5 ms·

> On Bluetooth audio issues: try switching from PulseAudio to PipeWire; it’s better in every way now save perhaps for one or two remaining tiny niches, and pip

> On Bluetooth audio issues: try switching from PulseAudio to PipeWire; it’s better in every way now save perhaps for one or two remaining tiny niches, and pipewire-pulse lets it act as a drop-in replacement for pulseaudio. The usual installation experience is completely uneventful: you install it, restart your session, and everything works at least as well as before. I did! Pipewire is working awesome -- I'm using pipewire-pulseaudio actually, there's a package on arch that IIRC bridges the two so I can use pavucontrol etc. > On the throat mic itself: what does it sound like? I need a sample. I’m having difficulty finding any not-obviously-bad audio samples (e.g. not recording the microphone, but rather the output of a speaker after radio transmission!). Just put up a I'm going to put one up right now -- just updated the blog and it's deploying, should be up within 3 min or so. > From the impressions I’m getting, I’d be surprised if “not detectable” was accurate—rather, people are used to lousy audio and are not likely to comment on it unless you ask them or it’s just too bad. But yeah, I’d rather like a sample to judge myself. This definitely might have been the case, but the friend I was talking with I most certainly have run bad audio by before -- so he's seen worse and better.

chrismorgan 4y ago
Thanks for the sample. That sounds very bad. Not quite as bad as any samples I had found, and still reasonably understandable, which some lousy device microphones (especially laptops’) aren’t—it’s bad in a somewhat different way. But I would strongly dislike having to talk to you with that as your microphone, especially if you were in a context where you could have used almost any other microphone. If I knew that you had put me through such a thing for no good reason (which could be context, physical disability, lack of possession of an alternative), I would be very likely to resent that fact. Frankly, even if others don’t comment on it, you’re making talking with you far more stressful (whether consciously or subconsciously), because people are having to put a lot more effort into understanding you. > Could Throat mics be the ultimate in high quality audio for cheap? (not really). No. Absolutely not. Any podcast using such a microphone will bomb hard.
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  Noted, thanks for the honest feedback, looks like the tech is just not ready for primetime. I don’t think it’s so bad but people definitely have strong (mostly negative) feelings towards this experiment! The reactions after adding the audio sample are also pretty negative… > No. Absolutely not. Any podcast using such a microphone will bomb hard. Well I wouldn’t go as far as to say it would tank a podcast — but I agree that they are not the ultimate in high quality audio for cheap!
  - recursive 4y ago
    > I wouldn’t go as far as to say it would tank a podcast I would. It seems like you have a rosier impression of how this sounds than anyone else who listens. It's not completely unintelligible, but it's worse than "not good" to me. It just sounds plain bad. If I started listening to a podcast, and it sounded like this, I would just turn it off. Unless I was keenly interested in the subject material. Subpar audio recording is a peeve of mine, particular in a medium that's all about information via audio. But thanks for publicizing this. It's good to know that it exists, and what it sounds like.
    - hardwaresofton 4y ago
      > Unless I was keenly interested in the subject material. That's what I was thinking! Most of the time people who stick with podcasts stick with it because of content and/or creators, so that's more the case I was thinking of. The terrible mics would probably become a shared joke, if anything -- though you'd lose some people like you who really expect at least a good mic out of a podcast (which is a very reasonable expectation!) > But thanks for publicizing this. It's good to know that it exists, and what it sounds like. No problem! Glad it was useful
chrismorgan 4y ago
Also: pipewire-pulse doesn’t bridge the two in the most likely understanding of the word “bridge”—rather, it implements the PulseAudio protocol on top of PipeWire. In typical Linux package manager terms, it conflicts with and provides pulseaudio and pulseaudio-bluetooth.

chrismorgan 4y ago

Thanks for the sample. That sounds very bad. Not quite as bad as any samples I had found, and still reasonably understandable, which some lousy device microphones (especially laptops’) aren’t—it’s bad in a somewhat different way. But I would strongly dislike having to talk to you with that as your microphone, especially if you were in a context where you could have used almost any other microphone. If I knew that you had put me through such a thing for no good reason (which could be context, physical disability, lack of possession of an alternative), I would be very likely to resent that fact. Frankly, even if others don’t comment on it, you’re making talking with you far more stressful (whether consciously or subconsciously), because people are having to put a lot more effort into understanding you. > Could Throat mics be the ultimate in high quality audio for cheap? (not really). No. Absolutely not. Any podcast using such a microphone will bomb hard.

hardwaresofton 4y ago
Noted, thanks for the honest feedback, looks like the tech is just not ready for primetime. I don’t think it’s so bad but people definitely have strong (mostly negative) feelings towards this experiment! The reactions after adding the audio sample are also pretty negative… > No. Absolutely not. Any podcast using such a microphone will bomb hard. Well I wouldn’t go as far as to say it would tank a podcast — but I agree that they are not the ultimate in high quality audio for cheap!
- recursive 4y ago
  > I wouldn’t go as far as to say it would tank a podcast I would. It seems like you have a rosier impression of how this sounds than anyone else who listens. It's not completely unintelligible, but it's worse than "not good" to me. It just sounds plain bad. If I started listening to a podcast, and it sounded like this, I would just turn it off. Unless I was keenly interested in the subject material. Subpar audio recording is a peeve of mine, particular in a medium that's all about information via audio. But thanks for publicizing this. It's good to know that it exists, and what it sounds like.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    > Unless I was keenly interested in the subject material. That's what I was thinking! Most of the time people who stick with podcasts stick with it because of content and/or creators, so that's more the case I was thinking of. The terrible mics would probably become a shared joke, if anything -- though you'd lose some people like you who really expect at least a good mic out of a podcast (which is a very reasonable expectation!) > But thanks for publicizing this. It's good to know that it exists, and what it sounds like. No problem! Glad it was useful

chrismorgan 4y ago

Also: pipewire-pulse doesn’t bridge the two in the most likely understanding of the word “bridge”—rather, it implements the PulseAudio protocol on top of PipeWire. In typical Linux package manager terms, it conflicts with and provides pulseaudio and pulseaudio-bluetooth.