Sony SRS-WS1 Review: Innovative Hanging Neck Speaker

Is there any kind of merchandise that even if you have already owned a lot, you can’t restrain the desire to buy it whenever you see a product of it?  For me, the audio and video products are undoubtedly the answer. Now first of all, put aside my over 20 earphones scattering throughout the home and have a look at my video devices in the living room.

The innovative Soundblaster X7+EMU XM7’s bookshelf box series innovation katana soundbar + subwoofer is a crazy MAX style combination of wild and wasteland. All because of, I am a fan of innovation! Apart from that, the reason is there is no place for computer audio so I can only use them to television. So what sound system is in my computer? Look at the picture. It is actually two Harman Kardon’s music satellites with Bluetooth. Why do I use this weird project in my room? Because I installed in the roo,.using a Bluetooth speaker to build a mobile 2.0 sound field. Even if my huge desks were stuffed, my interest still roused one day when I was brushing the forums and saw someone playing super cool with Amway’s neck-hanging sounds. I searched it on the internet- with sharp style, neck-mounted audio solution which can solve the problem of audio cabling and room occupation-it’s so wonderful! Search it online, the price was as low as $240!Then, I bought it.

Opening the box

Being familiar to digital products, I can distinguish the products produced by famous brand from small factories through package only. Sony’s package is generally large and its industrial design is generally based on minimalist Nordic style, so does SRS-WS1. Before opening the box, let’s learn about the concept of this product through the official notice.

It can be understood that it want to construct a set of portable audio systems for personal use, and to create a sense of presence and openness which is different from that of headphones. Come on, is that possible? Let’s open the box first.After opening the box, you can see the main body. Due to the ergonomic design, its shape looks strange if you are not using it on your neck and shoulders.

The small box in the middle is a launch device which can certainly surprise you. This device is not equipped with Bluetooth. The neck-hanging stereo is different from the competing products on the market because it does not use a Bluetooth connection. Instead, it uses a 2.4-g transmitter to connect wirelessly. We will talk about the design intention and effect later.

The rest is a variety of accessories, including audio charging base, two USB plugs to the charging base and the transmitter, two ordinary USB cables and a USB to 3.5mm headphone cable.Let’s go back and look at the shape of the audio equipment. It seems to be a shawl-style design-most of the weight is concentrated on both sides of the shoulders. The burden on the neck is very light. The body shell is made of milky white melamine material and the part of the cloth that is in contact with the human body is of a cloth type material.

The body has four buttons and all located on the lower side of the body: the switch, volume control, connection and audio adjustment button.  At the same time, there is also a micro USB port open on this side, which leads to my suspect of the waterproof effect of this machine. There is a switch at the neck joint of the machine, and hidden there a magnetic attraction. As long as the machine is placed on the charging stand, the machine will automatically shut down and charge, and the base will turn yellow and the green light will be full. Overall, the design of this wearable audio product of Sony is very powerful. The workmanship still obeys the tradition of Sony. It is a stuff that no matter it is worn on the body or placed at home, everyone would ask “what’s that?”

Connect and use

So how do we use this product?If it is a Bluetooth headset, we would certainly start to press the power button to start matching with the Bluetooth device. However, this neck-mounted speaker did not “obey the public opinion” using the Bluetooth connection, it used the cumbersome extra transmitter for 2.4g connection.(the similar products of Bose and JBL are using Bluetooth connection, you can buy it if you need Bluetooth)why？I do not know if you have not tried either PS4 or Switch, they cannot connect Bluetooth neither. In fact, the reason is very simple. For PS4 and NS, the game controller occupies most of its Bluetooth communication channels. Even if there is excess bandwidth available for the headset, the risk of interference with the handle communication is unbearable. Another point is that Bluetooth headsets will inevitably produce delays. It may be much better to adopt advanced Bluetooth communication protocols, but it also requires that both the sender and the receiver support this protocol at the same time. The delay of the sound is almost negligible when listening to music (this will only cause you to hear the sound half a second later after you click and play), but it is deadly for scenes that require synchronization of sound and picture. On the contrary, the delay of 2.4g connection is almost 0.The above two points are the reasons for the decision to use the 2.4G wireless connection of the SRS-WS1. Sony’s positioning of this product is to supplement the large-screen video and audio entertainment rather than a product for mobile music. Well, that’s it and let’s see how to connect it.

First take out the receiver, the receiver has a USB power supply port at the back of the receiver, there are optical fiber and 3.5mm headphone port, the latter two are all signal input sources. We use the AUX cable to connect the 3.5mm port with the headphone port of the computer. Then connect the power supply. At this time, the receiver is red, press the button on the back of the receiver, and then turn on the power of the host. The light of receiver is green and the host sends a “bang” sound-It has matched! Let’s enjoy the sense of audio.

BTW, this receiver also supports fiber optic connections and can connect two devices at the same time. In addition, you can also use the connection through the USB to 3.5mm wire which enables you to skip any device with a headset hole. You can connect to a mobile phone and play out any music you like. Finally, for the charging of the device, the design of the charging base is still ingenious. The weight is just right that is will not overturned when the audio is charged. Although there is a magnet to guide the absorption but the suction is small and it always needs to be adjusted.

Sound quality & use effect

Finally, here we come to the sound quality part, I think a lot of people must be looking forward to its sound quality, let me say this in advance – the sound quality is very common. It’s so ordinary that the audio effect of two TV in my house, namely, the 65X8500e and the 55X9000e of Sony is better than this neck-hanging audio. If you compare the series of sounds that I mentioned at the beginning, you can say that it was beaten in seconds. Maybe a lot of you will ask, if this personal device is only for one person, is it means that you can play games and watching TV at home without make noise to people around you?

The answer is still very cruel-No. Although the sound-wearing person and the person next to him hear the very different sound, there is not much difference in the loudness of the sound. This speaker which make it destined to be general.

In addition, due to the structure of the device, the sound comes out from under the neck, which is very different of our usual habits of listening. In particular, if you shake your heads and left the centered position, it will inevitably appear to be terrible. Adding more than 300 grams of the device itself does not count the weight required and the properties of the sweat-absorbing material, so this brings about the common problem of wearable devices – a sense of restraint and not freedom.

Oh no, I said all the shortcomings first, now I feel it’s difficult to get back but I still want to introduce the advantages of it: First, compare the headphones, this neck-hanging stereo provides better space surrounds atmosphere, at the same time, no matter how comfortable the earphone is, it will cause the ear canal fatigue after wear for a long time, that is why many people refuse to bring the earphone. This device solves this problem. Compared to traditional stereos, this device does not occupy extra space and you can use it everywhere you like. Finally, one of the features of it is its own vibration motor. You can adjust the strength of the three gear by the button. At the same time, the handle and sound will give you palm and shoulder vibration feedback at the same time, which is very obvious for the improvement of the sense of combat and presence. In my opinion, this is the biggest highlight of this product. To produce vibration when the device bass sound, this is a very good idea and the effect is very good in play the action game.

To sum up:

In fact, I don’t need me spot its shortcomings. Sony’s SRS-WS1 neck-hanging stereo is destined not to be popular and it may be remembered by believers on similar websites like “Quora” after several years. However, that’s why I love Sony. We need company like Apple to create a million-dollar sales volume for each product but we prefer companies which can constantly propose fresh games and ingenuity in details.

SRS-WS1 is not a product that I can recommend convincingly, but I would dare to assert that it is stronger than JBL or BOSE and it is more suitable as a PS4 accessory.

I can imagine that the most suitable use of it is for the young otaku to play PS4 on the computer monitor. The receiver’s optical fiber is connected to the PS4 and the 3.5mm port is connected to the computer and it can even be taken down on the table as an ordinary sound when the neck is tired. Sometimes the harshness to the goods is not because the manufacturers are terrible, but the threshold of our happiness is getting higher and higher.

Ok, I am Lancet, see you later.

Author:lancet

Source:smzdm.com

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