WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 I love lap swimming in the pool. It's great exercise. Oh my god. 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:09.920 I love lap swimming in the pool. It is great exercise. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.680 Well, if you're a runner or a cyclist or you go to the gym, 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:27.280 you know that forgetting your headphones totally sucks. So I did what a lot of people do and I 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:32.800 popped over to Amazon where I found out there are a lot of solutions to my problem. 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:37.840 We're going to take a look at some of those today, but once I ventured off Amazon, 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:43.360 I discovered that underwater audio is a whole underwater rabbit hole. See, 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:47.600 listening to music beneath the surface, it's not as simple as you might think. I mean, 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:51.680 just like in the air, sound is a wave and it can travel through water. In fact, 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:55.920 faster and further due to water molecules being packed more densely than air. 00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:00.080 But there are some problems. See, high frequencies basically don't go anywhere. 00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:04.560 Low frequencies go extremely far and the surface of the water can act as a reflector, 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:09.680 meaning that if you do it wrong, you could be swimming around in an acoustic house of mirrors. 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:16.320 So you can't just take a waterproof speaker, hook it into the pool and expect it to sound good. 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:20.240 And that's even ignoring the obvious Bluetooth connectivity issues. 00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:27.280 On top of all that, humans evolved to hear above the surface of the aquatic zone, 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:32.400 so the best underwater audio solutions have to take a lot of factors into account. 00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:39.840 Thankfully, my leap into the hydroacoustic pool led me to Renzo, who makes custom professional 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:45.200 underwater audio solutions, along with a host of other very interesting things. 00:01:45.200 --> 00:01:52.160 And he happens to be local to us, which means I needed to come here myself to find out which 00:01:52.160 --> 00:01:57.680 method of listening to music underwater would be the best while I swim my laps. But please, 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:03.520 be honest with me, are any of these any good? Some of them. Some of them. Yes. Okay. Why do you 00:02:03.520 --> 00:02:09.200 make bad ones? No, the ones I make are all good. Ah, yes, I see. Oh, perfect. I was talking about 00:02:09.200 --> 00:02:14.080 the underwater speaker part of it. Great. That means my last question for you is, will you help 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:29.840 me segue? Of course. To our sponsor. This place is incredible, but from what I understand, 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:37.520 it didn't always belong to you, did it? No, no. So why do you have this? Well, it's a long story, 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:41.360 but my daughter wanted to do the synchronized swimming. That does sound like a long story. 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:46.720 Yes. I needed somebody to cut pieces to make a sound system so that the coaches could work. 00:02:46.720 --> 00:02:52.080 But when you got this, it was just one three-axis CNC. Yeah, that the guy didn't even know how to 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:58.000 use. Okay, you've got so much more than that now. Like this four-axis looks freaking incredible. What 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:07.440 can you make on this? We do 3D sculptures. We do columns. We do piddlers. Okay, but why? For the film 00:03:07.440 --> 00:03:14.560 industry. Oh, okay. Well, where have I seen your work then? We've done skyscraper. We've done World 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:19.920 of Warcraft. We've done Percy Jackson. We've done playing with fire. I have a list of different 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:27.680 shows that we've done. This desk must have cost a fortune. Caused me nothing except sweat and tears. 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:34.320 Looks awesome. Let's get to the audio solutions. And here it is, an underwater speaker, which 00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:40.560 we are actually going to get to after just one more side quest. Oh my goodness, Renzo, what is this? 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:47.280 Those are some very high-end turntables. This is beautiful. What kind of wood is that? It's a veneer. 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:53.920 It's a black walnut burrow. Affordable, right? Very affordable. They start at about $10,000 US. 00:03:53.920 --> 00:03:59.360 That's before you add a tone ARM and a needle. So before they make any sound, you're off 10 grand. 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:03.680 But these are people that spend half a million dollars on their sound systems. 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:10.080 Sure. You need one? No. I suspect that's going to make the underwater audio solution sound 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:14.560 downright affordable. What am I holding right now? That's the soul of the underwater system. 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:21.760 It's a piezoelectric transducer encased in epoxy resin. Right, because unlike a normal speaker, 00:04:21.760 --> 00:04:27.920 you wouldn't actually want to see the cone, which would vibrate the air. You actually have to vibrate 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:34.320 this entire heavy mass in order to pass that along to the water? Or am I missing something? 00:04:34.320 --> 00:04:38.400 No, no. There's actually very little vibration. You don't see it moving, actually. There's not 00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:43.360 like a speaker cone that moves. Now, I see you've actually got two different ones here. This is a 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:52.960 skinnier one? Yes. This is the US model, the DRS-8, and this is the DRS-8 II. The reason for that is 00:04:52.960 --> 00:04:57.360 because the Canadian laws only allow a certain voltage, so they put transformers inside the 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.680 speaker. Whereas this one goes straight to high voltage? Straight to high voltage. Okay. 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:06.960 It's not going to kill you. It's very little voltage. It's just speaker line voltage. Freedom. 00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:09.280 Okay, I'm ready. Go for it. 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:18.080 It's not loud. It doesn't have to be. Whales are not loud, but you can hear them from one ocean to the 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:34.880 other. The clarity is surprisingly good. I mean, I don't know what I was expecting, but 00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:40.080 not for it to be pretty decent. No, that doesn't sound decent. You take that. That sounds horrible. 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:46.320 I mean, it's decent enough. It's like a kind of coke. My expectations were extremely low. For 00:05:46.320 --> 00:05:51.760 context, the solution that these are replacing was literally a coach grabbing their keys when the 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:56.880 underwater speaker doesn't work and just wrapping them against the side of the pool. So I thought 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:01.920 the bar was extremely low. The part I don't get, though, is those seem pretty bulletproof. So why 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:07.920 did the systems fail so often? Well, that's only part of the equation. Those I've had for 14 years, 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:12.880 and I've never seen one fail. Right. But you need to power them. So you need an amplifier, 00:06:12.880 --> 00:06:17.360 you need a preamp, they have microphones, they have, you need a source of sound. You need an 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.840 enclosure. You need an enclosure. The enclosure is the magic of it, because it keeps everything 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:27.440 from getting corroded with the pool air. Got it. And that is the special sauce that you've created. 00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:33.040 That's correct. And you provide these to, who, I mean, is the market for synchronized swimming 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:39.200 speakers pretty big or small or medium? It's big. There's tons of clubs. And so the coach can not 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:43.040 only play music, but can also use this to communicate to the swimmers under the water. 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:47.760 That's correct. So cool. I cannot wait to try it. Let's go do it. 00:06:47.760 --> 00:06:50.720 The rope is so it stays at about three feet underwater. 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:56.000 And then you just plug in your sound source, turn it on, and away you go. 00:07:01.680 --> 00:07:06.480 To get started, I'm going to need a few things. First, a pool. Check. Second, an 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:13.360 ocean ear speaker with accompanying transformer. Check. Third, a Renzo to act as DJ for us. 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:19.360 Big check there. And there's one more thing I'm forgetting. Ah, yes. A way to bring you guys 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:24.640 along with us for the journey. This is the Soundfish 2 Mark II from Ambient Recording, 00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:29.920 and it's a hydrophone. Yes. It's not the most expensive one we could have gotten, but it's 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:33.840 decent. Yeah, it's supposed to be a pretty good one. Okay. This is a big moment. I have not heard 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:39.760 this yet. Okay. Hit it, Renzo. Okay. Above water. It sounds like it did in the shop. A little tinny. 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:14.240 Okay. That's pretty cool. Obviously, it's not going to be competitive with a high fidelity 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:19.040 speaker setup up here on the surface, but like, dude, you can hear it too, right? Yep. It's not 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:25.520 very good. Like that was very listen toable. Of course, just because I can hear it when I'm 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:30.480 stationary doesn't mean that it's actually going to be that great. Like I kind of do a quick 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:34.480 lap swim before we compare it to something else. Because one of my big concerns is that 00:08:34.480 --> 00:08:38.240 at least one ear is going to be constantly coming out of the water when you come up to breathe, 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:48.000 right? 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:04.560 Okay. Couple things right out of the gate. First up, even though I knew this was supposed to 00:09:04.560 --> 00:09:10.480 happen, I was surprised at how consistent the volume was throughout the pool, no matter how far 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:15.680 away I got from the speaker. The parts I didn't expect though were when I got to the other side, 00:09:15.680 --> 00:09:20.640 it kind of started to sound like it was coming from a different origin, like it was coming out of 00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:28.560 that corner of the pool. Then finally, I was really impressed at how quickly, once my ear is submerged, 00:09:28.560 --> 00:09:32.880 it just sounded like it's supposed to sound underwater. I thought that like having a little 00:09:32.880 --> 00:09:37.600 air bubble in my ear or something would make it sound really different, but it doesn't. It's still 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:45.200 not the most high-fi thing I've ever heard in my life, but very usable. You can actually see 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:51.040 how little it's moving. Like on a normal speaker, you know, you would see the water like 00:09:51.040 --> 00:09:58.000 freaking moving around like this, but look, it's barely moving at all. I noticed that even though, 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:02.400 you know, low frequencies travel best in water, I'm really not getting that much bass out of it. 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:07.120 What's the deal with that? Yeah, it's just the nature of the transducer. It's not designed to 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:12.880 produce really low frequencies. There is a brand of speakers that supposedly does that, 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:21.680 but I've never tried them. All right, crank it, Renzo. Dude, that's so weird. That sounds like it's 00:10:21.680 --> 00:10:26.800 coming from like over there somewhere. Okay, okay, let's see what happens when we go under. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:41.280 That is really cool, but it isn't the only solution. And this is one of the most popular 00:10:41.280 --> 00:10:47.360 bone conduction headphones. These are the shock's open swim pros. I have to confess, 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:52.240 I have never actually tried bone conduction swimming headphones. It's very much a personal 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:58.000 preference thing. I do not like them. Oh, these are already on. Yeah. And you can feel them vibrate. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:02.240 It's weird. But you can't hear them basically at all. No. Like here, check this out. 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:11.680 When I put them on my ears. Whoa. Okay, that's pretty cool too. If you haven't heard of bone 00:11:11.680 --> 00:11:15.920 conduction headphones before, basically how they work is instead of vibrating your eardrums, 00:11:15.920 --> 00:11:21.040 it vibrates the bone in your face, which then vibrates your cochlea directly, bypassing most of 00:11:21.040 --> 00:11:27.120 your ear. Cool. On ear controls for power and volume. And I guess they just have an mp3 player 00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:31.120 built into them because otherwise how do they pair to something outside of the water? These ones, 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:34.320 that's the big upgrade of this year is they can compare to your phone via Bluetooth, but they 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:38.480 also have storage inside. So you can upload music to them directly and control it that way. 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:42.400 The downside is you can't control that music via the app. You have to plug it into a computer. 00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:48.720 Okay. I mean, it's fine. So iPod grade technology. All right, let's go first one. 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:52.800 Already I can tell that your experience with these is going to be heavily dependent on how 00:11:52.800 --> 00:11:57.840 well they fit you because depending on exactly where I get the vibrating pieces, 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:02.880 they sound either kind of okay or like absolute hot garbage. 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:17.040 I'm also surprised at how more different these sound above and below the water compared to 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:21.120 the underwater speakers. I would have assumed above and below would be the same because it's 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:27.040 right against your bone. As soon as I go underwater, here, try them. They sound like hyper bassy. 00:12:27.040 --> 00:12:38.000 Huh. Nice. Trick shot. We interrupt this fun video to show off the big Hexie beach towel from 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:43.440 lttstore.com. It's big. It's orange. It's a best of gone. Get yours today. 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:50.880 I already think they're too bassy as is. Below the water is really bad. You can EQ it probably. 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:56.720 Maybe a little and to be clear, they're fine for listening to music and honestly, 00:12:56.720 --> 00:13:02.080 not really much worse than the ocean ears. No. It's just the inconsistency and obviously, 00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:07.840 for an application like synchronized swimming, this is useless because how would you get everyone 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:12.880 perfectly in sync? You have to be all listening to the same source. This isn't our only solution, 00:13:12.880 --> 00:13:16.080 though, right? No, there's lots of other bone connection headphones, but maybe that's this 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.600 kind of thing we should do in a roundup. Yeah, let us know if you want to see that in the future. 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:25.120 Leave a comment down below. Yeah, with the headphones you'd want us to cover. But we do have one more thing to try today. And it's the worst one. 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:29.360 Oh no. Actually, wait, there's one more thing I want to try. Do we have the underwater mic? 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:33.680 I want to see if it can hear these. Okay, okay. Here it is above water. 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:46.480 Can you hear it? I can hear it a tiny bit. Not much. Okay, okay. That's it. I was just curious. 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:50.240 That bit at the beginning was only kind of a joke. We have the Monster S620, 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:55.200 which is an IPX8 rated speakers, which means it's actually submersible up to a certain degree. 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:59.360 And it's a pretty okay Bluetooth speaker. Let's see how it does underwater. 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:07.680 Geez. Oh, well, this is terrific. It's all the downsides of absolutely everything we've 00:14:07.680 --> 00:14:11.200 tried so far. Bluetooth connectivity issues whenever it's underwater. 00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:19.600 And ask garbage sound quality to be clear. Monster never claimed that this was an 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:24.640 appropriate solution for listening to music underwater. They're just saying that this speaker 00:14:24.640 --> 00:14:29.440 won't die if you accidentally drop it in the pool and it goes underwater. In fact, 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:34.080 they even designed it to make sure that it doesn't go too far into the water by making it float. So 00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:39.200 good job, Monster, I guess. Just not a solution to the problem we're trying to solve today. 00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:43.440 You know what is a solution to our problem today, though? Our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:47.920 this video, we're going to have Renzo and Jeanette sites linked down below. You guys can go check 00:14:47.920 --> 00:14:52.080 them out. It was extremely gracious of them to show us around their shop and lend us these 00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:57.360 incredible products to try out. If you guys can think of any other esoteric technologies, by the 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.520 way, that, you know, we wouldn't normally think to cover, leave a comment down below. And if you 00:15:01.520 --> 00:15:06.800 guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the one where we built a home theater in my pool? Kind 00:15:06.800 --> 00:15:09.680 of worked.