick’s the best developer I’ve ever worked with, by far.”

In the meantime, Rob Lambourne and Mieko Kusano were leading the effort to write product specs, develop wireframes, test with user groups toward creating the right user experience presented in beautifully designed hardware.

With the basic framework of the system built by early 2004, filled with new and untested technologies, the next phase focused on the scourge of software engineers: bugs.

"We’ve got our first 15 to 20 prototypes, we feel great about them, we take ten of them to someone’s house to try it out. We set them up, and it’s a colossal failure. They barely worked. We had to dial back to just two, figure out the issues, then add a third, and so on. Excruciating, but worth it."

Despite all the ingenuity at hand, the prototypes couldn’t communicate wirelessly to each other from even ten feet apart. And particularly with embedded systems, at the time developer tools and debuggers did not exist. So Nick and John took a road trip, the prototypes stowed in a cardboard box in the back seat of John’s car, to Silicon Valley to see John’s friend and hardware supplier, whose advice boiled down to one word: antennas.

This led to another round of grinding through arcane technical details around transmission standards (only 802.11-b/g at the time), antenna selection and placement, network device drivers and spanning tree protocols, and the many ways human living spaces can cause signal interference. This was a time that none of the principals describe with any romanticism or even nostalgia: it was simply a lot of work, day after day, with incremental progress instead of eureka moments or big breakthroughs.

Developers know that the most frustrating bugs are the so-called “irreproducible” bugs. Many of them emerged from testing at Sonos employee homes in and around Santa Barbara – including one especially frustrating bug, only reproducible at one person’s house, that required a packet sniffer to identify and fix.

Recalls Andy Schulert: “We’ve got our first 15 to 20 prototypes, we feel great about them, we take ten of them to someone’s house to try it out. We set them up, and it’s a colossal failure. They barely worked. We had to dial back to just two, figure out the issues, then add a third, and so on. Excruciating, but worth it.”

“I was responsible for capturing and protecting all the early intellectual property, and I firmly believed we were making the right design choices. But at the same time, every once in a while we’d raise our heads up from our work, realize we were all alone, and wonder ‘how come no one else is doing it’?” By summer 2004, Sonos had tackled the bugs, prototypes were beginning to function with the necessary reliability, and the team had started sneak-peeking the system to others in the industry. This confirmed what they had been beginning to recognize: the hard work to that point had paid off in the form of something genuinely new.

As Jonathan Lang explains, “I was responsible for capturing and protecting all the early intellectual property, and I firmly believed we were making the right design choices. But at the same time, every once in a while we’d raise our heads up from our work, realize we were all alone, and wonder ‘how come no one else is doing it’?”

The industry reaction along the way was electric, featuring a demo at the 2004 D: All Things Digital conference that put Sonos on the map. As the late Steve Jobs was unveiling Apple’s Airport Express on the main stage as its solution for home audio – one that required users to return to their computers to control the music - Sonos was in one of the hallways demonstrating more advanced functionality and full user control in the palm of the hand. Breakthrough music experiences often debut with certain signature songs. MTV, for example, famously launched with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by The Buggles. How about Sonos? The first song played for the public on Sonos’ first product, the ZP100, was The Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn,” at full volume, produced by longtime Sonos supporter/adviser Rick Rubin. Sonos engineers could affirm the “no sleep” part because of all the work they’d put in leading up to the ZP100’s launch. But getting the experience just right for customers required a more practical approach to selecting songs for testing, dictated by the early days of scrolling through long alphabetical-order lists of songs and bands. So the most-played song by Sonos engineers for testing was “3AM” by Matchbox 20, for no other reason than it was at the top of a list. The most-played band: 10,000 Maniacs. Mieko Kusano recalls another encounter that summed it up:

“Among the first outsiders to see our early zone players were a team of engineers and executives from a well-known consumer technology company. It was our first meeting with this company, and it was before our launch. We had our Zone Players up and running, our controllers up and running – and one of their guys took our controller and bolted from the conference room. Totally took us by surprise. A few minutes later, he comes back with the controller, all out of breath. He’d taken it all the way out to the parking lot to see if it would still work. And it did.”

The early industry encouragement didn’t mean they were free from new setbacks. Sonos had committed to a fall 2004 ship schedule for its first products, and co-founder Trung Mai had spent most of 2004 hopscotching across Asia with foam models of the hardware to find the right contract manufacturer. Once secured, Jonathan Lang jumped in and took over responsibility for overseeing the factory lines – another career first for him. As the product lines were rolling, he noticed what he described as a “small issue” with the controllers, specifically with a glue agent that wasn’t working right.

“I had to make a call,” he said. “But I already knew the Sonos thing to do was stop the line, scrap the products, be late, and go find a glue that worked. John and the leadership team let me make the right decision.”

Part Three “Easily the Best”

At long last, on January 27, 2005, Sonos shipped its first product, the ZP100. Industry accolades, strong product reviews, and positive media coverage followed soon after, and sustained over the first months and years of availability. Reviewers lauded its simplicity of setup, design, reliability, and great sound. The dean of product reviewers, Walt Mossberg (then at The Wall Street Journal), wrote, “The Sonos System is easily the best music streaming product I have seen and tested.”

With so much positive response from the media and industry, Sonos executives thought they’d be overwhelmed by a flood of revenues. Instead, sales were decent, but not amazing. As Tom Cullen described to Fortune in a 2012 profile on the company:

“We were just sitting there going, ‘everybody loved this,’” recalls Cullen…. “Why aren't we going to $500 million [in sales] in a day?” Then, the recession hit the company hard. "The world stopped. After all, nobody needs a Sonos,” says Cullen. At the time, the company was working on a larger wireless speaker, but didn’t have the capital to follow through. Some staffers, including Cullen, borrowed money from friends and resorted to paying employees out-of-pocket [Trung Mai, in particular, did this more than once, according to Cullen].

Sonos determinedly stayed the course, making key bets on next-generation systems and technologies with conviction that consumers would catch up. The company relied on John’s instinct to anticipate trends and take advantage of them, even if it risked being too early.

Its second- and third-generation systems were efforts toward streaming direct to its players, taking the PC entirely out of the equation. They started in 2006, with Rhapsody as its first music service. It was a big turning point for the company, and it was not at all obvious at the time.

With the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and Apple’s App Store sparking a boom for apps, Sonos launched its own, free app for iPhone users, meaning you could turn your iPhone into the controller, without buying the Sonos remote. (Android users got their Sonos app in 2011, and Sonos phased out its own controller hardware in 2012.)

Then in November 2009, Sonos released the PLAY:5, a truly smart, all-in-one speaker for $400, about a third of the inaugural price of Sonos’ original product, the ZP100 (which with speakers and controller, cost about $1200 in 2005). Their hopes for sustained, strong sales growth were realized. This also marked a more decisive shift toward continual software upgrades for ongoing improvement in the products, an ever-more-exacting focus on sound quality, and closer relationships with recording artists and others in the creative community.

Those relationships took Sonos to a new dimension as a company. Sonos recognized that making music sound great in the home means asking the makers how they want their music to sound. Sonos quickly learned that, as exacting as its engineers and designers might be, there are no more demanding critics than musicians.

Sonos established early testing and feedback processes for its products with the creative community, involving producers, musicians and composers. With Trueplay, launched in 2015, producer Rick Rubin headlined a team of advisers to bring the artists’ perspective into the product development process from its beginning.

Rick explained the genesis of TruePlay when it was unveiled:

"“Anytime we get new speakers in the studio, we hire a professional to come in and tune the speakers to the room. Every room sounds different, so you need someone to come in and EQ those speakers for the space. So I suggested to John, the founder of Sonos, that it would be interesting if there were a way to make that same technology available for everybody.”"

Part Four “By Music Lovers. For Music Lovers.”

Sonos as a brand and company built a sturdy foundation in those first years, when its culture first took shape – one that puts the experience first, is relentlessly progressive, and one where people treat their customers as they would want to be treated. It continues to attract world-class talent looking to be pioneers, who are willing to push themselves to break new ground, within a set of principles established in 2003.

A by-product of these principles is, without hyperbole, a fanatical obsession about quality. This obsession showed itself specifically in Jonathan Lang’s decision, with Sonos leadership’s strong support, to scrap a large quantity of manufactured products and start over again because of a small bit of glue – and more generally in the long, drawn-out grind to get the first wave of products exactly right.

It shows in Mieko Kusano’s and Rob Lambourne’s conviction to build sharp design and ease-of-use from the beginning to every phase of product development, with strict attention to detail. “User experience needs to be deep in the bones of a product, not on the skin. The right way to design is from the inside out. You don’t design a technical architecture and then make it look pretty. You start with the customer. Hone in on the key areas where you are trying to make a difference and make it special. Then it’s all hands on deck to re-invent.” Mieko describes the approach: “User experience needs to be deep in the bones of a product, not on the skin. The right way to design is from the inside out. You don’t design a technical architecture and then make it look pretty. You start with the customer. Hone in on the key areas where you are trying to make a difference and make it special. Then it’s all hands on deck to re-invent.”

Not many companies will go to the extreme of developing a new plastic resin, which Sonos did to help eliminate vibration and improve the versatility of its subwoofers and speakers. Sonos culture means extended deliberation and testing over the size, number and placement of vent holes in the new PLAYBASE (there are 43,000 holes in the PLAYBASE, of different sizes, for anyone curious).

An inseparable element of this exacting environment of creativity and precision is an unapologetic belief in protecting invention. One of Jonathan Lang’s first assignments at Sonos, irrespective of lack of experience in intellectual property, was capturing each new Sonos advance in order to protect it through patents. At Sonos, engineers and designers have maintained an enduring appreciation for IP rights as a basis for competition, industry partnership, and innovation.

Amidst all this pursuit of technical excellence, Sonos has kept its eye on its mission to fill every home with music. As Meiko Kusano says, Sonos is “By music lovers. For music lovers.”

When looking to the future, people at Sonos are clear they are not about merely constructing marvels of technology. They are crafting richer music experiences within the home, which means joining forces across the universal divide between engineering and creative talent. They have witnessed the difference it brings in the experience for musicians and listeners at home. Artists feel satisfied that their work sounds as it should. Music lovers get the joy of experiencing music together at home.

And in that way, the story concludes where it started. A group of people, in many rooms around the world, focused on a daring vision: any song, in any room, always sounding amazing.

http://www.sonos.com/en-us/sonos-innovation-history

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katiezstorey93 · 8 years ago

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Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason on the downfall of ‘crazy diamond’ Syd Barrett and the band’s rise to success

THE van that was dark was purchased for 20 quid’s princely amount.

An average “Swiss salesperson put tyres, in some evidently, and also the homeowners included a large stripe.

This dark Bedford van was purchased for that princely amount of 20 quid within their formative decades

To get a motley number of middle- Sixties structure pupils with goals that are audio, it had been an important purchase.

How otherwise might they ferry their gear towards faded groups and the personal functions where they plied their industry?

They certainly were variously referred to as Sigma 6, Leonard’s Lodgers, New Abdabs and, to get a year or two, The Tea Set . . . but actually that stylish, so-really-Language title didn’t stay.

Michael Ochs Records

By late 1965, they truly became the Pink Floyd Audio, created in hurry by new singer Syd Barrett (minute from right)

We all know them nowadays as merely Red Floyd, the prog- stone leaders who offered us The Dark Side Of The Moon and Also The Wall

By 1965, they truly became the Pink Floyd Audio, created in hurry by Syd Barrett that was new.

He honored two bluesmen from Council and his report selection, since the group appeared on a single statement as another Set.

They are known by us nowadays as merely Red Floyd – pioneers who gave Side Of The Wall and Also The Moon.

When he evokes the “highly Bedford Nick Mason provides a wry grin.

“The second we got a progress, we purchased a Transit. “The one with double wheels in the back was mandatory-have. All rings possibly had a Transportation or desired one.”

I’m assembly Mason, 72, in his subtle Northern London workplaces, more a huge man-cave flooding with material addressing his double passions . . . Pink Floyd and Ferraris.

Actually informal pupils of stone history understand the Pink Floyd tale starts with Barrett’s quick LSD- fuelled decrease

He composed from pop-rock to heavenly fresh items

And assisted give their group using their psychedelic status

We stay at his boardroom- table situated only behind a fire- reddish Method 1 vehicle printed using the prancing horse emblem that is orange and refined inside an inch of its existence.

This really is about the first decades of the Floyd although we’re able to have invested a happy-hour referring to his fabulous assortment of historical engines including a 250 worth £30million.

The group have just-released an amazing eight-quantity group of CDs, DVDs and blurays collecting up demonstrations, out takes, live shows, BBC periods, reproduction cards, ticket statements, you identify it . . . all in the decades 1965 to 1972.

Michael Ochs Records

Today, via previously unreleased content, his participation within the group is unveiled in significantly more detail

It is available in a large black-box having a bright stripe, a pleasant homage towards the one automobile highly relevant to our chat . . . the Bedford.

There’s a image inside Volume One, which includes tough- and- Tea Collection monitors, of Builder launching his drumkit in to the back of the truck on Cambridge’s aptly-named Rock Street.

Through this great treasure chest, we find the improvement of 1 of Britain’s most significant rings, from psychedelic Syd Barrett- composed pop-rock to heavenly fresh pieces . . . with everything directing towards 1973’s important Dark Area.

After Syd quit we’re able to have simply loaded it in

Actually informal pupils of stone history understand the Pink Floyd tale starts with Barrett’s quick LSD- decrease that is fuelled.

However it didn’t completely start working almost all the monitors on 1967 recording, and until he’d created outstanding Arnold Layne Play for example The Piper Of Beginning In The Gates.

Today, in significantly more detail, his participation within the group is unveiled via content.

The Builder recalls when a youth associate of Waters in Cambridge, Barrett, registered The Tea Collection.

Michael Ochs Records

Nick Mason remembered when Barrett registered the previously called Tea Collection

Unlike another people, Syd wasn’t keen to be always a celebrity

“Syd was probably the most pleasant guy, definitely enchanting,” he says. “He watts

Pastoral, rote great unique music. It’s however not completely clear what occurred with him.

“There is that this perception that perhaps he simply didn’t desire to be a pop-star. You’ve to understand that the remainder people, in ’67 DID desire to be Along With the Jumps.

“Maybe Syd realized it wasn’t what he desired but didn’t understand how to get free from it.”

The paradox is the fact that Barrett was best-equipped to create reach singles if Layne was in regards to a pervert who preferred from cleaning outlines to grab women’s lingerie and was barred from stereo.

Perhaps Syd realized it wasn’t what he desired but didn’t understand how to get free from it

Another solitary that is possible was his madcap Veggie Guy but-its troubling and dim undercurrents were possibly behind your decision to discard it.

A scarce saving of Shout Thy and this monitor among Mason’s several forays into guide words, Last Shout, are one of the container that is fresh set’s products that are many revealing.

The drummer, who later included a primeval roar to 1 Of Those Times from 1972’s Meddle, claims with tongue-firmly in cheek: “It’s upsetting for me personally that my expressive profession, that was searching therefore encouraging, was instantly nipped within the marijuana by envious bandmates.

“Seriously, a vocalist is didn’ted truly fancy myself like by me. Actually I believed this isn’t wherever I’m heading.”

While Barrett ultimately bowed out in early 1968, the remainder of the group, including fresh sponsor David Gilmour, regrouped

Nick Mason claims they got creativity from teams like Genesis and Fleetwood Mac, who accomplished achievement after breaks

The remainder of the band regrouped and extended their pursuit of popularity and bundle while struggling spirit Barrett ultimately bowed in 1968.

Mason suggests: “After Syd quit, we were for the reason that interested scenario of the frontman departing and we’re able to have simply loaded it in.

“But what we did did very well for instance, for Mac and others.

“You’ve got to possess perception and assurance .

“When wherever did we believe we went I take a look at aged movies of Donald miming to tunes? But I recall that interval as significantly pleasant since we were all-on concept and we were experiencing the entire thing.”

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Nevertheless, article- singles such as for instance Stage It Could Be So Good, by Richard Wright, Also Me In The Atmosphere, by Gilmour and Waters, were.

Wherever Pink comes in. Through groups like UFO in Birmingham this really is, they certainly were regarded the of the growing picture that was underground.

Through lengthy improvised items such as for instance Overdrive and Domine, they suggested in a productive potential beyond the shallow singles marketplace.

A Saucerful Of Strategies, next recording, maintained among Barrett’s greatest compositions however it additionally designated Waters’s first excellent structure, Set Handles For That Center Of Sunlight.

Article-Barrett singles composed by Gilmour and Roger Waters flopped

However the group quickly discovered their ground and accomplished a brand new chemistry

The title-track was a collection from Wright signalling daring new sonic perspectives with haunting wood coda.

Because lack and of these fresh leanings of singles achievement, fresh viewers were required by Floyd plus they originated from locations that were improbable.

Mason describes: move and “Rock abruptly had a supply to it which was vaguely rational and we installed into that market.

“We lasted partly by because of the college signal suddenly opening, and operating abroad, especially in Portugal where they definitely adored us.

“Bryan Morrison (who went the band’s scheduling company) initially delivered us to complete ballrooms plus they disliked us.”

Stone instantly had a supply to it which was vaguely rational and we installed into that market

Among Floyd’s followers that are early was his recommendation valued by Mason even today, the overdue, excellent John Peel.

“Radio 1 had simply kicked-off also it was definitely a singles world. “But there we were with this recording songs that are humorous. Steve was the spot to have them performed. Actually sailing channels were singles-orientated.”

You can now notice a program is introduced by Peel where he explains an earlier version of Cautious With That Axe Murderotic Lady Along With A Saucerful Of Strategies Of Hercules Whilst The Gadgets.

Among Floyd’s early followers was the overdue, excellent DJ John Peel

Of Red Floyd’s early function, Builder prices the very first two photos extremely in addition to Meddle using its epic 23-moment Echoes

Recollections come flooding back such as the moment they performed the Tulip Lamp Market Hall on a single statement as Jimi Hendrix and Lotion once we dive further in to the interval. Nothing had been noticed by Lincolnshire enjoy it.

Mason suggests: “I remember an enormous barn was saturated in spirit kids since the Memory Jam Group and also Washington were really the surface of the statement. I’m amazed a battle didn’t split out.”

There’s the full time they performed with The Feathers and a cash put at Seas.

“It struck Roger very difficult but his response was to remain on-stage to check out the coin.” (Difficult To envision but he possibly required the cash in those days!)

But he explains a number of their tracks (Ummagumma) as ‘part of the training curve’

A little afterwards, the BBC asked Floyd to perform during live protection of the 11 moon-landing in September 1969.

There is of the critical item Moonhead a saving roofed within the Years container.

” it’s demonstrated one large black-hole in Mason’s storage although it might have been step for guy.

I’ve no f***ing remembrance of everything,” he cries although “I understand we were within the business. Of Red Floyd’s early function, Builder prices the very first two photos extremely in addition to Meddle using its epic 23-moment Echoes. But he explains the half business/half reside Ummagumma as “part of the training curve” and Atom Heart Mom, the band’s first No1 recording, like a “bit of the cul-p-sac.”

I understand we were within the business but I’ve no f***ing remembrance of everything

Additionally investigated within the fresh container would be the band’s movie soundtracks for More, Zabriskie Point and German movie La Vallee (Hidden By Clouds), which Mason recalls “knocking off really quickly.”

I’ve to request Mason the Pink Floyd actually execute together ” query before we proceed our individual methods.

The owner of the fire might leap behind his drumkit tomorrow but obtaining massively successful solo designers David Gilmour and Waters to acknowledge is another issue.

Nick could be pleased to return behind the package to get a Floyd gathering

But claims David Gilmour is pleased performing their own point

As-is Roger Waters

“I believe it’s very difficult to determine it occurring,” confesses Mason. “I David’s exactly the same and believe Roger’s pleased focusing on their own.

“I however think the real chance that is only will be Live Aid’s equivalent. Within the contemporary earth, we’re truly lacking powerful enough figures to create that together . . . you will need a Nelson Mandela.”

The final period Floyd performed was with Cash tunes Inhale, Desire You Had Been Below and Easily Numb ringing across Hydepark and achieving a large global Television market at Bob Live8 in 2005.

Pink Floyd tale Roger Waters praises Celtic followers for Palestine banner show

Mason suggests: “We’re usually pleased before 92 million individuals! I don’t believe he might get it done effortlessly again although Frank did an incredible work.

“It wants somebody with worldwide prominence togo, ‘If we do that, we shall alter the planet for that better’.”

For Mason up could be the Pink exhibit that is spectacular Their Human Stays, which starts in amp & the V London, in May.

But he returns to these beginning for some conclusions. “I believe all of US look-back with substantial love onto it, especially after Syd quit,” he muses.

“We were a little jollier than individuals think.”

The post Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason on the downfall of ‘crazy diamond’ Syd Barrett and the band’s rise to success appeared first on diamond prism coaching.

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