This Week In Headphoolia #26 (up to 8/19/17): Viet-Fi, Schiit-y Tour, SBC vs apt-X, MythBusters, Monster Assistant, Etc

Today’s priorities, first mountain of dishes, next, a new installment of This Week in Headphoolia, a semi-humorous attempt to round up some of the action in the world of headphones. Just like the last few weeks, things are grouped by product type instead of medium. But videos will be easily pointed out for those reading at work or prefer text…

NEWS NOISE

Because Siri and Cortana and Bixby and Alexa and Google Assistant are not enough, Monster decided to give their headphones a Voice Assistant. None of the above of course, it had to be something else, a thing called Melody from a third party.

We survived the iPhone dropping the headphone jack. Can we survive the Google Pixel doing this? One of the leaks for the upcoming 2017 Pixel phones at GSM Arena suggests that there’s no headphone jack in the 2017 Pixel. Crisis time? Google often signals big changes with their Nexus/Pixel phones, will other Android manufacturers follow? So far, Apple’s impact has been fairly minimal as you can see from the fairly short list of smartphones without a headphone jack.

How USB-C audio is implemented is also a factor. Apple and HTC prefer digital-out only [the HTC 10 is the last major HTC release with a headphone jack], while some of the other Android manufacturers support both USB-C digital out and analog out. What will Google do?

And will Android users accept it like iPhone users or will there be a rebellion against Google? Some hardcore Android fans are already sore on Google for the untimely demise of the Nexus line.

TOUR GUIDE

AudioHead gives the internet a 2 minute video tour of the new Schiit Audio customer-facing store in Southern California. They also have an accompanying blog-post of their adventures. Video YouTube-embedded below…

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This Week In Headphoolia #25 (up to 8/12/17)

Time flew again, and we have a new edition of This Week in Headphoolia, a semi-humorous attempt to round up some of the action in the world of headphones. Just like the last few weeks, things are grouped by product type instead of medium. But videos will be easily pointed out for those reading at work or prefer text…

NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH VIDEO:: FIIO

Fiio is taking product launches to the masses with a 2-hour video of their latest product launch event. The audio is in Chinese with english subtitles. This is human-edited translation, not YouTube’s helter skelter automated one. The launch features a number of products including the F9 triple-driver IEMs along with Q and X series products. You can also find the video YouTube-embedded below:

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This Week In Headphoolia #24 (up to 8/5/17)

With IFA looming large on the horizon now, we have a new edition of This Week in Headphoolia, a semi-humorous attempt to round up some of the action in the world of headphones…

Just like the last few weeks, things are grouped by product type instead of medium. But videos will be easily pointed out for those reading at work or prefer text…

AMPS, DACs, DAPs, DUCKS

Archimago is back with Part #2 of their measurements post on the SMSL A6 running as a DAC. [as a refresher, here is Part #1]

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Unboxing the Sony RF-995-RK Wireless RF Headphones

We continue our Practical Unboxing series of text and pictures that try to give you a look at what you will receive when you buy a specific pair of headphones. The sample unit for the Sony RF-995-RK Wireless RF headphones is here, and in this post, we find out what’s included…

OPENING THE BOX

The headphones are packaged in a printed cardboard container with the usual Sony marketing messages. Opening the box is easy, you just need to slice the sticker dot and open up the cardboard clasps.

Once opened, and you flip the top, you see the headphones in protective padding. The ruler is not included in the box obviously, but as you can see, this is not a tiny headphone box 🙂

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