The Sound of Speakers With Patrick - DTNS 4915  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: The Sound of Speakers With Patrick - DTNS 4915 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/1b1d5247-6bd1-4f20-90a6-dbe0ca90c332 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **AI Accuracy Issues** - Google search summaries, while sometimes accurate, can be unreliable and inaccurate. - AI-generated content quality can decline with increased usage. Transcript: Patrick Norton Did not explode. I mean, you're still with us. Speaker 3 Yeah, he reconstituted quickly, but yeah. Thankfully. Patrick Norton No, it's funny because I was in a not entirely funny conversation with a friend of mine who was like, oh, well, AI can do podcasts now. Speaker 3 Yeah. Patrick Norton That's one less career for you. Should have gotten that welding certificate. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, on one hand, I really should have gotten the welding certificate just because I like to weld. Sure. I should be better at it. No reason you shouldn't. Sarah Lane You seem like you would be a good welder. Thank you. Patrick Norton I appreciate that. But the flip side, right, is I have any of a number of exciting and unexciting issues with AI, one of which is, again, not to beat a dead horse with a dead horse. But Google summaries of results not only push the results on my Google searches down farther, they are often demonstrably wrong and inaccurate. Sometimes they're dead on, right? But it's also, you know, this is a fascinating feature. I'm very, very curious how it behaves over time. You know, I've been dealing a lot with AI at work, and it's been hysterical to watch how some results aren't reproducible with the same prompts. And other things like the quality of writing that's generated by an AI system often decays over time as the service gets used by a lot of people. And I'm very, you know, on one hand, this stuff's amazing. Like the video and the audio generation, the translation apps audio that make a friend of mine's voice. I mean, imagine if you're hearing Tom talking Finnish and it's Finnish, but it sounds like Tom. And that's essentially what AI is doing, except it's doing with, you know, languages that are slightly less complicated than Finnish. Right. But, you know, it's I, you know, I'm curious. I'm curious, you know, because everything it comes, keeps coming back to is it's great to have AI do this and it can really speed up your process. ([Time 0:12:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/45009b21-6c5a-40ed-9027-d18c336fa038)) - **NotebookLM as Practice Tool** - Sarah Lane considers NotebookLM a potential tool for individuals to practice their podcasting/media voices. - She sees it as a sandbox for those unsure about their readiness. Transcript: Sarah Lane Of course. Yeah. I mean, hallucinations all over the place. One of the things I like about this and Notebook LM, you know, as a podcast product, not something that I use. I do enough podcasts of my own. This is not really something that I feel like I need. But every so often, I was thinking about a use case for this. Every so often, someone will say to me, well, Sarah, you've been in the game for a long time. Would you be interested in helping other people kind of find their podcast voice, find their media voice? And that's a job that lots of people have. And I try to do it when I can, but more, more or less of the time I'm just too busy and I can't really do it. This sort of thing seems like it could be, it could be, I mean, not the end all be all of like, Oh, now you're just, you know, the best person who's going to be, you know, booked on all of the Cable news networks later tonight, but it could be a good way to kind of practice. I think a lot of people feel like, oh, I would like to do this, but I don't really know if I'm ready. I don't really know if I've got the chops and this would be a little sandbox. ([Time 0:14:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/96e115a0-7493-416a-b69d-459d17ca2ac2)) - **NotebookLM for Note Summarization** - NotebookLM's conversational format aids note summarization and retention. - Users can interact and ask clarifying questions during audio overviews. Transcript: Speaker 3 Think it's worth pointing out that we lose sight of what this is actually for because it sounds like a podcast and so podcasty is that it actually is quite good at summarizing notes. And the idea of having it be a conversation is that that helps you retain it better. So I'm wondering if there's anybody out there that's like, oh, this is great. You know, when I'm having it summarize my quarterly reports, I've always wanted to be able to stop them and say, hold on, can you tell me more about, you know, the PNL for the automotive Division? And it's, you know, able to on the fly create an answer for that. And I think that that is something useful, not very thrilling, but useful that people might make might be able to take advantage of. ([Time 0:15:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f81d4cc1-a9f0-49fb-9830-7b5785a55594)) - **Waymo's Real-World Emergency Response** - Sarah Lane observed a Waymo self-driving car correctly responding to an emergency vehicle situation. - The Waymo adjusted its course, pulling over like a human driver would. Transcript: Sarah Lane I mean hey not yet never say never but that is not the story today the story today okay so here here's a funny thing so uh earlier today and i've i've talked on the show ad nauseum about how Much i love waymo uh just because i live in a part of la where they're everywhere they're actually really really convenient so i i i i hang out in waymos quite often and the um the uh the novelty Of like no one's driving has sort of worn off on me i'm like it's great i love it i just i just sit in the back of a car and it drives me somewhere that i tell it to go anyway i had to go um kind of Across town uh for something i was driving myself and when i was on my way back i was right behind a waymo which i'm always very uh in. Like, you know, like, how do they break? You know, sometimes like, you know, when the light turns green, I'm like, you're going kind of fast Waymo. Like, I'm just, I'm fascinated by the whole thing. Anyway, there was, there was some situation where there were fire trucks and an ambulance that like, uh, uh, came in front of us you know like they're coming from the other direction Had to do like a real fast like go into our lane and at that point you know as as a human driver you are always uh supposed to get to the side pull to the side or at least stop you know stay stay Out of the way you know don't go through't, don't get involved kind of thing. And the Waymo at first was like, started turning left where I was like, Oh no, that's bad. And then like immediately was like, Nope, turn in right. And went over to the side, just like a person. And I was like, good work. Waymo. Good job. Speaker 3 Little Waymo. Yeah. But you saw this in action. Like this is what it was being certified for. Is that exact behavior? Sarah Lane Right. Because it was a little precarious. Like, again, I was a couple cars back. So it wasn't like I was about to run into a fire truck. But I was like, Oh, yeah, we all have to stop, you know, let them do their thing, whatever's going on here. And yeah, it's, it's very it's fascinating to watch the autonomous car be like yep nope never mind i'm not going left i'm going right uh because that's what i'm supposed to do and also Which i think that too too soon you know that that was the whole the whole idea is yeah we're starting to feel confident that these autonomous vehicle technologies, and this is not just Waymo, you know, because there are a lot of others in the works as well, that you're, you know, you're, you're going to do the thing that we expect and want you to do, you know, in a situation Like that, where you might be thrown for a loop otherwise. ([Time 0:20:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f9f8af5e-21f6-4859-ae71-3f25e7bb9e10)) - **Bargain Audio Gear** - Consider lesser-known audio brands for better value than established companies. - Patrick Norton recommends Weem, Elac, JCal, Moondrop, Linsoul, and Anker Soundcore. Transcript: Sarah Lane Well, this holiday season, you might be thinking about audio gear for yourself or someone else, but it can be kind of confusing. Brand names, unfamiliar brands that you don't really know, what's right for you, places like Amazon and eBay, just a couple of places where you can buy this sort of stuff. But Patrick, you say some of these lesser known brands sometimes offer substantial over some of the more established companies. Patrick Norton I am delighted to say that I've heard $100,000 speakers that sounded like crap. And I have heard $300 speakers that sounded amazing. And just because a brand is well known doesn't mean it's great. And I will also say there are a lot of fly-by brands out there. And I understand people being worried about getting skunked on a deal but uh there's a lot of smaller companies you may never heard of or products from larger companies you may not know It existed uh that are pretty fantastic in terms of the the performance you get for the money company that a lot of people are hearing about in the last year still a lot of people know about Is weem and they do a bunch of products built around streaming audio, the Weemamp, the Amp Pro. These are actual, like, you know, I will say part of the reason I'm thinking about the Weemamp is because Sonos has been driving my, the Sonos app has been driving my family crazy a lot Lately. The we map essentially gives you an amplifier a subwoofer output a volume knob and you stream your audio to it and it powers you know whatever speakers you want to connect it to it's not Going to power the most power hungry desperate speakers but for the vast majority of speakers out there does a great job um people have known me for a while have probably heard me mention Elac and the debut series when they first came out the original andrew jones design debut was a game changer a super bargain audio deal both for stereo and for surround sound listening The debut 3.0 just came out and it is really impressive both for stereo and home theater use it's like 350 bucks for the five and a quarter inch version 450 for the six and a25 inch bookshelf Version. I would definitely want a sub with the 5.25 inch version, but the truth is, for most listening, the speakers alone will be great, and I pair a sub with everything, and yes, I know Andrew Jones is no longer with Elac, but that doesn't mean they can't design a killer speaker. JM20 headphone dongle, the JCal or JM20 headphone dongle. Apple's Lightning and USB-C headphone dongles are like one of the greatest bargains in audio. They're like $9. They can drive the vast majority of headphones. The audio is pretty flawless. If you feel like having an Alibaba experience or if you hate Apple or if you want a little more power, the J-Cal's JM20 headphoneggle is really worth looking at. It's $24. It delivers close to twice the power into 300-ohm headphones and maybe 60% more power into a 32-ohm headphone, which you don't need for an easy-to set of headphones, but it's there if You want it, and they measure shockingly good. Moondrop makes in-ear monitors or earbuds. The Chew2 earbuds with a Harman audio curve, really close match to the Harman audio curve, costs about $19. The Quarks, which Moondrop sells for about $15, are wire cutters pick for the best wired earbud under $50. Not know of is linsoul and one of their really popular ones right now is the seven hertz times critical zero two critical is a guy that measures earbuds he's a big internet i guess influencer I'd call him uh again near flawless harman curve audio for 24 bucks i like a little less bass than the harman audio curve which basically is is harman sean olive and his crew tested a whole Bunch of people to find out their preferred audio response or the mixture of you know treble and mids and bass that people like uh and uh that is kind of what the harman curve is when i mention Sarah Lane It but uh they're really a lot of people really really love the way they sound i mean some of the um some of the these companies will have a companion app where you can you know be like more Bass or less bass. I would assume for this price, it's like you get what you get. Patrick Norton It's kind of crazy, right? Well, you know, the Moondrop and the Linsoul stuff, those are wired earbuds. So there's no real, if you're controlling those, it's off of stuff you're tuning on your app. But yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of, there are some audio apps, there are definitely some audio manufacturers that have apps that allow you to tune things. And kind of the usability or how good that tuning is depends a lot. Sony's top-of headphones were horrendous out of the box, or I will say mediocre and not to my taste out of the box, which way too much bass. But the onboard app, which is like a five level EQ, it's got like five bands of audio you can tune. By tweaking the audio on that, it is surprisingly neutral and really, really good. But yeah, for a lot of them, it really depends on the manufacturer, right? But for wired stuff, you're not really going to have an app, but for Bluetooth stuff, you will often have an app. The question is, is how good is it? I always prefer to have something that sounds the way I like it out of the box, rather than having to torture it into shape with an EQ. But there's a lot of really good audio products out there that get a lot better, especially wireless audio products that with tweaking get a lot better. Anker Soundcore brand, and I will, full disclosure, Buddy Mind does PR for Soundcore, so feel free to ignore this segment if you want to, but I have support here. They came out with the Flare 2 waterproof Bluetooth speaker a long time ago. I fell in love with what it was for $50, which was shockingly loud, with shockingly good audio. I mean, I'm not going to mistake it for my audiophile speakers, but it was really fun. And this was when anything comparable was considerably much more expensive. The Wonder Room 4 now sells for about 60 bucks at most places. Were you swimming at the time? No, I just didn't have to worry. If one of the kids left it in the backyard and it was raining, I wouldn't have to panic. Yeah, totally. Sarah Lane I mean, that counts for a lot. Patrick Norton There's a certain point where just like not having to worry. Things that are hard to kill are especially desirable when you're a parent um but you know soundcore space one uh and the space a40 earbuds those are like wire cutters best budget noise Canceling headphones and uh earbuds you know so it's it's not just me finding what soundcore is doing one of the most i mean i actually think uh wire cutters as good as anybody and probably Better than most people reviewing audio, and they picked those. Are we out of time? Should we talk about the rest of this post-show? Run through them. Speaker 3 Run through them. I think we got a couple more minutes. Patrick Norton Cali Audio, their LP6 Studio desktop monitors. ([Time 0:25:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1b68427d-b5cc-496c-9d41-092ac97b616f))