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What's wrong with this picture? State auditors give Georgia's movie tax credit mixed reviews – Georgia Recorder
Film production is big business in Georgia thanks to the state’s generous film tax credit, but economists worry about rising costs and a lack of transparency. Getty Images Creative
Georgia’s film tax credit helped bring blockbuster productions like “Stranger Things,” “Ozark” and “Spiderman: No Way Home” to the state, along with an estimated $4.4 billion in spending during the 12 months ending June 30.
But a new report from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts finds lingering concerns about the program’s transparency and rising cost to the state treasury.
The program, passed in 2005, offers a tax credit of up to 30% for production companies that spend at least $500,000 on qualified productions. The amount of the annual credit more than doubled between 2013 and 2019, growing from $407 million to $961 million. The Georgia Department of Economic Development estimates credit amounts for 2021 and 2022 exceeded $1 billion, making Georgia’s incentive the largest of any state.
But unlike most states that offer film tax incentives, Georgia does not put a cap on the amount of credit granted. New York and California, the states with the next largest incentive amounts, cap theirs at $420 million per year. The state auditor’s office recommended Georgia cap its credit to reduce financial risk to the state.
Back in March, Rome Republican and Senate Finance Chair Sen. Chuck Hufstetler tried to do just that, proposing a cap of $900 million on the credits, but his colleagues eventually nixed the proposal.
“It just keeps growing, and I could get into the things we’re paying for, private jets and chefs and personal trainers and stuff that probably needs cleaning up,” Hufstetler said in a committee meeting.
But the program has received broad support from lawmakers of both parties. Atlanta Democratic Sen. Nan Orrock told the committee messing with it would be reckless.
“I just feel very cautionary about our whacking this tax credit that’s made us the third highest state in the country for film activity,” she said. “So it’s hard to have a comfort level with that being added in. It just seems incautious to me.”
Film is big business in Georgia – the state reported hosting 32 feature films, 36 independent films, 269 television and episodic productions, 42 commercials and 33 music videos between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.
Tax credit supporters compare the $4.4 billion spent in 2022 with a combined $1.4 billion from 1973 to 2008. They point out that Georgia went from having 45,000 square feet of stage space in 2010 to having more than 3 million square feet in 2022, with more than 4 million square feet planned for next two years, much of that supported by local investment.
The pro-credit side says all that movie making brings additional jobs not directly accounted for by studios, such as local carpenters, caterers, electricians and engineers.
But importing movie magic comes at a cost — an average of more than $300 per household — and the film industry’s halo effect is often overstated, said Kennesaw State University economist J.C. Bradbury.
“I have no doubt that that happens, but what is not easily seen is that these people would not be otherwise unemployed if not for the film industry,” he said. “We don’t subsidize a lot of the other industries that would be producing other (jobs). We don’t have a high unemployment rate in Georgia. Local Georgians who are employed in the film industry would otherwise be employed in other occupations within Georgia, and we would be just fine. There’s been a lot of research done on the economic stimulus effects of subsidizing the film industry, and no studies have found any stimulus.”
The state auditor’s office found Georgia has done a better job of realistically portraying the economic impact of the film tax credit on the state economy after significantly overstating the benefit for years, but the department of economic development’s reporting on film production jobs “is still misleading at times.”
For example, auditors found that economic development touted that productions filmed in Georgia delivered $9.2 billion in total wages, but it did not disclose that that number included distribution jobs including movie theater workers.
Auditors said state officials claimed “tens of thousands” of Georgians were employed in film production, while federal data showed approximately 10,700 Georgia jobs in film production.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Economic Development did not reply to a request for comment for this story, but in a written response to the audit, the department said it “stands by its reporting of the direct spend and job figures related to the film industry in Georgia, as this information comes directly from its expenditure form collected from all applicants, as well as other reputable sources.”
The auditors found another mixed bag in the amount of credit benefits going to residents of other states.
In 2016, 88% of the credit went to companies with no permanent locations in Georgia, and 53% of the wages used toward the credit were paid out to non-Georgians. Most other states with a film incentive require or incentivize hiring residents.
“We are covering 30% of the cost of most of the economic activity that’s taking place and the transfer of resources to people who don’t even live in the state of Georgia, and are earning extremely high wages from doing so, a lot of Hollywood talent coming here,” Bradbury said. “And simply paying them to do a job they would have otherwise done in Hollywood in the state of Georgia is really just sending that money outside the state. It’s not enriching Georgia.”
The legislature hasn’t made any changes to incentivize hiring Georgia residents, but a bill requiring credit recipients to disclose more of their operations should reduce credits earned for out-of-state expenditures, the auditors found. A separate report released in July found the state economic development department fully or partially addressed all findings related to the credit’s administration.
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by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
October 31, 2022
by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
October 31, 2022
Georgia’s film tax credit helped bring blockbuster productions like “Stranger Things,” “Ozark” and “Spiderman: No Way Home” to the state, along with an estimated $4.4 billion in spending during the 12 months ending June 30.
But a new report from the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts finds lingering concerns about the program’s transparency and rising cost to the state treasury.
The program, passed in 2005, offers a tax credit of up to 30% for production companies that spend at least $500,000 on qualified productions. The amount of the annual credit more than doubled between 2013 and 2019, growing from $407 million to $961 million. The Georgia Department of Economic Development estimates credit amounts for 2021 and 2022 exceeded $1 billion, making Georgia’s incentive the largest of any state.
But unlike most states that offer film tax incentives, Georgia does not put a cap on the amount of credit granted. New York and California, the states with the next largest incentive amounts, cap theirs at $420 million per year. The state auditor’s office recommended Georgia cap its credit to reduce financial risk to the state.
Back in March, Rome Republican and Senate Finance Chair Sen. Chuck Hufstetler tried to do just that, proposing a cap of $900 million on the credits, but his colleagues eventually nixed the proposal.
“It just keeps growing, and I could get into the things we’re paying for, private jets and chefs and personal trainers and stuff that probably needs cleaning up,” Hufstetler said in a committee meeting.
But the program has received broad support from lawmakers of both parties. Atlanta Democratic Sen. Nan Orrock told the committee messing with it would be reckless.
“I just feel very cautionary about our whacking this tax credit that’s made us the third highest state in the country for film activity,” she said. “So it’s hard to have a comfort level with that being added in. It just seems incautious to me.”
Film is big business in Georgia – the state reported hosting 32 feature films, 36 independent films, 269 television and episodic productions, 42 commercials and 33 music videos between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.
Tax credit supporters compare the $4.4 billion spent in 2022 with a combined $1.4 billion from 1973 to 2008. They point out that Georgia went from having 45,000 square feet of stage space in 2010 to having more than 3 million square feet in 2022, with more than 4 million square feet planned for next two years, much of that supported by local investment.
The pro-credit side says all that movie making brings additional jobs not directly accounted for by studios, such as local carpenters, caterers, electricians and engineers.
But importing movie magic comes at a cost — an average of more than $300 per household — and the film industry’s halo effect is often overstated, said Kennesaw State University economist J.C. Bradbury.
“I have no doubt that that happens, but what is not easily seen is that these people would not be otherwise unemployed if not for the film industry,” he said. “We don’t subsidize a lot of the other industries that would be producing other (jobs). We don’t have a high unemployment rate in Georgia. Local Georgians who are employed in the film industry would otherwise be employed in other occupations within Georgia, and we would be just fine. There’s been a lot of research done on the economic stimulus effects of subsidizing the film industry, and no studies have found any stimulus.”
The state auditor’s office found Georgia has done a better job of realistically portraying the economic impact of the film tax credit on the state economy after significantly overstating the benefit for years, but the department of economic development’s reporting on film production jobs “is still misleading at times.”
For example, auditors found that economic development touted that productions filmed in Georgia delivered $9.2 billion in total wages, but it did not disclose that that number included distribution jobs including movie theater workers.
Auditors said state officials claimed “tens of thousands” of Georgians were employed in film production, while federal data showed approximately 10,700 Georgia jobs in film production.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Economic Development did not reply to a request for comment for this story, but in a written response to the audit, the department said it “stands by its reporting of the direct spend and job figures related to the film industry in Georgia, as this information comes directly from its expenditure form collected from all applicants, as well as other reputable sources.”
The auditors found another mixed bag in the amount of credit benefits going to residents of other states.
In 2016, 88% of the credit went to companies with no permanent locations in Georgia, and 53% of the wages used toward the credit were paid out to non-Georgians. Most other states with a film incentive require or incentivize hiring residents.
“We are covering 30% of the cost of most of the economic activity that’s taking place and the transfer of resources to people who don’t even live in the state of Georgia, and are earning extremely high wages from doing so, a lot of Hollywood talent coming here,” Bradbury said. “And simply paying them to do a job they would have otherwise done in Hollywood in the state of Georgia is really just sending that money outside the state. It’s not enriching Georgia.”
The legislature hasn’t made any changes to incentivize hiring Georgia residents, but a bill requiring credit recipients to disclose more of their operations should reduce credits earned for out-of-state expenditures, the auditors found. A separate report released in July found the state economic development department fully or partially addressed all findings related to the credit’s administration.
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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: [email protected]. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
Before joining the Georgia Recorder, Ross Williams covered local and state government for the Marietta Daily Journal.Williams’ reporting took him from City Hall to homeless camps, from the offices of business executives to the living rooms of grieving parents. His work earned recognition from the Georgia Associated Press Media Editors and the Georgia Press Association, including beat reporting, business writing and non-deadline reporting. A native of Cobb County, Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Atlanta’s Oglethorpe University and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.
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© Georgia Recorder, 2022
The Georgia Recorder is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on connecting public policies to the stories of the people and communities affected by them. We bring a fresh perspective to coverage of the state’s biggest issues from our perch near the Capitol in downtown Atlanta. We view news as a vital community service and believe that government accountability and transparency are valued by all Georgians.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.
Evanston resident to play Herr Zeller in “Sound of Music” – Chicago Tribune
Josh Houghton plays a Nazi named Herr Zeller in Paramount Theatre’s production of “The Sound of Music,” Nov. 18-Jan. 15. (Paramount Theatre) – Original Credit: Handout (Paramount Theater / HANDOUT)
Evanston resident Josh Houghton is the bearer of bad news for the Von Trapp family in Paramount Theatre’s production of “The Sound of Music.”
His character, Herr Zeller, “brings the outside world into their joyful home full of music and laughter,” Houghton said. “All of a sudden there’s a Nazi in their house saying that their father has to go away to war and join the Nazi party.”
“It’s not a fun role,” admitted Houghton of his part in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic musical that runs from Nov. 18 through Jan. 15 at 23 E. Galena Blvd. in Downtown Aurora. Previews begin Nov. 9.
Nevertheless, the actor is enjoying being part of the large cast.
Josh Houghton of Evanston, the tallest guy in the back row, is in the huge cast of Paramount Theatre’s production of “The Sound of Music,” Nov. 18-Jan. 15. (Thomas J. King) – Original Credit: Handout (Thomas J. King / HANDOUT)
“The experience of rehearsing with all the children — that’s been wonderful,” he said. “The kids are incredible. Alicia (Kaori) who plays Maria is phenomenal. Christopher (Kale Jones), who plays the Captain, is just a joy to work with. Amber (Mak), our director, is leading a joyful rehearsal room.”
This is Houghton’s second time playing Herr Zeller. “I don’t know what that says about me,” he laughingly declared.
The last time he took that role was in the Little Theatre on the Square in Sullivan, Illinois. The Paramount Theatre production’s director/choreographer Mak was the choreographer for that earlier production.
“I guess she liked what I did eight years ago,” Houghton said.
The fact that Herr Zeller is a neighbor to the Von Trapps makes the role relevant today, according to Houghton, who said, “We don’t always know or agree with the people that live right down the street from us.”
Houghton, who grew up in Oregon, moved to Chicago in 2018 and Evanston a year later.
“I grew up doing ballet so I did ‘The Nutcracker’ every winter,” Houghton said. He first performed in a play when he was in seventh grade. When he was a senior in high school, he decided to pursue a theater career.
Houghton earned a degree in theater from The New School in New York City.
The actor has traveled extensively with his career, including doing a national tour of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
“That’s kind of the beauty of being a stage actor” he explained. “There’s a lot of regional theater work. In addition to the places where I’ve had a mailing address and been a resident, I’ve also lived for two to three months doing shows in Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Denver, Philadelphia. It’s been a great way to get to see this country and get to try out different places to live.”
Houghton looks too young to have lived in so many places. He playfully explains his youthful look saying, “I use moisturizer and I drink a lot of water.”
One of Houghton’s favorite parts was his first Chicago role as Mitzi/Tick in Mercury Theater Chicago’s production of “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” this summer.
He also particularly enjoyed playing Buddy the Elf in “Elf the Musical” three times.
This production of “The Sound of Music” also has Houghton excited.
“We have a 17-piece orchestra which is just fabulous. These musicians are incredible,” he said. “We have three casts of kids and they are bright. What’s more exciting than seeing a kid live out their dream.”
For more information about “The Sound of Music,” call (630) 896-6666 or visit paramountaurora.com/events/the-sound-of-music.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Girls disappeared on hike: Man arrested in deaths of Abby Williams, Liberty German – The Mercury News
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A man has been arrested in the case of the 2017 killings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, in Delphi, Indiana, authorities said Monday.
Richard M. Allen, 50, of Delphi, was arrested on two counts of murder, Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter said at a news conference.
Abby and Libby disappeared while hiking together at the Delphi Historic Trails on February 13, 2017. Eighteen hours later, their bodies were found in the woods, close to an abandoned railroad bridge.
On Monday, investigators provided few details about Allen’s arrest, citing the need to avoid compromising the case. The probable cause affidavit remains sealed.
“While I know you are all expecting final details today concerning this arrest, today is not that day,” Carter said.
Allen is in custody and is being held without bond.
Carter did not address whether Allen is believed to be the man in a photo recovered from Libby’s phone: a grainy, pixelated image of a man in a blue jacket and jeans on the railroad bridge. Shortly after the killings, Indiana State Police released that image.
They also released an audio recording of the alleged killer saying four words — “… guys … down the hill” — in the hope the public might identify the suspect’s voice.
In 2019, police released a new sketch and additional video from one of the girl’s cell phones.
The killings devastated the Delphi community, which rallied to find the killer. Investigators received a dozen or more new tips every day, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland said in 2019.
In December 2021, detectives with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and Indiana State Police asked for the public’s help regarding the social media profile for “anthony_shots,” which was used from 2016 to 2017 on Snapchat, Instagram and possibly other social media sites, according to a state police news release.
The catfish account “used images of a known male model and portrayed himself as being extremely wealthy and owning numerous sports cars,” the release said. “The creator of the fictitious profile used this information while communicating with juvenile females to solicit nude images, obtain their addresses, and attempt to meet them.”
Investigators have identified the model pictured in the photos and said, “he is not a person of interest in the investigation.”
Detectives, however, are seeking information about “the person who created the anthony_shots profile,” according to the news release.
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Production Music Live (PML) Black Friday Deals on Sample Packs 2022 – We Rave You
With more than 400+ tutorials, 30+ courses, project files, and sample packs, Production Music Live boasts a vast library of music production materials. Production Music Live has already begun its Black Friday sale a month ahead of time. At an attractive price, they are promoting their top sample packs, bundles, courses, project files, and much more. The finest Black Friday offers on plugins, sample packs, bundles, presets, and courses are listed on our dedicated Black Friday landing page, so be sure to check it out as well.
This clearly is Production Music Live’s biggest sale of the year. Nothing could be further from the truth right now. There are plenty of products available in their Black Friday 2022 sale. Our top picks from the deal are:
Although Ableton is used to record the lessons, every step can be completed using any other DAW. Every genre, particularly techno, afro house, melodic house and progressive house, can use the sample packs. Before it’s too late, take advantage of their best packages, courses, masterclasses, and sample packs during Production Music Live Black Friday Sale.
Next article: Waves early Black Friday Deals on VST Plugins 2022
Image Credits: Production Music Live
Hemant has been actively involved in the dance music industry with over 2 years of experience. Currently working as a Project Manager and heading the We Rave You Tech division. Get in touch via email or Instagram
[email protected]
Mushroomhead's Ryan 'Dr. F' Farrell To Give Graduate Recital on November 19 – Cleveland Scene
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Rick Steves Isn't Pro-Pot, He's Pro-Civil Liberties – kuaf.com
Recreational marijuana is on this year’s ballot in Arkansas, and travel guru Rick Steves says the many tropes about marijuana use are untrue and that regulating recreational use provides users the civil liberties they deserve.
Introducing the Friday News Wrap – kuaf.com
A new segment where we catch up on some of what happened this week, including an unexpected rise in sales tax in Arkansas, a new flight destination out of XNA, and college soccer updates.
Riverfront Promenade at Edge-on-Hudson Now Open to the Public – The Hudson Indy Westchester's Rivertowns News – – The Hudson Independent
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By Barrett Seaman—
A significant piece of the 100-acre Edge-on-Hudson mosaic fell into place on Halloween day, as officials led by Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Sleepy Hollow Mayor Ken Wray cut a ribbon, ceremoniously opening the penultimate phase of this village’s portion of the RiverWalk that will one day stretch from Yonkers to the Putnam County line.
When completed, the broad esplanade, with its patterned stone pathways wending through pristine lawns, “eco gardens,” sculpted stone and wooden benches, will stretch from River Street on the southern end all the way to Kingsland Point Park.
The speaker list at the event included Stewart-Cousins and Wray, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, Assemblyman Tom Abinanti and representatives from the private companies responsible for the design and construction of the mixed-use project that will eventually expand the village by 1,177 housing units.
The theme of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, however, was not the housing or expansion but rather the accessibility of the riverfront to the public. It was not true, said Mayor Wray, that this project was “reclaiming” the riverfront. At first the homeland of the Lenape tribe, then a plantation where enslaved people toiled, then the site of two auto plants, the last of which was GM’s giant assembly plant, the site was built largely on landfill. Said Wray: “It was never even land. You’re not getting it back; you’re getting it.”
What the public will also be getting sometime in the next year to 18 months will be a 16-acre park on the north end of the RiverWalk, adjacent to Kingsland Point, care of the Edge-on-Hudson developers. As part of the $2 million cost of the project, the state’s Empire Development Fund kicked in $500,000, thanks in large part to Andrea Stewart-Cousins. And Westchester County is ponying up $3.5 million to refurbish the Tarrytown lighthouse that sits at the westernmost point of the property. Nearby, with the approval of the Army Corp of Engineers, recreational piers will be available for fishing and boat dockage. Each of the speakers stressed the public/private partnership that underpins the project.
Meanwhile, edifices continue to sprout up. In September, developers broke ground on The Daymark, which will be home to 100 luxury condominiums adjacent to the riverfront promenade. These one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment, as well as townhomes, will be set amongst landscaped courtyards and a variety of private outdoor spaces. Adjoining the living space will be more than 9,000 square feet of retail space, including a waterfront restaurant, and a 140-room boutique hotel.
Shoppers from both Edge-on-Hudson homes and elsewhere in the community will have access to a DeCicco & Sons food market. The complex will also contain 135,000 square feet of retail space and 35,000 square feet of office space, yet to be built.
Currently, the most conspicuous piece of the Edge complex is the massive 246-unit Northlight building with studio, one- and two-bedroom rental apartments, 150 of which were occupied as of early October.
Read or leave a comment on this story…
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From farming to fermentation: How New Zealand could 'brew up' new foods to reduce agricultural emissions – Stuff
Ian Mason is a research fellow in renewable energy systems engineering at University of Canterbury.
ANALYSIS: New Zealand agriculture contributed 50% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, an unusually high proportion by world standards. Dairy farming was responsible for about half of the 39.1 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-eq) emitted, or 25% of all emissions.
Addressing the problem of New Zealand’s agricultural emissions has mainly focused on technical fixes aimed at reducing methane and nitrous oxide produced by livestock and fertiliser and relying on voluntary agreements with the industry.
But these measures may not result in substantial emissions reductions any time soon. Reductions of less than 1% are predicted according to one analysis of a government/industry accord, which forms the basis of a recently announced pricing scheme for agricultural emissions.
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* Snail farming, cricket flour, algae and lab-grown fish; Welcome to the brave new world of alternative protein
Exploring alternatives to conventional farming is therefore timely and urgent. One such alternative with the potential to drastically reduce agricultural emissions – while at the same time helping restore ecological quality – is to use fermentation technology.
This would allow some yet-to-be-determined proportion of dairy and meat farming to be replaced by “precision fermentation” of high-protein products, a process akin to brewing.
It might seem like a radical step for a traditional agricultural nation, but given the urgency of the problem, New Zealand needs to consider it at least.
In his recent book Regenesis, British journalist and activist George Monbiot discusses the prospects for precision fermentation, or single-cell protein (SCP) production. In particular, he highlights a process developed by Finnish startup Solar Foods.
This process employs hydrogen-oxidising bacteria as an alternative means of food production with a much lower climate impact. The end product is a nutritious high-protein powder suitable for use as a food ingredient and as a component of new foods.
Key to this process are the production of hydrogen by electrolysis of tap water and the direct capture of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide from the air. Hydrogen produced in this way can also be used to make ammonia for use as a nitrogen source for the bacteria.
In a comprehensive lifecycle analysis, Finnish researchers determined that each kilogram of product made using hydroelectricity created about one kilogram of CO₂-eq emissions, requiring 18 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
The product itself is comprised of 65-75% protein, 4-10% fat, 18-20% carbohydrates, 4-10% minerals and 5% moisture. This means it has a high protein content, complemented by smaller amounts of fats (mostly polyunsaturated), carbohydrates and nutrients.
New Zealand has a world-class wind resource, both onshore and offshore. Major developers have recently revealed plans for more than six gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind farms off the Taranaki and Waikato coastlines. The first is due to be operational by the end of this decade.
Using a 1GW offshore wind farm as an example, this could supply enough electricity to produce about 240,000 tonnes of SCP product a year, containing about 160,000 tonnes of protein. The carbon footprint, based on the Finnish life-cycle analysis, would be around 0.25 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions.
The same amount of milk protein produced at a dairy farm would have a carbon footprint of about 3.6 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions (based on the average emissions intensity from a recently updated lifecycle analysis).
If replaced by the SCP product, this would result in an 18.9% reduction in dairy-sector emissions and milk production based on 2019-20 levels. Net emissions to the global atmosphere would also be reduced.
Milk contains a large proportion of fat – about 125% of the protein content compared to about 10% for the SCP product. Lactose and other nutrients, plus meat and by-products from culled cows and bobby calves, would also be removed from production under this process.
The extent to which these might be substituted with plant-based or precision-fermentation alternatives requires further investigation. Using vegetable oils to supply the difference in fat would add about 0.7 megatonnes of CO₂-eq emissions to the SCP footprint.
If the equivalent land area was retired from intensive dairy farming this would allow a range of alternative land uses, including rewilding of sensitive areas.
Given New Zealand’s serious degradation of water quality due to nutrient runoff associated with intensive farming, this would have obvious environmental and ecological benefits.
It would also provide a permanent carbon sink of native bush, adding further to the net emissions reduction.
Animal agriculture is deeply embedded in New Zealand’s culture, society and economy. Discussing alternative means of food production will therefore require a thoughtful, detailed and respectful conversation focused on a just partial transition to new systems.
New development funding would be well spent on comprehensive consultation, pilot trials of the SCP technology under local conditions and on training.
What is signalled is a very real prospect for capping and then reducing the scale of our industrial animal farming. It’s an opportunity to fit within the greenhouse gas budget we need to live within to avoid the 2.7 warmer world we now appear to be heading for.
It is also an opportunity to write a new chapter in New Zealand’s environmental history. Adding to the menu the “rich, mellow and filling” SCP pancake George Monbiot enjoyed in Finland sounds like a good option, too.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
© 2022 Stuff Limited
Best true wireless headphones 2022: top wireless earphones reviewed and rated – The Times of Bengal
Where once were wires, now Bluetooth reigns. And if it’s cordless audio you’re after, this is the list to listen to: from accessible in-ears to premium earphones, we’ve ranked the best true wireless headphones you can buy right now.
Whether you’re tired of tangled wires or upgrading to a port-free phone, there are buds for every ear and budget. The top options go light on your lugs but are sizeable on sound, offering sonic capabilities to rival any cabled competitor. Many also augment the listening experience with in-app adjustments and active noise cancellation.
Every pair of earbuds is tested extensively by our keen-eared team. Trialled in real-world conditions and challenged with a range of genres to rival your average Glastonbury line-up, you can be sure that the wireless earbuds below all cut the musical mustard. Looking for specifically for gym buds? Check out our dedicated list of the best wireless in-ears for sporty sorts.
Continuing its record of true-wireless winners, the WF-1000XM4 show once again that Sony knows how to make excellent earphones. Successors to the brilliant WF-1000XM3, the upgraded earbuds deliver a listen that’s as punchy as it is detailed. Spacious and balanced, they’re endlessly engaging in the ear. Besides their convincing sonic talents, the WF-1000XM4 cancel outside sounds effectively, with the option to tweak ANC levels in the outstanding partner app. That’s also where you can tinker with EQ levels, touch controls and more. Battery life is par for the course, but the trade-off is a tidy design that’s smaller than before – mirrored by a charging case that’s more pocket-friendly by 40%. The WF-1000XM3 remain better value, but the WF-1000XM4 set a fresh bar for in-ear superiority.
With a few simple improvements, the third generation of Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless in-ears cement their place among the best. Build quality feels as bomb-proof as before, while a 16% size reduction and means the updated ‘phones look less chunky. Each earbud features a touch interface, customisable through the feature-packed app. Taps can be set to cycle through ANC settings, which include effective transparency and anti-wind modes. Battery life is acceptably average at seven hours from the earbuds, but superlative audio performance makes up for it: fire up the 7mm drivers and they treat your ears to a poised recital. Favouring balance and fidelity over punishing bass, the Momentums demonstrate remarkable sonic control. Detail is engrossing across the range, with a spacious and tonal soundstage.
Building on the five-star benchmark set by their predecessors, Cambridge Audio’s Melomania 1+ shape up as a feature-packed and remarkably affordable pair of hi-fi wireless earbuds. With bullet-shaped shells, the flat-topped ‘phones are lightweight at 4.6g apiece. There’s no ANC, but superb sound isolation creates a hushed backdrop for a balanced listen. Even without tweaking EQ settings in the smartphone app, the 5.8mm graphene drivers produce a soundstage with real width, depth and texture. Wear detection is notably absent from the spec sheet, but class-leading battery life more than compensates, managing a formidable 45 hours with top-ups from the tidy charging case. At full price, they’re hard to fault. At their discounted ticket, the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ are unbeatable for buyers on a budget.
Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds were already five-star wireless earphones. Their successors improve the recipe in almost every way. Smaller, lighter and less conspicuous, the second-gen Earbuds are also more comfortable. In testing, we found the swappable tips and stability bands ensured a snug fit. Stems are short, but still accommodate responsive touch surfaces which can be customised through the feature-packed app. To our seasoned ears, the 9.3mm full-range drivers delivered bass that felt bold yet controlled. An expansive soundstage is matched by stacks of detail across the range. Others might make big dynamic variations more obvious, but the QuietComfort Earbuds II don’t want for nuance. And they excel when it comes to ANC: deploying four mics per earbud, they deal decisively with ambient noise, with no hint of in-ear pressure. So while six hours of on-board battery is bettered by rivals, the QCE II are Bose’s best noise-cancelling earphones to date.
Pairing AirPods tech with sporty styling, the Beats Fit Pro are some of the finest fitness earbuds around. With the help of flexible wingtips, their fit is equal parts comfortable and unshakeable. Sound quality is excellent, courtesy of Apple’s H1 chip and 9.5mm drivers inside: bass is predictably punchy, but overall output also proves rich, crisp and clear. Spatial audio support means sonic immersion with compatible tracks, plus Adaptive EQ tweaks sound to suit your surroundings. ANC and transparency modes ape the AirPods Pro, even if noise-cancellation isn’t the strongest. Battery life is competitive enough at 30 hours, while wear-detect sensors pause the playlist when you can’t hear it. The earphones reward iOS users with seamless connectivity, although the Android app also offers welcome customisation.
Comfortable, clever and equipped with active noise-cancellation, Apple’s AirPods Pro are a stellar set of wireless in-ears for iPhone fans. From Spatial Audio to automatic device-switching, the feature set is smart from start to finish. Find a good seal with assistance from Apple’s fit test and the AirPods reward you with a personalised listen: Adaptive EQ attunes audio output to suit your ear, while ANC monitors noise 200 times per second. The latter makes a notable difference in removing unwanted interruptions, while the former ensures a consistently rich, warm and detailed listen. Smarts are restricted for Android users and the AirPods Pro are easily beaten on battery life and price. But they’re an enticing choice for iPhone owners, with lightweight, ergonomic and neatly familiar packaging
Big and borderline gawky, Shure’s AONIC Free focus on sonic perfection over fashionable impressions. Robustly built and comfortable to wear, there’s no escaping their heft. Nor are the dimensions justified by a comprehensive feature set: there’s no ANC, the interface uses physical buttons and battery life is average at seven hours. So why are they in this list? Simple: they offer outstanding sound quality across the board. Few earbuds at any price can match their combination of accuracy, detail, punch and fidelity. The soundstage is large yet well-defined. Dynamic potency is considerable, rhythmic expression is naturalistic, and the overall tonality is entirely convincing. In short: if you’re willing to ignore their shortfalls in exchange for the best-possible sound, you need to hear the AONIC Free.
Ask any audiophile and they’ll tell you the Bowers & Wilkins name carries certain expectations of audio excellence. Luckily, the British hi-fi brand’s debut wireless earphones emphatically fulfil them. Bold by design, machined caps contribute to a premium finish. Not the smallest or lightest, each earbud harbours dual drivers and two individual amplifiers, producing incredible separation. Lows are deep but refined, while mids are given freedom to breathe, with incredible detail across the range. Which is good, because there’s no option to tweak the EQ. Noise cancellation is impressive, if not quite at Bose’s level for total blackout. Battery life should be better for the eye-watering price, but that’s countered by the clever charging case: retransmission tech means it can broadcast non-wireless signals via Bluetooth.
Adopting a dangly stem design, Denon’s first true wireless in-ears don’t upset the status quo. But with well-made, ergonomic shells, they represent a relatively stylish example of the form. They also benefit from ANC, although performance is decent, rather than outstanding. With muting smarts enabled, the AH-C830NCW deliver around five hours of battery life, plus a further four from the charging case. Each earbud features a touch surface, although you can’t use it to control the volume. Nor do you get an app, EQ or voice-assistant support. But these boldly old-school earbuds do have solid audio chops: bass frequencies are deep and textured, yet nicely balanced against an expressive mid-range and well-judged high frequencies – something not all true wireless earphones are brave enough to deliver.
Lighter and smaller than Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM4, the LinkBuds S are miniature earbuds for all-day audio. Barely there at 4.8g per bud, Sony reckons they’re the world’s lightest noise-cancelling wireless earphones and they’re certainly some of the best true wireless headphones. They a little practice to position, but silicone tips seat them securely and comfortably, while tap controls are easy to master. Relatively small drivers mean the LinkBuds S can’t compete with the WF-1000XM4 on energy. But while they feel a little lacking at higher frequencies, bass is decent and the listen is broadly balanced and enjoyable. Battery life could be better at six hours with ANC, but the overall experience is easy to live with. Sony’s Headphones app offers adaptive ambient sound control, while noise-cancelling excels when it comes to silencing wind during calls.
Comfortably resting between the company’s entry-level Elite 4 and excellent premium Elite 7 Active, the Jabra Elite 5 offers superb call quality, physical controls, and all manner of codecs to keep Apple and Android users sweet, including AAC, SBC and aptX.
Sound is punchy, and you can tweak things to your liking using the equaliser settings in Jabra’s app. Noise cancellation, while not the best around, is suitably decent, and the seven-hour battery life is respectable, if not mind-blowing. Given its mid-range price and solid overall design and performance though, this is a great choice for those looking for a respectable all-rounder with particularly excellent call performance.
Somehow it’s taken Beyerdynamic until 2022 to release its first pair of truly wireless earbuds, and while not the absolute best pair around, they still deliver on practically all fronts, including a very sturdy, if perhaps not awe-inspiring design. With a very generous selection of earbud tips, you’ll easily find your perfect fit, while sound customisation tuned to your ears make for an excellent listening experience.
ANC works well, and the wireless Qi case charging is a delightful touch — as are the customisable controls which can be easily changed in the Beyerdynamic app. If you’re a fan of the brand, you won’t be disappointed by this formidable first attempt.
Where once were wires, now Bluetooth reigns. And if it’s cordless audio you’re after, this is the list to listen to: from accessible in-ears to premium earphones, we’ve ranked the best true wireless headphones you can buy right now.
Whether you’re tired of tangled wires or upgrading to a port-free phone, there are buds for every ear and budget. The top options go light on your lugs but are sizeable on sound, offering sonic capabilities to rival any cabled competitor. Many also augment the listening experience with in-app adjustments and active noise cancellation.
Every pair of earbuds is tested extensively by our keen-eared team. Trialled in real-world conditions and challenged with a range of genres to rival your average Glastonbury line-up, you can be sure that the wireless earbuds below all cut the musical mustard. Looking for specifically for gym buds? Check out our dedicated list of the best wireless in-ears for sporty sorts.
Continuing its record of true-wireless winners, the WF-1000XM4 show once again that Sony knows how to make excellent earphones. Successors to the brilliant WF-1000XM3, the upgraded earbuds deliver a listen that’s as punchy as it is detailed. Spacious and balanced, they’re endlessly engaging in the ear. Besides their convincing sonic talents, the WF-1000XM4 cancel outside sounds effectively, with the option to tweak ANC levels in the outstanding partner app. That’s also where you can tinker with EQ levels, touch controls and more. Battery life is par for the course, but the trade-off is a tidy design that’s smaller than before – mirrored by a charging case that’s more pocket-friendly by 40%. The WF-1000XM3 remain better value, but the WF-1000XM4 set a fresh bar for in-ear superiority.
With a few simple improvements, the third generation of Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless in-ears cement their place among the best. Build quality feels as bomb-proof as before, while a 16% size reduction and means the updated ‘phones look less chunky. Each earbud features a touch interface, customisable through the feature-packed app. Taps can be set to cycle through ANC settings, which include effective transparency and anti-wind modes. Battery life is acceptably average at seven hours from the earbuds, but superlative audio performance makes up for it: fire up the 7mm drivers and they treat your ears to a poised recital. Favouring balance and fidelity over punishing bass, the Momentums demonstrate remarkable sonic control. Detail is engrossing across the range, with a spacious and tonal soundstage.
Building on the five-star benchmark set by their predecessors, Cambridge Audio’s Melomania 1+ shape up as a feature-packed and remarkably affordable pair of hi-fi wireless earbuds. With bullet-shaped shells, the flat-topped ‘phones are lightweight at 4.6g apiece. There’s no ANC, but superb sound isolation creates a hushed backdrop for a balanced listen. Even without tweaking EQ settings in the smartphone app, the 5.8mm graphene drivers produce a soundstage with real width, depth and texture. Wear detection is notably absent from the spec sheet, but class-leading battery life more than compensates, managing a formidable 45 hours with top-ups from the tidy charging case. At full price, they’re hard to fault. At their discounted ticket, the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ are unbeatable for buyers on a budget.
Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds were already five-star wireless earphones. Their successors improve the recipe in almost every way. Smaller, lighter and less conspicuous, the second-gen Earbuds are also more comfortable. In testing, we found the swappable tips and stability bands ensured a snug fit. Stems are short, but still accommodate responsive touch surfaces which can be customised through the feature-packed app. To our seasoned ears, the 9.3mm full-range drivers delivered bass that felt bold yet controlled. An expansive soundstage is matched by stacks of detail across the range. Others might make big dynamic variations more obvious, but the QuietComfort Earbuds II don’t want for nuance. And they excel when it comes to ANC: deploying four mics per earbud, they deal decisively with ambient noise, with no hint of in-ear pressure. So while six hours of on-board battery is bettered by rivals, the QCE II are Bose’s best noise-cancelling earphones to date.
Pairing AirPods tech with sporty styling, the Beats Fit Pro are some of the finest fitness earbuds around. With the help of flexible wingtips, their fit is equal parts comfortable and unshakeable. Sound quality is excellent, courtesy of Apple’s H1 chip and 9.5mm drivers inside: bass is predictably punchy, but overall output also proves rich, crisp and clear. Spatial audio support means sonic immersion with compatible tracks, plus Adaptive EQ tweaks sound to suit your surroundings. ANC and transparency modes ape the AirPods Pro, even if noise-cancellation isn’t the strongest. Battery life is competitive enough at 30 hours, while wear-detect sensors pause the playlist when you can’t hear it. The earphones reward iOS users with seamless connectivity, although the Android app also offers welcome customisation.
Comfortable, clever and equipped with active noise-cancellation, Apple’s AirPods Pro are a stellar set of wireless in-ears for iPhone fans. From Spatial Audio to automatic device-switching, the feature set is smart from start to finish. Find a good seal with assistance from Apple’s fit test and the AirPods reward you with a personalised listen: Adaptive EQ attunes audio output to suit your ear, while ANC monitors noise 200 times per second. The latter makes a notable difference in removing unwanted interruptions, while the former ensures a consistently rich, warm and detailed listen. Smarts are restricted for Android users and the AirPods Pro are easily beaten on battery life and price. But they’re an enticing choice for iPhone owners, with lightweight, ergonomic and neatly familiar packaging
Big and borderline gawky, Shure’s AONIC Free focus on sonic perfection over fashionable impressions. Robustly built and comfortable to wear, there’s no escaping their heft. Nor are the dimensions justified by a comprehensive feature set: there’s no ANC, the interface uses physical buttons and battery life is average at seven hours. So why are they in this list? Simple: they offer outstanding sound quality across the board. Few earbuds at any price can match their combination of accuracy, detail, punch and fidelity. The soundstage is large yet well-defined. Dynamic potency is considerable, rhythmic expression is naturalistic, and the overall tonality is entirely convincing. In short: if you’re willing to ignore their shortfalls in exchange for the best-possible sound, you need to hear the AONIC Free.
Ask any audiophile and they’ll tell you the Bowers & Wilkins name carries certain expectations of audio excellence. Luckily, the British hi-fi brand’s debut wireless earphones emphatically fulfil them. Bold by design, machined caps contribute to a premium finish. Not the smallest or lightest, each earbud harbours dual drivers and two individual amplifiers, producing incredible separation. Lows are deep but refined, while mids are given freedom to breathe, with incredible detail across the range. Which is good, because there’s no option to tweak the EQ. Noise cancellation is impressive, if not quite at Bose’s level for total blackout. Battery life should be better for the eye-watering price, but that’s countered by the clever charging case: retransmission tech means it can broadcast non-wireless signals via Bluetooth.
Adopting a dangly stem design, Denon’s first true wireless in-ears don’t upset the status quo. But with well-made, ergonomic shells, they represent a relatively stylish example of the form. They also benefit from ANC, although performance is decent, rather than outstanding. With muting smarts enabled, the AH-C830NCW deliver around five hours of battery life, plus a further four from the charging case. Each earbud features a touch surface, although you can’t use it to control the volume. Nor do you get an app, EQ or voice-assistant support. But these boldly old-school earbuds do have solid audio chops: bass frequencies are deep and textured, yet nicely balanced against an expressive mid-range and well-judged high frequencies – something not all true wireless earphones are brave enough to deliver.
Lighter and smaller than Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM4, the LinkBuds S are miniature earbuds for all-day audio. Barely there at 4.8g per bud, Sony reckons they’re the world’s lightest noise-cancelling wireless earphones and they’re certainly some of the best true wireless headphones. They a little practice to position, but silicone tips seat them securely and comfortably, while tap controls are easy to master. Relatively small drivers mean the LinkBuds S can’t compete with the WF-1000XM4 on energy. But while they feel a little lacking at higher frequencies, bass is decent and the listen is broadly balanced and enjoyable. Battery life could be better at six hours with ANC, but the overall experience is easy to live with. Sony’s Headphones app offers adaptive ambient sound control, while noise-cancelling excels when it comes to silencing wind during calls.
Comfortably resting between the company’s entry-level Elite 4 and excellent premium Elite 7 Active, the Jabra Elite 5 offers superb call quality, physical controls, and all manner of codecs to keep Apple and Android users sweet, including AAC, SBC and aptX.
Sound is punchy, and you can tweak things to your liking using the equaliser settings in Jabra’s app. Noise cancellation, while not the best around, is suitably decent, and the seven-hour battery life is respectable, if not mind-blowing. Given its mid-range price and solid overall design and performance though, this is a great choice for those looking for a respectable all-rounder with particularly excellent call performance.
Somehow it’s taken Beyerdynamic until 2022 to release its first pair of truly wireless earbuds, and while not the absolute best pair around, they still deliver on practically all fronts, including a very sturdy, if perhaps not awe-inspiring design. With a very generous selection of earbud tips, you’ll easily find your perfect fit, while sound customisation tuned to your ears make for an excellent listening experience.
ANC works well, and the wireless Qi case charging is a delightful touch — as are the customisable controls which can be easily changed in the Beyerdynamic app. If you’re a fan of the brand, you won’t be disappointed by this formidable first attempt.
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What’s new in Visual Studio in 2022 – SDTimes.com
Visual Studio is Microsoft’s integrated development environment (IDE) that is used by developers all around the world.
According to Stack Overflow’s 2022 development survey, 32% of developers preferred Visual Studio as their IDE, coming in second to the more lightweight IDE Visual Studio Code, which was used by 74% of respondents.
Given its popularity, we’re going back through the past year to highlight what’s new in Visual Studio. There were several releases in 2022, so it’s possible to have missed a new feature here or there that you could be taking advantage of.
While many new features were added to the platform in 2022, Simon Calvert, partner director of product management for Visual Studio at Microsoft, explained that the customer themes the Visual Studio team focused on this past year were productivity and performance, enterprise success and scale, support for modern workloads, and innovation in AI-assistance, collaboration, and Git tools.
On the performance front, one significant change of note is that Visual Studio 2022 is the first 64-bit version. This will enable it to be used for larger scale projects.
According to Tim Huckaby, a Microsoft global regional director, a previous critique of Visual Studio was that it struggled when handling large and complex projects, and the 64-bit version makes it more capable of taking on those complex projects. “So the really huge projects, you know, the multimillion lines of code, or complex machine learning and AI tech stuff, now can perform and actually use these powerful CPUs that computers are shipping with,” he said.
Other performance additions that came this year include reducing the time it takes to load in large solutions, reducing the time it takes to search for text in files, and ensuring that typing is responsive.
On the developer productivity side, Microsoft introduced a number of AI-assisted capabilities that make coding easier for developers. These include things like suggesting code or applying repeated edits, Calvert explained.
.NET Hot Reload was another capability that became generally available in Visual Studio 2022. It enables developers to modify code while the application is running, rather than having to pause or hit a breakpoint.
“Regardless of the type of app you’re working on, our goal with Hot Reload is to save you as many app restarts between edits as possible, making you more productive by reducing the time you spend waiting for apps to rebuild, restart, re-navigate to the previous location where you were in the app itself, etc,” Dmitry Lyalin, principal program manager for .NET, wrote in a blog post explaining the feature.
Calvert believes that Hot Reload combined with the previously mentioned AI-assisted capabilities make Visual Studio “the best place for developers to rapidly create and innovate.”
“The productivity is just so good,” said Huckaby. “You can actually learn how to build software from the tool itself, and I think that’s great. I’ve always made these predictions that software development will ultimately become easy and we’ll get software architecture for free, and it seems like my predictions are coming true. The difficulty these days is actually the definition of the business problem you’re trying to solve, and how you’re going to solve it, as opposed to the code you’re going to write to do it.”
.NET MAUI reached GA this year
Another major introduction into Visual Studio this year is .NET MAUI, which stands for multi-platform App UI. .NET MAUI allows developers to create applications for different operating systems and devices using a single codebase.
According to Calvert, these apps will look and feel like the operating system they belong on and the layouts are fully adapted to each device, without the developer having to write additional code.
“The GA release of .NET MAUI was a notable moment because of the simplification it brings developers targeting different platforms for their apps,” said Calvert. “We had many different control vendors and library developers provide support for .NET MAUI from day one and this continues to grow day by day.”
The team also had accessibility in mind when developing .NET MAUI. It introduced semantic properties, which allow anyone developing with .NET MAUI to build accessible applications. “This allows developers to precisely control the accessibility of their application to suit their app needs,” said Calvert.
The team also published documentation and a blog series to get developers up to speed on these accessibility features quickly.
Accessibility in Visual Studio 2022
Accessibility wasn’t just a consideration in .NET MAUI, but in Visual Studio as a whole. This past year, Microsoft put a lot of effort and resources into both, making Visual Studio more accessible.
Within Visual Studio, one new feature is font ligatures, which can help reduce cognitive load and improve readability. Ligatures are characters that are combined together to make them easier to read. For example, a ligature of “Th” would appear as if the tops of the two letters touch, rather than as separate characters with a gap in between them.
Calvert also went on to explain that the new colorized tabs and themes may be helpful for developers with different visual disabilities. The team also recently added audio cues that can be used by developers using a screen reader, which plays a sound when the caret comes to a line containing a breakpoint, error, or warning.
And code synthesis tools, such as IntelliCode and Whole Line Completion, can help developers with motor disabilities by reducing keystrokes, Calvert explained.
An upcoming feature for developers with reading disabilities is the spell checker. According to Calvert, this has been a frequently requested feature “from our users with reading disabilities to reduce anxiety that comes from spelling mistakes.”
What’s next?
The Visual Studio team’s next goal is to accelerate developers’ journey to the cloud, according to Calvert. This includes making sure Visual Studio works well with Microsoft Azure. They are also working to reduce friction in deploying container-based applications to scalable platform services.
Building on the release of Microsoft Dev Box, which is an Azure service that gives access to dev environments, developers can also expect more developer-focused optimizations for the cloud to come as well.
“Visual Studio remains the absolute best-in-class fully integrated development environment for .NET development of any kind, and we will continue to deliver updates in productivity
in coding workflows, more AI-assisted development improvements, performance, and improving the inner loop for API development for developers, keeping them closer to their code in a single development tool,” said Calvert.
Key features in each preview release
While this article has gone over the broad changes to the language this year, here are several of the specific additions to Visual Studio that came out in the various preview releases this year.
Visual Studio 2022 17.1
Visual Studio 2022 17.2
Visual Studio 2022 17.3
While not out yet, the next release is Visual Studio 17.4. It will be a long-term servicing channel release and will receive updates through July 2024.
Here are some of the highlights from the various preview releases for 17.4:
Microsoft, Visual Studio
Jenna Sargent Barron is News Editor of SD Times. She covers Microsoft, data, programming languages, and UI frameworks and libraries. She likes tabletop gaming and knitting. Follow her on Twitter at @jsargey!
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Victor Newbury Music Center review: an attractive, well-designed record player with bonus features – AppleInsider
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Don’t break the bank or waste space trying to accommodate all your favorite music types — the Newbury Music Center can play your favorite CDs, records, Bluetooth audio, and more.
Whether you’re just starting your music journey or if you’ve been collecting for a long time, it can be daunting trying to find audio equipment that fits well in your home.
The Newbury Music center is designed to take the place of multiple pieces of audio equipment, making it perfect for small spaces. It plays your CDs, records, and Bluetooth audio — and even features an FM Radio tuner.
Design
We love the design of the Newbury 8-in-1 Music Center. It features chair-height tapered legs and invokes a mid-century design that we think looks great.
It comes in two colorways, Mahogany and Espresso. We received an espresso one to review.
The lid closes to keep your turntable dust free
The front of the Newbury features an attractive brass faceplate that houses the controls. Victor also includes a separate remote control, which we thought was an excellent addition.
If you’d rather have it on a tabletop, the manufacturer also includes some table-height feet.
It spins records
The most significant selling point of the Newbury is the 3-speed turntable housed under the lid at the top. It’s a reasonably standard turntable; thankfully, the stylus is replaceable.
View of the turntable with a record
When we tested it, there was no skipping, and the speed was consistent, which made for a pleasant listening experience.
As a bonus, a 45 RPM 7″ single adapter is included, too.
…and plays CDs, too!
Of course, it’s not just a record player. It also plays CDs.
We absolutely loved this feature, as many of us still have our music collections from days gone by, and as expected, that includes a lot of CDs as well.
Bluetooth in, Bluetooth Out
The Newbury features a dual Bluetooth mode, which is excellent. If you’d like to pair your iPhone or Mac with it and listen to music from Apple Music, you can.
But if you want to pair it with an existing Bluetooth speaker, you can do that, too. This is great if you’ve got a Bluetooth speaker you’re already quite fond of.
View of the front panel
We tested the Bluetooth In and Bluetooth Out features with no problems — it worked exactly as it should.
We should also mention that there’s a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks, which allows you to connect other devices to your Newbury. One is a Line In, while the other is an Audio Out.
For instance, you can connect a Walkman cassette player and use your Newbury’s speakers to play your favorite cassettes. Or, if you’d rather connect a speaker to your Newbury, you can also do that.
FM Radio
We’d be remiss not to mention the FM Radio feature. You can listen to the radio, and when you use the scanner feature, it’ll automatically save all stations it finds as presets.
While the FM radio works, it’s not the best. This is partially due to the style of antenna used — a floppy, single wire that we found worked better if we lifted it upward.
We would have preferred a rigid, extendable antenna, as we’ve got another radio that uses one, and it works much better.
However, if you don’t listen to the radio often, there’s hardly any reason to be concerned with this — we see it purely as a bonus feature.
Record your records… or your CDs
If you’d like to record the music from your records or CDs, the Newbury comes with a handy feature that allows you to record the audio to a thumb drive.
This is great if you’ve got some obscure records or CDs in your collection that you’d like to make digital copies of.
We tested the feature and found that it worked well. You do need to manually start and stop for individual tracks or do final editing in a sound editing app.
Sound quality
Overall, the Newbury is a nice little all-in-one music system. The speakers are sufficient for normal use, and at average volumes, it provides clear mids and crisp highs.
It doesn’t offer much in the way of bass, but it doesn’t sound too thin, either.
The soundstage is a bit cramped, which is to be expected. It’s not a very large speaker, and while there is some channel separation, it’s not much.
Still, we found the experience to be enjoyable all around.
However, this is not the tool for a boisterous party. The maximum volume isn’t terribly loud — we measured an average of 72 decibels from six feet away — and the audio can distort a bit at higher levels.
The Newbury Music Center is better geared toward smaller, intimate listening sessions.
It’s best suited to small-group listening sessions or everyday listening. If you’d like to use it in louder scenarios, we’d suggest pairing it with a more substantial Bluetooth speaker.
Who the Newbury Music Center is for
We think the Newbury would make an excellent addition to a first apartment or casual music listener home. Its entry price point and attractive design make it a fantastic addition to nearly any space.
Real audiophiles will want to invest in something at a higher price point as this lacks the depth that serious listeners may be looking for.
Pros of the Newbury Music Center
- Attractive, retro design
- Plays records, CD, and audio streamed from Bluetooth sources
- Dual Bluetooth function
- Records records, CDs to thumb drive
Cons of Newbury Music Center
- Lacks deep bass
- Distorts at higher volumes and maximum volume is relatively low
- FM radio feature feels like an afterthought
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Where to buy
You can pick up a Newbury Music Center from Victor for $179.99
Whether you’re just starting your music journey or if you’ve been collecting for a long time, it can be daunting trying to find audio equipment that fits well in your home.
The Newbury Music center is designed to take the place of multiple pieces of audio equipment, making it perfect for small spaces. It plays your CDs, records, and Bluetooth audio — and even features an FM Radio tuner.
We love the design of the Newbury 8-in-1 Music Center. It features chair-height tapered legs and invokes a mid-century design that we think looks great.
It comes in two colorways, Mahogany and Espresso. We received an espresso one to review.
The front of the Newbury features an attractive brass faceplate that houses the controls. Victor also includes a separate remote control, which we thought was an excellent addition.
If you’d rather have it on a tabletop, the manufacturer also includes some table-height feet.
The most significant selling point of the Newbury is the 3-speed turntable housed under the lid at the top. It’s a reasonably standard turntable; thankfully, the stylus is replaceable.
When we tested it, there was no skipping, and the speed was consistent, which made for a pleasant listening experience.
As a bonus, a 45 RPM 7″ single adapter is included, too.
Of course, it’s not just a record player. It also plays CDs.
We absolutely loved this feature, as many of us still have our music collections from days gone by, and as expected, that includes a lot of CDs as well.
The Newbury features a dual Bluetooth mode, which is excellent. If you’d like to pair your iPhone or Mac with it and listen to music from Apple Music, you can.
But if you want to pair it with an existing Bluetooth speaker, you can do that, too. This is great if you’ve got a Bluetooth speaker you’re already quite fond of.
We tested the Bluetooth In and Bluetooth Out features with no problems — it worked exactly as it should.
We should also mention that there’s a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks, which allows you to connect other devices to your Newbury. One is a Line In, while the other is an Audio Out.
For instance, you can connect a Walkman cassette player and use your Newbury’s speakers to play your favorite cassettes. Or, if you’d rather connect a speaker to your Newbury, you can also do that.
We’d be remiss not to mention the FM Radio feature. You can listen to the radio, and when you use the scanner feature, it’ll automatically save all stations it finds as presets.
While the FM radio works, it’s not the best. This is partially due to the style of antenna used — a floppy, single wire that we found worked better if we lifted it upward.
We would have preferred a rigid, extendable antenna, as we’ve got another radio that uses one, and it works much better.
However, if you don’t listen to the radio often, there’s hardly any reason to be concerned with this — we see it purely as a bonus feature.
If you’d like to record the music from your records or CDs, the Newbury comes with a handy feature that allows you to record the audio to a thumb drive.
This is great if you’ve got some obscure records or CDs in your collection that you’d like to make digital copies of.
We tested the feature and found that it worked well. You do need to manually start and stop for individual tracks or do final editing in a sound editing app.
Overall, the Newbury is a nice little all-in-one music system. The speakers are sufficient for normal use, and at average volumes, it provides clear mids and crisp highs.
It doesn’t offer much in the way of bass, but it doesn’t sound too thin, either.
The soundstage is a bit cramped, which is to be expected. It’s not a very large speaker, and while there is some channel separation, it’s not much.
Still, we found the experience to be enjoyable all around.
However, this is not the tool for a boisterous party. The maximum volume isn’t terribly loud — we measured an average of 72 decibels from six feet away — and the audio can distort a bit at higher levels.
It’s best suited to small-group listening sessions or everyday listening. If you’d like to use it in louder scenarios, we’d suggest pairing it with a more substantial Bluetooth speaker.
We think the Newbury would make an excellent addition to a first apartment or casual music listener home. Its entry price point and attractive design make it a fantastic addition to nearly any space.
Real audiophiles will want to invest in something at a higher price point as this lacks the depth that serious listeners may be looking for.
You can pick up a Newbury Music Center from Victor for $179.99
I bought a USB turntable that could record my LP’s to a flash drive about 5 years ago. After the first 3-4 recordings, I realized that I wouldn’t live long enough to digitize my 2,000 LP’s. Each one takes 45-55 minutes (the length of the album), then you want to clean them up, which can take even longer. You’re talking thousands of hours.
I sold my entire collection to a used record store that only sells LP’s. Didn’t get much, but freed up a lot of space in my spare room! And I’ve found every single album I’ve looked for online. Some took a lot of research (the entire Paul Rogers performance from Isle of Wight, among others), but so far, none has remained elusive. Not even “The Open Mind of John D. Loudermilk!”
Do they own or license the old RCA brand names?
The recording feature is a useful bonus. But I guess this is really for people who want to play their vinyl with only a small amount of investment. Most albums I have on vinyl, I can get digitally. Of course you don’t get those wonderful clicks and noise that makes a record sound alive.
At some point I will want to get a turnable to listen to vinyl again. What would be neat is to have it integrate with a very good sound system.
doggone said:The recording feature is a useful bonus. But I guess this is really for people who want to play their vinyl with only a small amount of investment. Most albums I have on vinyl, I can get digitally. Of course you don’t get those wonderful clicks and noise that makes a record sound alive.At some point I will want to get a turnable to listen to vinyl again. What would be neat is to have it integrate with a very good sound system.
Most of the audiophiles I did business with only played their vinyl LPs once, to record them. They were morbidly afraid of degrading the sound quality, and thus gave up the original sound quality.
Most of the audiophiles I did business with only played their vinyl LPs once, to record them. They were morbidly afraid of degrading the sound quality, and thus gave up the original sound quality.
If you’ve never heard the German Quadraphonic import of “Dark Side of the Moon,” you’ve never heard “Dark Side of the Moon.” You’ve only heard about half or less.
Elon Musk has reportedly looked to his Tesla workforce to help with his transformation of Twitter, with more than 50 software engineers from the car producer working on the microblogging service.
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There is much to like in macOS Ventura and many reasons to upgrade, but there are still some oddly rough edges and not all of the new features live up to promises.
The Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra are the company's newest wearable accessories, and these are the features that might tempt new buyers or Apple Watch Series 7 owners.
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Powerball Jackpot Increased to World Record $1.6 Billion for Tonight's Drawing – positivelyosceola.com
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Nov 5, 2022 | Florida News, News |
The Powerball® jackpot that started rolling three months ago has become the world’s largest lotto prize ever offered. Game leaders increased the Powerball jackpot estimate Friday morning to a record $1.6 billion for the Saturday, Nov. 5 drawing. The jackpot has a cash value of $782.4 million.
Saturday’s estimated jackpot has surpassed the world record amount previously set by Powerball in 2016, when tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee won a $1.586 billion jackpot.
“This Powerball game is delivering exactly what our players want,” said Drew Svitko, Powerball Product Group Chair and Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director. “We are witnessing history in the making with this $1.6 billion jackpot! What’s also exciting is that this run has already created millions of winners, including nearly 100 players who have won prizes worth $1 million or more.”
The next Powerball drawing will take place at the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee at 10:59 p.m. ET on Saturday, Nov. 5. Ticket sale cut-off times vary by jurisdiction, but typically occur 1-2 hours before the scheduled drawing.
“There’s a lot of anticipation and excitement leading up to Saturday’s drawing,” noted Svitko. “We would like to remind players that it only takes one ticket to win. Please, play responsibly.”
Saturday’s drawing will be the 40th Powerball drawing since the jackpot was last won on August 3 in Pennsylvania. If no one wins the jackpot in Saturday’s drawing, it will tie the game record for the number of consecutive drawings without a grand prize winner. The longest jackpot run in Powerball history ended on Oct. 4, 2021, when a ticket in California won a $699.8 million jackpot on the 41st drawing.
Powerball tickets are $2 per play. Tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than half of all proceeds from the sale of a Powerball ticket remain in the jurisdiction where the ticket was sold. Powerball drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee.
Jackpot winners may choose to receive their prize as an annuity, paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or a lump sum payment. Both advertised prize options are prior to federal and jurisdictional taxes. The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
Top 10 Powerball Jackpots
1. $1.6 Billion (est.) – Nov. 5, 2022
2. $1.586 Billion – Jan. 13, 2016 – CA, FL, TN
3. $768.4 Million – March 27, 2019 – WI
4. $758.7 Million – Aug. 23, 2017 – MA
5. $731.1 Million – Jan. 20, 2021 – MD
6. $699.8 Million – Oct. 4, 2021 – CA
7. $687.8 Million – Oct. 27, 2018 – IA, NY
8. $632.6 Million – Jan. 5, 2022 – CA, WI
9. $590.5 Million – May 18, 2013 – FL
10. $587.5 Million – Nov. 28, 2012 – AZ, MO
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Elizabeth Hardwick’s Master Class on Literature and Life – The New York Times
Elizabeth Hardwick’s Master Class on Literature and Life The New York Times
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Why Tesla does not include CarPlay and Android Auto support – Not a Tesla App
For everything that Teslas offer, these incredible vehicles are missing something available in nearly every other new automobile — Apple’s CarPlay and Android Auto.
Apple and Google released their vehicle user interfaces back in 2014. Yet, eight years and countless requests later, Tesla still doesn’t support CarPlay or Android Auto.
While Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk has never given an official explanation, there’s plenty of speculation about why the dominant electric vehicle manufacturer does not support these features.
First and foremost, Tesla develops its own software that is miles ahead of traditional car manufacturers.
The huge benefit that other manufacturers gain by integrating CarPlay just isn’t as crucial in a Tesla, which already offers intuitive, responsive software with many features.
Many apps on a phone that would be useful in a vehicle are already available in a Tesla, from navigation, Spotify, phone integration, text messaging, karaoke, to a web browser and more. Although Tesla doesn’t have a robust app store like Apple and Google, it does offer features that cover common use cases.
However, it’s understandable the craving some users may have for CarPlay or Android Auto if Tesla doesn’t support their favorite streaming service, such as Apple Music, SiriusXM or even voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant.
Although you’re able to listen to music through Spotify, and TIDAL, watch Netflix and YouTube on the car’s large display through Tesla’s software, there will always be more options and features on a phone, regardless of how many features Tesla includes.
One reason for not integrating CarPlay or Android Auto into Teslas is that these systems would break up the Tesla experience.
CarPlay and Android Auto currently operate in their own, separate experiences. This requires you to first pull up CarPlay and then perform your desired task, such as setting your destination or switching music.
In traditional vehicles, this isn’t much of an issue since CarPlay or Android Auto (AA) usually take over the middle infotainment display. This allows CarPlay or AA to remain on screen, which means that you can just tap the app you want.
However, in a Tesla, software features are very tightly integrated, and the addition of CarPlay/AA would break up the seamless experience Tesla currently offers.
For example, in a Model Y music and navigation are usually both displayed on the vehicle’s screen at the same time, something that is not currently possible with CarPlay.
In addition, if the driver maximizes the music player or launches a different app in a Tesla, then Tesla displays navigation information on the left side of the screen, keeping the driver aware of the next turn.
If the driver receives a text message while driving, the driver can see and hear the message being received, regardless of which app is on screen.
However, since all of CarPlay’s features only work in a CarPlay window, this kind of flexibility and integration isn’t possible.
Incorporating CarPlay or Android Auto duplicates a lot of features Tesla already has and removes the ability for Tesla to deep link apps and features.
For example, in a Tesla you could have the maps, phone, calendar, Spotify and other apps in the vehicle’s launcher, giving you one-tap access to the app
For example, imagine if you had Google Maps open and you wanted to view your backup camera then open Spotify. In a Tesla, you’d tap the camera in the launcher, then tap Spotify. Two taps.
However, if you wanted to perform the same actions with CarPlay, this would take significantly longer. You’d first tap the camera icon in Tesla’s launcher, then tap to go back to CarPlay, but you’d still have to go ‘Home’ on the CarPlay interface, then find Spotify. That’s four taps, assuming Spotify was on the first page of CarPlay’s home screen.
Since CarPlay acts as a secondary experience this will often increase the number of taps to get to certain information.
CarPlay also duplicates many features in a vehicle which results in some confusion since there are multiple apps for the same thing, such as navigation and music.
This issue is only exacerbated in a Tesla since Tesla offers so many of the same features as CarPlay such as maps, messages, phone, calendar, podcasts, etc.
Apple revealed a significantly improved CarPlay experience at the 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference. Emily Schubert, Apple’s Senior Manager of Car Experience Engineering, said the company has “been working with automakers to reinvent the in-car experience across all the drivers’ screens.” The redesigned CarPlay appears much more customizable, and it’s said to seamlessly integrate into vehicles instead of having a CarPlay window or taking over the entire screen.
This may be an experience that would suit Teslas much more than Apple’s current offering, however, there’s something else that is likely preventing Tesla from incorporating Apple’s or Google’s auto interface.
Vehicles have traditionally been about getting you to your destination, however, that’s now shifting. No one wants a car that just gets them to their desired location, they want to get there as safely as possible and be entertained on the way.
As this shift continues and we approach an autonomous future, vehicles will be much more about software and their entertainment offerings.
The next generation of car makers will not be decided by how they drive, but by how autonomous they are and what software features they offer.
While many pit Tesla against Volkswagen, Toyota and others, these are merely short-term obstacles for Tesla.
Tesla’s true competitors have yet to emerge, but they’ll be in the form of powerful tech companies such as Apple and Google. Companies that not only have strong design and AI foundations but also have access to a large user base and a dominant platform.
When a manufacturer incorporates CarPlay or Android Auto, they’re giving up a great deal of control to Apple or Google.
They’re not only giving up control though, they’re giving up the opportunity to build a vehicle platform and a loyal user base.
If Tesla added CarPlay and Android Auto to their vehicles, they’d be helping their upcoming competitors by giving them control of a market they already know will decide the next big players – the inside of the automobile.
But there is another solution that may keep Apple users and Tesla happy — the use of AirPlay. This capability enables pairing a phone to an audio device to stream music or podcasts. AirPlay is not available in cars yet, but it would not be much of a leap to include the option with Tesla already equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities. Elon Musk recently left the door open for that development.
In May 2022, Musk responded to a tweet. @JacobB1290H wrote: “The speaker system in Teslas are so good, but we are limited by the quality of Bluetooth. Could we have AirPlay added? It adds the ability for lossless streaming. The hardware necessary is already there.”
Musk responded: “Will discuss this and other improvements with Tesla audio engineering. The new Model S and X sound system is incredible.” His tweet generated 11.6k likes and 440 retweets.
At least one developer has created a workaround to add CarPlay to Teslas. Michal Gapinski developed a solution that allows you to take a Raspberry Pi and connect it to your vehicle to incorporate CarPlay into the vehicle’s browser.
While the solution is great, it does require some tech knowledge to get working. While this gives some users what they want, it puts even more pressure on Tesla to develop a native solution.
During the 2022 Apple event, the company stated that CarPlay is a must-have feature for people who are car shopping. According to Apple, 79 percent of buyers in the United States would only consider a vehicle that is CarPlay-capable. The company also says that CarPlay is already available in 98 percent of cars in the U.S.
These numbers put Tesla and other EV manufacturers such as Rivian in a difficult position. They understand the future of the EV, but at the same time, their users are demanding access to CarPlay and Android Auto.
Tesla’s bringing its collection of revolutionary electric vehicles to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
The exhibit, dubbed “Inside Tesla: Supercharging the Electric Revolution,” will offer an in-depth look at the past, present, and future of the electric vehicle revolution. It will also showcase Tesla’s history, from its early and rough beginnings to the present global leader in EVs.
The exhibit will feature the most comprehensive collection of Tesla’s products to date. From early prototypes of the Model 3 from 2016 to the 2012 Model X prototype, as well as Tesla’s 1 millionth vehicle ever produced, these rare vehicles will be on display.
In addition to the vehicles, there will be information about the products and software that powers each car. Information about Tesla’s energy ecosystem, manufacturing automation, Autopilot, and Full Self-Driving expertise will be on full display. Attendees will also get an inside look at projects from SpaceX, The Boring Company, and Hyperloop.
“Tesla has revolutionized the automotive, EV, technology, and manufacturing spaces within a relatively short time span, begetting the question, ‘How did they do that?’” Terry L. Karges, Petersen Automotive Museum’s Executive Director, says in a press release shared with Not a Tesla App. “This exhibit strives to be a holistic walk-through of how the brand became a global phenomenon and further details what lies ahead.”
“Inside Tesla: Supercharging the Electric Revolution” will be open to the public on November 20 in the Mullin Family Grand Salon and Phillip Sarofim Porte Cochere on the museum’s first floor. The exhibit will be open until October 22, 2023.
For more information and how to purchase tickets, visit the Petersen Automotive Museum’s website.
The Financial Times recently reported that Tesla had talks with Glencore about taking a stake in the Swiss mining giant. It seems that Tesla and Glencore held some sort of discussions starting as early as last year. Discussions apparently continued until March this year when Glencore’s chief executive Gary Eagle visited Tesla’s Fremont Factory.
According to the FT, Tesla supposedly planned to buy a minority equity stake of 10% to 20% in Glencore but both parties were unable to reach an agreement. Tesla had concerns over Glencore’s coal mining business which conflicted with the EV manufacturer’s environmental goals.
However, at an investor’s conference today in New York, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla “never contemplated investing in Glencore.” It’s not clear what led the FT to think that Tesla was considering investing in Glencore, but there may have been conversations between Tesla and Glencore as Tesla tries to secure mining materials.
Glencore does plan to align itself with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and shrinking its coal portfolio over time.
Glencore is the world’s largest trading house and producer of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, and Canada. A few years ago, Tesla secured a cobalt offtake agreement with the Swiss mining giant for Giga Shanghai and Giga Berlin.
Although talks between Tesla and Glencore did not lead to Tesla considering an investment in the mining giant, the discussions hint that Tesla is interested in what’s happening in the mining industry.
Elon has said in the past that he prefers not to enter the mining industry, although Tesla will if they have to. Mining could become more of a constraint as Tesla increases vehicle production and scales the 4680 battery assembly line.
At the Q3 2022 earnings call, Elon was asked about vertically integrating into mining, and he responded:
“We’ll do whatever we have to. Whatever the limiting factor is, we’ll do. We do not artificially constrain ourselves. We don’t vertically integrate just for the hell of vertically integrating,” Elon Musk replied to Jonas.
“Like if there was a great supplier who’s better than us or we think is at least very good, or even where the economics of comparative advantage suggests that we should use that supplier, even if we could beat them, but we could use our resources to do something else that will be more productive, then we would in source in that case. But if we have to go mine, we will mine,” Musk explained.
The rise of EVs has caused many carmakers to become more involved in the mining industry to secure raw materials such as cobalt, lithium and nickel that are needed to manufacture batteries.
These types of discussions will likely continue as the need for such raw materials increases. It is possible that Tesla’s Master Plan Part 3 will involve the acquisition of a mining company so that Tesla can “scale to extreme size to shift humanity away from fossil fuels.”
View the release notes for the upcoming version 2022.40.4.1.
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View all known voice commands for your Tesla.
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TeslaFi is a service that logs your drives and charging sessions so that you can later refer back to them. We highly recommend checking them out if you use your car for business trips and would like to keep track of reimbursements, if you like to see how much you spend on charging or if you just love statistics. View their about us page and see everything they have to offer!
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Tesla’s bringing its collection of revolutionary electric vehicles to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles…
The Financial Times recently reported that Tesla had talks with Glencore about taking a stake in the Swiss mining gia…
Several Tesla enthusiasts posted videos to YouTube showing viewers their first drives with Full Self Driving (FSD) Be…
Shiny new Model 3s started appearing last month, missing the small, round polka dots on their bumpers. The circles we…
Since the Cybertruck unveiling in 2019, Tesla has pushed production dates back numerous times: from late 2021 to late…
The Simpsons, one of the longest-running TV shows of all time, have had some epic cars in Springfield; now Tesla is o…
You can’t blame Elon Musk for getting some help from his most trusted Tesla engineers. Musk, who took over Twitter a …
It may be one the most anticipated software updates in recent years. Finally, after weeks of Elon Musk tweeting that …
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An EV reliability survey out of China listed the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 as two of the most reliable electric vehic…
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View all known voice commands for your Tesla.
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The perfect pair of true wireless earbuds is getting harder to find – Android Authority
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Without sounding like a disgruntled 90-year-old, what happened to the good old days? I remember a blissful period of my life when my not-so-portable Discman player finally packed it in, and the emergence of MP3 players took hold. I spent hours “ripping” all of my tunes from my extremely cool 90s music catalog onto my new Sony Ericsson Walkman. When that also bit the dust, I transferred all of my files over to the utterly impressive iPod Mini, then a new and improved 4GB iPod Classic, and eventually to my first smartphone.
My one comfort in a time of ever-changing formats was that I could always take my headphones with me, safe in the knowledge that I’d get the most out of them with any new player. There was a brief period in time when portable music players, mobile phones, and headphones all co-existed in beautiful cross-compatible harmony.
That’s, sadly, not always the case today. With the virtually universal death of the smartphone 3.5mm headphone jack, we’re now reliant on Bluetooth headphones. While they’ll always play music back just fine, the move to digital audio solutions has opened the door to pernicious, and sometimes seemingly predatory proprietary headphone features ruining interoperability that was once a given. This is particularly the case when buying earbuds from popular smartphone brands.
Now don’t get me wrong, big brands investing in pioneering tech that makes our listening experiences better, such as Spatial Audio, fast pairing, improved ANC capabilities, and EQ-adjustable apps, can only be a good thing. But what doesn’t make our lives better is the fact that these very same companies are more inclined each day, it seems, to cut their customers off from everybody else on the market.
Let’s run a hypothetical scenario where I want to purchase a pair of Apple’s new AirPods Pro. Already, I’m going to miss out on a load of the features that make these earbuds worth purchasing in the first place, simply because my phone runs Google’s Android OS.
Apple’s seamless pairing doesn’t work, for example, making it a longer process to get connected. While this is a bit of a bigger ecosystem play, Apple could at least get on board with Google Fast Pair to better support more customers. You can’t customize the earbuds’ double-tap functionality like you can when paired with an iPhone. Likewise, you obviously won’t be able to run the iOS-exclusive Siri virtual assistant, but Apple doesn’t support a way to launch Google Assistant or Alexa as an alternative.
Flagship features play truant as well. Ear detection to automatically pause music when you remove an AirPod isn’t supported on Android, and neither is Apple’s ear tip fit test. Meanwhile, Apple Music for Android only supports Spatial Audio on a handful of Android phones that support Dolby Atmos. In fact, you can’t even upgrade the AirPods Pro’s firmware when connected to an Android device, leaving you without important fixes and feature updates.
Finding out the fancy new AirPods Pro that you’ve been so excited to save up for can’t be updated from your phone might be the worst proprietary offense we’ve seen. But it further cements the idea that Apple users must embed themselves further into the ecosystem and that outsiders will have to give in and join the family.
You’d also need to consider how you’re going to charge your AirPods Pro. You’ll have to fumble for a Lightning-to-USB cable that your other gadgets don’t support or opt for a MagSafe wireless charger or Qi option. Of course, Apple has a long-running form in the proprietary charging game, dating all the way back to the bizarre 30-pin original iPod connector. Thankfully, this is going to change across Europe in 2024, however, as the EU has just approved legislation to make USB-C mandatory.
Hopefully, that’s clear enough that you either stump up all-in to Apple’s ecosystem or have to make do with a substantially cut-back experience.
But this entire conversation isn’t about bashing Apple — other companies have also grown big dollar-stamped money bags in their eyes as they search for new and innovative ways to cultivate loyal long-term customers, with traditionally platform-agnostic headphones caught in the crossfire. You only need to look at Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro to see the brand’s attempt to convince customers to purchase its, and only its, audio accessories.
On the surface, these are pretty damned exciting earbuds. However, delve a little deeper into their specific features, and you’ll realize that, like Apple, Samsung also sees propriety as its future. Take the Galaxy Wearables app, which (depending on your device) controls EQ Presets, ANC & transparency levels, Ambient sound mode, Fit Tests, Samsung 360 Audio, Find My Earbuds, and software updates.
Sounds like a pretty handy app, right? Well, it turns out that, at present, there is no iOS app compatibility at all. That’s a problem, because you need to use the app to enable Samsung’s 360 Audio feature.
Speaking of, Samsung’s flagship 360 Audio feature requires a Galaxy phone or tablet to support the Dolby Atmos-powered feature as well. So that’s the rest of the Android ecosystem cut off. Likewise, the Samsung Seamless Codec only works when connected to a modern Samsung phone, while Samsung ignores support for more universal high-quality codecs like aptX and LDAC.
But it isn’t just software and firmware updates that are an issue. Even the controls that map your media playback options are often dictated by whether you’re using the same brand of smartphone that matches your buds, which also affects whether or not you can check your battery life, switch your devices, or activate quick pairing. From OnePlus’ Audio ID to Huawei’s Audio Connection Center, it seems brands love their proprietary twists. For example, Huawei’s FreeBuds 3i only enjoy auto-pairing and ultra-low latency when connected with a recent Huawei device, while the FreeBuds 4 reserve quick pairing and the ability to transfer playback from a smartphone to a Huawei TV or tablet when paired with devices powered by Harmony OS. These kinds of proprietary functions are becoming an issue with more and more manufacturers.
And who does this benefit? Certainly not us, the consumers. If it’s possible for companies like JLab to provide us with cross-platform features and updates on iOS and Android, why is it so difficult for Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, et al., to do the same?
One can only speculate that it’s to embed each of these brands’ “fan bases” so that consumers are more inclined to return back to the same company when they wish to upgrade. And it makes perfect, cynical sense, right? The more products that you own from one brand, with all of its specific features and connectivity, the less likely you are to go elsewhere and put yourself at the huge inconvenience of having to set everything up again from scratch.
As reasonable as it is for Samsung, Apple, or any brand to build better experiences for its customers, some of these choices and their implementation unnecessarily restrict the experience of customers outside of their respective ecosystems. Of course, this is true of all products within exclusive ecosystems, yet this is felt far more keenly with headphones — buds or cans with a singular, simple focus for listening to music on the go — compared to a more multi-faceted device like a smartphone or a smartwatch which have far more varied use cases.
Furthermore, any pretext that brands that choose to limit their headset functionality are doing so in order to serve the advancement of the tech community can only be assumed as false. While this can sometimes be a fair claim with other device types which require specific hardware or software, very few of the audio features we’ve discussed here — including things as simple as a mere EQ setting — couldn’t be deployed more universally with the resources at the disposal of these tech giants.
Thankfully, there is a selection of true wireless buds that provide their users with broad support across multiple operating systems. This list is by no means extensive but should act as a starting reference to get you on your way.
The first thing to check is the connectivity options that you have available to you on your device in the settings menu (you’ll want to pick a pair of earbuds that supports your chosen Bluetooth codec, as you’ll be forced onto the lower-quality SBC codec if your buds and smartphone don’t match up.)
You should also check to see if the app that is available for those buds is supported by your device’s operating system. That way, you can be sure that’ll you’ll have access to all of the updates and features to get the best out of your earbuds. Also, if you’re looking to get involved with 3D audio capabilities, check to see if your device hosts either Dolby Atmos support or proprietary brandings like Spatial Audio or 360 Reality Audio. Having one of these options available to you on your phone will be necessary if you want to take advantage of your earbuds’ 3D audio functions.
There are also some other smart features that you’ll want to check that your device supports, such as fast pairing, virtual assistant, and touch control mapping, before purchasing the buds of your choice.
Ultimately, brands are entitled to do as they please, whether we agree with their practices or not. One of the blessings of the current competitive market is that there’s always competition looking to diversify their customer base. The best we can do on our end before pressing that “buy” button is to double-check that we have the appropriate device to take full advantage of all of the state-of-the-art features that big earbud developers design for us.