I bought a $230 wifi radio that is impressive in many ways, but the problem I have is that the sound sounds muffled
Maybe it's okay for music. I haven't listened to much music, but for talk it sounds muffled. Like literally they are talking through some sort of muffle. I don't have this problem with 5 other table radios.
Is the problem that there is too much bass? If not that, what?
It has equalizer settings so I changed from default and various kinds of music to "talk". I didnt' hear any change.
So I went to custom, which has 6 frequency ranges, and over time, I've lowered the lowest 4 ranges to the minimum and raised the top one to the max, and the one in between almost to the max. This helped at first, but future changes were smaller and I didn't see addtional help.
I can still understand if I make the sound one or two steps louder, but then it's louder than I want.
Is there an audio ng that's not dormant that I can post too. alt.audio and alt.audio.pro had gone 3 years without posts.
There's always the possibility there's something wrong with your particular radio and this isn't a normal or adjustable condition. How are the reviews for that radio? Model number? I honestly think a lot of calibrations are for the lowest common denominator - people with no idea of accuracy but think loud one note "thumping" is quality sound... Yeah, a lot of groups were polluted by political assholes and killed them off - the downside of no moderation.
micky snipped-for-privacy@fmguy.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Start with the equalizer set for normal all the way across. Try listening to talk only at first; AM might be good for this. It may be that the extra sound you hear makes things sound muffled. Some AM stations are also broadcast locally on the low end of the FM band.
Time for a visit to an audiologist. If you don't use hearing aids, you may need them. If you use them, the settings may need to be tweaked. A few years ago, I thought something had gone wrong with my stereo equipment, either the speakers or the receiver. I also noticed I was having problems understanding dialog on the TV and in face to face conversations. Turns out I have typical "mild-moderate" age-related hearing loss. Hearing aids made a big difference in what I hear and almost completely "repaired" my stereo system. If you will be getting your first set, make sure they come with a 100% money-back guarantee if not satisfied, for at least 45-60 days as it takes a little while for your brain to adjust. Much longer than it takes to adjust to a new eyeglasses prescription.
You might have "Loudness" on, which raises the low and the high, and makes human voice almost inaudible (muffled). The "Loudness" setting would tire me out quickly when I listen to people talk.
I have been playing with Windows since the beginning of time. I found a very good software equalizer (free software) in my Windows 10/11. It has many equalizer presets. My favourite preset is "Telephone", which raises the frequency range of human voices and depresses the high and low. I can listen to Tucker Carson and Alex Jones all day.
Without that software equalizer, the high and low in the frequency spectrum would tire me out quickly. Interesting enough, even with the "Telephone" preset when I listen to music, I can hear the lyrics very clearly, and the music still remains enjoyable.
It has a wood or wood-composite cabinet. That's good for bass iiuc. (But so do two of my table radios that don't have this problem.)
Do you think opening the cabinet and stuffing it with wadded newspapers or rags or something would change the sound to be more like I want?
4.1 on 24 ratings. That's pretty good and I think we've all seen reviews, of restaurants too, where one person says it was terrible and the other says 5 stars. So i didn't worry too much about reviews, mostly because iirc this and one other they themselves sell were the only wifi radios with presets. And presets was a deal-breaker, especially since wifi radios can't scan
Maybe I should have shopped more than Amazon and Google and I think I looked in BestBuy. There still are not many wifi radios afaict**.
That said, this review starts off almost like mine would:
Ugh.
I noticed this too. Not a big problem, because it only takes one button to turn back on.
He has other serious complaints but still gives it a 3. ---- Review 2 gives it 5 stars and says "sounds great" Review 3 says bluetooh has a problem but other wise, "the 50 watt amplifier was excellent, had good amount of bass, etc. to make the music sound like good quality"
Review 4 says "First off, the unit did not appear as nice as in the pictures here. The finish of the wood (if it even is actual wood) looked grayish and cheap" --- I have the same color as he, walnut, and I think it looks nice, not greyish or cheap.
Review 5 " also did not enjoy the way this radio sounded at all! I spent several hours listening to a wide array of stations and musical styles while trying to adjust the EQ settings, but could not find any tolerable balance whatsoever. The equalizer is quite limited and did not seem to make a significant difference in changing the overall sound quality, which was muddled and lacking in detail, while also making my ears really, really tired and sore."
So we have muddy, muddled, and muffled. Not encouraging.
continued: "I found not being able to walk over and turn on the Mondo Elite Duo without a remove very unsatisfying." Strange, since I can do it.
Review 6: Plays Radio Paradise perfectly, and all the music in my Logitech media server library. Highly recommended.
Review 7: sounds decent, and works fine. I have no complaints. Review 8: 5 stars Very pleased! Review 9 5 stars Great sound and features Great speakers for a radio of this size. Review 10 5 stars after all, great sound Review 11, 5 stars Easy to use with good sound two more 5 star reviews
formatting link
Amazon changed a few weeks ago and even though there are 24 questions, one can no longer see the list of questions and answers, even there is a link at the top to what should be the list. I wonder if that is an error on the programmer's part and we are supposed to be able to see the list of quesitons.
I honestly think a lot of calibrations are for the lowest common denominator - people with no idea of accuracy but think loud one note "thumping" is quality sound...
I plan to write the maker, Grace, but first I had sent them two suggestions for firmware improvement, changes which should be downloadable to my radio. Seek, and Undoing the connection they made between Sleep and disabling the screen and most of the controls.
That was some of it but I think a lot is that webpages get the attention and some even advertise, and no one promotes Usenet, not even those who sell Usenet readers. So I think most of us started here when the web was small, and gradually some are losing interest, getting hooked on webforums, or dying. And not being replaced.
My first suggestion got a prompt acknowlegement and they said they'd consider including it. But today's suggestion got an individualized email with some help about
2 stations I said in passing that I hadn't been able to connect to.
**One of the reviews mentions the Bose Wave SoundTouch Music System IV. I forget if I knew about that before I bought this one, but it's $1750 on ebay and I don't think I'm going to spend that much on a radio. Okay, it's down to 175 used, somewhere, but it's the typical Bose semi round, and I may have rejected it for that reason alone. --- Darn, I've never had a radio bigger than a deck of cards that didn't sound right. This was the last problem I expected --- On amazon the Bose radio is $886 and based on pictures there are no presets, except one the remote there are
6 preset buttons but I don't plan to use the remote, and 6 is not enough. Grace has 100. On amazon the Bose radio has a terrible video by Bose, but the one by a customer, influencer?, says that you can connect to a smart device and stream music that way if you choose to do so. That means I don't want it. The one I have keeps track of urls, once you tell it, and doesn't require any other device. (You need a computer to load up stuff, but I have a computer.) The bose video mentions Pandora, Spotify, Amazon music, Iheart, SiriusXm and Deezer and mine permits all of those except Deezer, but mine allows ANY url to be stored, and Bose says nothing like that. There are no preset Okay, so I didn't want the Bose one. Dodged a bullet.
Revo Superconnect has 8 presets, $500. only rates 3.8 Smaller, only one speaker, 16,000 wifi stations. Doesn't look as nice as mine.
Thanks. I'll check the settings again but I dont' think it has Loudness.
I doubt if it will have Telephone because it knows it's a radio. PC's do everything. But I will try the other settings, Jazz, classical... whatever. Maybe one is like telephone.
It's as big as in every other table radio I have, all of which are okay. (FWIW, even without a hearing aid)
I hope it's not cheap junk for $270. One review thinks it's not that it has too much bass but not enough treble. That seems harder to fix with my plan to put things in the cabinet.
It sounds fine. I have a radio in the car, the office, the kitchen, the bathroom, the laundry room, and another one in the bedroom, and I've never had a complaint. I don't expect a table radio to sound like Carnegie Hall, but it shoudln't be muffled, muddled, or muddy either.
Glad to hear it. :-)
The data rate is not obvious. They have a long list of stations/urls, with names like WBZ or KDKA and I pick some and play one and that's all I'm told.
FWIW, this is the list of stations they offer, iirc 40,000 entries (but you can also put in your own). I was able to use this before I spent any money. Put in any name or partial name and it will give you itesm to select, which once you buy the radio and register will go into your online file that the radio can access. Though some did not work at all. Some other wifi radio I think just play whatever comes over the wifi, the one that is streaming from his phone or PC. This is more like a PC that can go looking for the url it wants. For all my shopping, before and today, I'm still not sure which ones are like this and which ones aren't, but if they give a url count, I think they can go looking. That still won't prove you can put in a url you've found, like the latest msnbc url. On their website, I found the manual for this radio and read it before buying the radio, but that won't accomplish everything.
She wrote me today to say that "MSNBC changes stream URLs often, so sometimes we don't catch up until someone lets us know about it", which is probably why the one they had didn't work. I'll check again, plus at leas4t for CNN there was a way, by pressing F12 on the webpage where you can play CNN audio, to see the stream url name. It's not the same as the webpage url.
That equalizer software has graphical user interface so you can modify the presets. The only preset that looks like "Telephone" is "Radio".
The "Radio" present raises only the human vocal frequency range, while "Telephone" preset raises the human vocal frequency range plus tapering the high end and low end frequencies all the way to -30 dB.
I don't listen to much radio these days, but if they start talking I immediately hit the 'Next!' button until I find music that I like. Would that work for you?
Considering two (out of thirteen) of the Amazon reviews complained about the sound and one said a speaker was DOA I'd lean toward the problem not being with micky's ears.
Perhaps tweeter, or midrange driver missing or defective. perhaps speaker cone is crooked and hung up. perhaps someone was smuggling illict substances in the speaker box and for reasons was unable to retreive them, and you have the result.
Have you tried headphones, does that improve the sound? If it sounds good with headphones the problem is probably inside the speaker box.
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