A Wearable Subwoofer – Less Stupid than it Sounds
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,188 words · ~5 min read
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If you're anything like me, there was a time when you thought wearable tech was
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about to be the next big thing in consumer electronics.
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Then 2017 happened and now you're just jaded AF because instead of having a
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computer in your contact lens, all you've got is an endless sea of
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inaccurate fitness trackers and smart
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watches that make Homer Simpson look like a freaking genius. So, when I heard
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about the Baselet, a subwoofer wristband
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that promised to make you feel like you're surrounded by sound, I pulled in
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enough internet for today and went to bed. But then I found out it was $200
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and I thought, hm, this could be perfect fodder for useless tech over 100. So
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then, are their claims completely
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baseless, or is this little device about to shake
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up the way you listen to music?
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The Rip Jaws KM570 mechanical keyboard from GSkill features full RGB, a simple
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design, Cherry MX switches, and more. Check it out now at the link below.
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The German engineered bass lit requires hardly any setup. Plug the sender into
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your laptop or phone's headphone jack or dongle as it were. Then plug your
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headphones into the sender. All the audio leaving your device passes through
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the sender which routes the bass frequencies automatically to the IP 44
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rated bracelet over low energy Bluetooth. No pairing shenanigans
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whatsoever. The design is an understated
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matte black with a plastic finish that's subjectively okay and a single LED
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indicator light with two buttons for adjusting the intensity of your uh
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experience. But good design is more than skin deep
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and lowfelt, the makers of the bracelet, cared enough to make the sender double
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as the unit's charger. And so to attach to the bracelet, you just magnetically
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snap it on and the buttons are actually conductive contacts. It's an elegant
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idea, even if it only takes a slight bump to disrupt the connection. The only
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part of the bracelet's design that stands out as flawed is the silicone
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wristband. It's pretty hard to put on, especially tightly, like the
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instructions recommend. You should pretty much factor the replacement cost
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into your purchase. Okay, then. So, you've got your beautifully designed
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$200 vibrator strapped onto you, ready for the base psycho acoustic phenomenon
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to trick your brain into thinking your whole body is being accosted by sound
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waves. So, with your favorite tunes cranked, what does it actually feel
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like? Well, just about exactly what you'd
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expect. Your wrist and by extension part of your hand and ARM will vibrate along
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with the music. But but wait, hold on. Don't don't click away yet. It's not
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like taping a a vibrating cell phone to
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your ARM. It's silent to the people around you. And there's variability in
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the feel of the bass notes being pushed out. Like you can actually kind of
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distinguish a plucked string from a kick
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drum, for example. And per the
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recommendation of the reviewer's guide, we gave it some more time. It's
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apparently supposed to take a session or two for your brain to adapt and merge
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the sound from your ears and the vibrations on your ARM into a single
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experience. And I have to admit, my
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skepticism aside, it does in fact happen
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if you wear it for a little while. Particularly with the intensity kind of
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somewhere in the mid level, the bass starts to feel less localized and it
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becomes harder to distinguish whether what you're feeling is coming from the
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music or from the little trinket on your wrist, which is pretty cool. But that
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doesn't mean that the awareness that you're wearing a little subwoofer on
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your ARM ever completely melts away. And
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to expect that might be a little unrealistic. Then again, there are some
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cases where having bass localized actually made a lot of sense to us,
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namely gaming. So, cranking the basellet's intensity up to max and
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throwing on a firsterson shooter like Doom can actually leave you pretty
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shook. But we did find it worked best when it's on the wrist that's connected
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to your mouse hand. Or thinking completely outside the box, you can
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strap the chest thumping beats directly to your thorax to really get your heart
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rate up. U please bear in mind though that the basel is not recommended for
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people with pacemakers and also that duct tape sticks to chest hair really,
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really well. Finally, while we did find
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one guy online who likes to use his bracelet on his tummy, we got our best
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results with the device above the waistband. Although, now that I think
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about it, it does come with this extra shorter strap.
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Anyway, the bassellet can also add some value in non- headphone situations, like
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supplementing your base model car audio or keeping you immersed in your tunes as
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you putt around the house. And it's got surprisingly decent range. So then I was
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ready to tear this thing apart, but as far as jewelry goes, it's neither the
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most expensive nor the most useless thing we have ever encountered. And my
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initial skepticism and annoyance at needing to carry yet another freaking
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dongle aside, it does make your music
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experience feel a little bigger. But
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with that said, unless you're already rocking a top-of-the-line audio
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solution, at $200, we just can't help
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but wonder if your money wouldn't be better spent on improved headphones.
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So, thanks for watching. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you disliked it, dislike it. If you liked it, hit the
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