WEBVTT

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this thing just arrived from the future a future where simplicity style and

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stellar sound come in the same box a future where all audio is streamed

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wirelessly and where no one can afford to buy an

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apartment let alone a house with a dedicated listening space

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but as dystopian as that future may be i'm really glad they sent this thing

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back because it's actually really really cool nzxt wants to make building a

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custom pc easier with their build system just set a budget see how the computer

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performs and build takes care of the rest watch to the end of the video to

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learn more or click the link below to get your custom pc today

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first of all the cell is a beautiful product that's thanks to singh's

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co-founder ceo and chief designer chris stringer who worked under joni iv at

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apple for over 20 years and was the lead designer on the original iphone the

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transparency and reflectiveness give it a distinctly star wars vibe empire not

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rebels while the interior curves give it an organic quality that keeps it from

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looking too sterile it'll go great with your serif tv and eames lounge chair and

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the cell's design language carries forward to the inside as well somehow

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they've managed to put all the major components on full display

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but still have it look elegant and understated it's got three horizontally

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oriented horns each with two dynamic drivers covering the mids and highs and

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for bass it's got two six-inch force balanced subwoofers

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this is really cool in a traditional subwoofer the cone's

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movement causes vibrations in the enclosure that are typically dampened by

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adding more mass here the two drivers move like this

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which means that their movements cancel each other out

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no distortion no vibrations just smooth

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clean bass in theory i mean

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they did put a hole in one of them for the nub that threads onto your choice of

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heavy proprietary stand actually if we look closer at that it's

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home to another cool design element the foreskin excuse me i mean the interface

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it's a ratcheted rotary encoder that spins freely for volume control and

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pulls down with a click for play and pause there's also a usbc port and

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that's it there's no speaker wire terminals for

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eighteen hundred dollars

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well that's because it's not meant to compete with your ls50 metas

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instead the cell is a premium wireless speaker that really ought to be compared

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to the home pods sonos's and sound bars of the world

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but it's also better than those in some very important ways

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the idea is that you plonk down your cell or ideally cells anywhere you want

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in your space plug them into power and let the app do the rest and i gotta say

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sing did it they managed to make the whole experience feel luxurious from the

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space age packaging to the gorgeous app animations to the gravitas sound of

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their custom sweep

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the device emits this noise then uses its three on-board microphones which i'm

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told are only on during calibration to measure the room's reflections and

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adjust its eq accordingly the goal is to create an even sound field no matter

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where in the room you happen to be and that is why cell is shaped the way it is

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the rectangular horns have super even dispersion that is at least on the

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horizontal plane so it's a design that makes sense as more and more people live

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in smaller open concept homes where every space is multi-purpose in the app

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you can even aim the sound field around the house whether you're cooking

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couching or copying a feel of the soft fabrics available at lttstore.com

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and if you have more than one cell which we don't i'm told that two cells can

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give you a sound stage that is wider than stereo and if you pony up for three

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you'll reach an ethereal level of envelopment where you don't lose the

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center channel as you move around the room

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but we only have one of them so how did it sound

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well in development the team started by putting the cell in an anechoic chamber

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and tuning it to have a flat frequency response curve and in my opinion

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that's where they should have left it but they didn't

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next they tuned it to their own target curve which was described to me as

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something that's representative of the experience the team has so in other

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words it's a home pod with a lot more bass

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like obnoxious levels of bass like if

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your apartment doesn't have concrete walls you probably won't be able to turn

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this thing up much louder than a level you can talk over without your neighbors

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banging on the wall

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which is not to say that it's a bad speaker it's actually pretty impressive

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for its size the highs are really clear and lifelike and i believe sing when

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they say the sub plays down to 30 hertz it's just

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not flat to such an extent that it's not even suitable for entire genres of music

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metal for example sounds comically bad

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but then i mean come on who listens to that crap anyway for cool people like

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you who listen to hip hop and edm especially at parties

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the cell probably works great for you or i mean you could just change the

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sound profile using an eq app right if it was flat once it can be flat again

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unfortunately that's a big maybe

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right now the singh app which is still exclusive to iOS only shows spotify

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connect and airplay 2 as potential wireless sources

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no bluetooth even now spotify has a built-in equalizer but

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it doesn't work while using connect or airplay

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so okay how about your iphone's os level eq

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presets well that works if you're listening via apple music but we tested both youtube

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music and spotify and they didn't work

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don't despair though the cell has a usbc port

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remember and it turns out that plugging in both

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Android and iOS devices was great for

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charging which actually is pretty handy but

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that's it neither of them detected it as an external speaker

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as for our macbook well it did work

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eq and all and you can use the usb-c port to connect old-school devices to it

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as well like av receivers and turntables

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as long as you're okay with using one or more likely two adapters in the chain a

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funny thing though is that despite the lofty and pretentious claims on the

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website the cell needs to receive a stereo signal or mono if you're

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desperate if you feed it a surround mix say from your blu-ray player for example

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it'll only keep two of the channels and you'll just have to guess which two with

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all the other data being lost now i'm told that xing is working on

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some kind of proprietary HDMI cable that will be able to transcode e-arc output

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from your source to usbc but there's no word on when that will be

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available how much it will cost or how many people will care

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because if you're concerned about the cell's features to that degree

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the product probably isn't for you anyway and you certainly wouldn't pay

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eighteen hundred dollars for it

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the truth is that in a product like this a lot of your money is going toward

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industrial design rather than just performance and for people who have

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already heavily invested in the aesthetic of their living space the cell

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could be just the ticket especially if they continue to invest in more

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connectivity options because all it has to do in that case is

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sound good enough which it does while being delightful to use and to look at

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which it is so if your space and lifestyle not to

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mention wallet are conducive to it i'm not

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not recommending the cell it's unlike anything else we've ever seen

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and hey if singh doesn't sell a million units of these things and ultimately

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fades into obscurity well that's great for you because now your one two or

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three cell speakers will appear even more alien and wondrous to your guests

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which is probably why you bought them just make

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sure that your butler handles them with care because apparently acrylic is still

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super delicate in the future tough sell

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hey got em you know what's not a tough sell our

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sponsor thanks to nzxt for sponsoring today's video with nzxt's build system

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getting a custom pc built is simpler than ever just set your budget see how

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your pc will perform in your favorite games and build takes care of the rest

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their recommendation engine provides benchmark data for the expected performance of your build at 1080p and

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1440p and their FPS estimates are guaranteed to be within 10 accuracy you

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can customize and upgrade your build with various nzxt case options and RGB

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lighting setups and they feature transparent pricing and a flat 99

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assembly fee so you can spend less time worrying about the upgrade costs and

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more time gaming with all your pc's components covered under one warranty

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plan nzxt will manage any problems you have and their expert live chat is

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available for real-time help and troubleshooting great news for our

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australian friends all of this is now available to you too with more than 13

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years of experience developing high quality pc components let nzxt's highly

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today using the link in the video description

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if you guys enjoyed this video watch the lounge update that we just did

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where we updated our lounge with a sweet projector setup

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it's uh that was a pain in the butt but definitely worth it