Mobile vibrocolumn PartyFon MAX: we fix on a vertical surface, we listen and we estimate quality

I remember as a child, when the shelves of Soviet stores were not bursting with an abundance of goods, practically the only source of portable sound could be a tape recorder or an exorbitantly expensive foreign Walkman-type player with complete overhead headphones on the bow and foam-filled ear cushions. And for those who were unlucky to snip off Vega, Amphiton or Diana, they had to be content with something quite homemade and exotic. Just as exotic can be counted a great many "headphones" of domestic production. They looked, as befits most Soviet products, kondovo and absolutely uninteresting for the end user. But even such devices, poorly adapted for use, sometimes showed signs of dual use. If, for their intended purpose, the Soviet headphones, which were accessible to the public, were used very little, then in interesting hands it was possible to conduct several interesting experiments with them.

The funny thing that could be done with the headset is to disassemble it. By unscrewing the cap you can reach the metal membrane holding on two permanent magnets. If you remove the membrane and attach the headphone earpiece to a metal surface, for example, the lid from an imported cookie, it will turn into a real speaker by the wave of a magic wand. The sound quality of the speaker will leave much to be desired, but the power of the resonating surface is enough to fill the sound of a small room on a languid winter evening.
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PartyFon MAX

Since then, many years have passed. Soviet headsets can be found, except in junk or inveterate lovers of antiquity. And modern headphones do not pick it up. Yes and no, they have so powerful magnets to shake even a small lid from the cookie jar. But, technical thought does not stand still and devices specifically designed to turn surfaces into dynamics emitting sound began to appear on the market. On one of these devices and will be discussed today.

Thanks to the company “Dadjet”, I had a fashionable and powerful device on my desktop for organizing a sound speaker from any suitable surface. Maybe even the covers of the same desktop. I admit that such devices did not appear on the market yesterday or even the day before yesterday. If you have to dig in the network, then you can find announcements about devices released on the market 5, 7, 10 or more years ago. However, they all have the same principle of action. The device generates a powerful impulse or vibration, which is transmitted to the surface, for example, a table. And then, already the surface of the table re-radiates the energy transmitted to it into the surrounding space in the form of sound waves. My version is PartyFon MAX .

Well, let's see how far the technologies have gone and what interesting is implemented in PartyFon MAX. Maybe the inventors are so advanced that they were able to add trend intellectual functions to ordinary “vibrodynamics”, which allow analyzing the responsiveness and inertia of the working surface? I'll try to figure it out.

PartyFon MAX Design

When the courier brought me a weighty package, I was a little taken aback. “Is that the vibrodynamic really here? Or did the packers in Dadget mess up something and send me something more weighty? ”I thought. But to think and assume one thing, but I hurried to make sure that I received exactly what I ordered.

Away nasty plastic packaging bag, a box with a speaker rather manifest itself out! As you know, familiarity with the product begins with its packaging. It should be selling and giving the buyer the maximum idea of ​​what he is going to purchase. And I can confirm with all confidence that the packaging of PartyFon MAX is worthwhile. Rigid cardboard box in dark colors, with many short explanations about the name and purpose of the product. Exquisitely and not coarse. For the box full credit!

Inside the box, in a neatly carved soft material, is the vibrodynamic itself, a separate suction cup for attaching the vibrodynamics to glass or a smooth flat surface, mounted on the wall, interface cable and brief instructions in Russian. Having picked up vibrodynamics, you understand that the package weighed a lot for a reason. In the hand of PartyFon MAX lies a single, monolithic piece of metal with plastic and pleasantly delays the hand. You understand right away that in front of you is not a Chinese fake with a weightless body and a ridiculous battery. By the way - a lot of weight is not a disadvantage at all, but rather the advantage of PartyFon MAX. After all, setting it on the surface of the table, it will transmit oscillatory pulses of the surface. And in case of insufficient weight, instead of transferring the energy of the sound to the table, it will simply jump from it.

The shape of the vibrodynamic reminds rather some part of the International Space Station or part of the spacecraft of the past millennium, a kind of habitable module with a huge "nozzle" for maneuvers and docking. Although everyone’s associations are different and everyone is free to judge the form according to his depravity, for me PartyFon MAX is something cosmic.

The bundled interface cable performs several functions at once. First, the USB connector can connect it to a computer port or to a power supply. To charge. Secondly, the mini jack connector on the speaker can beep a wired version. It can be connected to any sound source equipped with a 3.5 mm headphone jack. And thirdly, the Mini USB connector for connecting directly to the vibration dynamics. Through one PartyFon MAX cable you can not only charge, but also transmit sound. Although the connector could be put and more modern, for example, Micro USB. By the way, the manufacturer has set the battery as much as 600 mAh. Not so much, but they promise three full hours of work at full capacity. Let's see if the battery can handle the stated load or not.

PartyFon MAX does not cause rejection in a boring office environment

Structurally, the vibrocolumn PartyFon MAC is made in the form of a cylinder, covered with soft-touch Soft Touch plastic. And let him, with prolonged use and neglect of personal hygiene, remain greasy traces. The speaker wants and wants to touch. Soft Touch, he is. I remember someone making business cards with the same coverage. So his opponents did not let go of business cards. And sooner or later they contacted the sly fellow by the contacts indicated on the fact that they constantly turned in their hands.

Go ahead. Controls are located around the perimeter of the cylinder. There is a round push-button rocker for controlling volume and playback, a LED display, a mode switch button and the only jack for connecting a cable. But few people will notice that on the case, right in its middle transverse line, fit the microphone hole, which seems to hint at the presence of additional functions of the speaker.

At the top of the Mobile Vibrator Column PartyFon MAX, the manufacturer has placed the speaker in a high and possibly part of the mid frequencies. After all, the claimed sound extraction range is from 40 Hz to 20 kHz. And if with low and mid frequencies, extracted with the help of vibration, everything is more or less clear, then for a sensible sound of high frequencies you definitely need a separate speaker of traditional design. By the way the top speaker - retractable. If you rotate it slightly relative to the main body of the structure, then it becomes possible to extend the top speaker a couple of centimeters up. And this measure is justified, even for a high-frequency speaker, it is important not to get into the sound shadow from the radiating surface, but at the same time to get a little more body volume.

Do not forget to remove me, and then attach back ...

In the lower part it is hidden, let's call it so, the interface for connecting the vibro-column to the radiating surface, for example, to the table top. From the factory, the interface is securely covered with a sticker to prevent damage or contamination. The fact is that in order to obtain the maximum effect the vibrator column should have as close contact as possible with the radiated surface. Soft silicone vibrating interface is designed to absorb any irregularities on the radiating surface, in order to maximally transfer energy to it. Plus, the stickiness of the silicone gasket does not allow the vibrator to bounce. When storing the column, it is recommended to return the sticker to its place, and if the silicone is contaminated, use wet fingers to clean it.

The vibration interface itself is made spring-loaded on four rods. They transmit vibration to the radiating surface. There is a thread on the vibration interface. You can install a suction cup on the thread or you can screw the vibro dynamics into the bracket screwed to something else. Bracket and suction cup allow you to install the vibrodynamic not only on the table cover, but also on vertical structures, windows there, doors and the like. And if you have the desire, you can set it up, upside down. However, keep in mind that to install the bracket you will have to carry also self-tapping screws (included) with a screwdriver.

PartyFon MAX operating principle

Connect the vibrator to the sound source as you can by cable, plugging the mini jack into the headphone output of a personal computer or MP3 player. Either by connecting a smartphone or tablet with a vibrator on a Bluetooth wireless connection. The procedure of linking the speaker and the sound source can be greatly simplified by using the NFC tag on the side of the device, or use the usual method by searching in a Bluetooth environment. The complete instruction gives comprehensive comments on how this operation is performed.

However, as soon as I connected my smartphone to PartyFon MAX, I decided to check what would happen if I tried to connect another device and also via Bluetooth. Alas, no dual connection. Only one and only device can be connected to the vibrator unit at a time. Who first connected via Bluetooth, he uses the column. Although it may be better. Imagine that you are dancing to a slow melody to your tears with your girlfriend, like a second phone connected to Partyfon MAX is receiving a call. The music ends and the vile squish of the ringing signal begins. Everything. The romance is destroyed, the plans for a long and happy life together evaporated, like smoke over the marsh after dawn.

Yes, that's right, you did not wake up. Mobile vibrocolumn receives calls from your phone, as it is also equipped with a speakerphone system. You can use it, including, to talk on your mobile.

Powerful sound is always with you!

So, in order to start using the vibrator column after connecting it to the sound source, you need to install it on a smooth hard surface. The surface will re-emit sound vibrations transmitted to it from the vibro-column, therefore it should not be very massive, loose, or be made of a material that actively absorbs sound. A table cover with a smooth lamination, glass, a metal computer case, a suitcase cover, a tin can under a cookie, and many other objects around us are perfect. It remains only to look around and find the right one. What exactly is not suitable as a resonator for vibrocolumn? Thick and massive walls made of concrete, brick or foam blocks, folios of the Soviet encyclopedia or a banal pillow are clearly not the items on which PartyFon MAX should be installed. The column simply does not have enough power, shake a concrete slab weighing three tons, and in a pillow the vibrating signal will drown in feather and down. It is not recommended to use the column, including on various electronic devices without a metal casing. The vibrator column emits not only oscillations in the sound range, but also sufficiently powerful electromagnetic pulses that can damage electronics. In addition, I would be careful not to use the vibrator on large-format tempered or strained glass. A sound wave can enter a resonance and shatter tempered glass in the blink of an eye. Remember how singers use their power to blow faceted glasses and wine glasses? That's the same thing!

Is it possible not to attach the vibrating column to the surface and use it like this? Can. PartyFon MAX is equipped with a top speaker of traditional design, so some of the sound will go through it even if the speaker hangs in the air without support. But in the airless space to hear, or rather feel, the sound can only be in direct contact with the column or radiating surface. By the way, the world-famous popular music composer, Beethoven, by the end of his career, finally became deaf and perceived the sound solely due to the perception of vibration from a musical instrument through bone conduction.

How to get more volume from the vibro column? The total volume will depend on, in fact, the selected volume level on the vibrator, the volume level on the sound source and on the characteristics of the radiating surface on which the vibration dynamics is installed. An unequivocal answer on which the loudspeaker will be played louder here cannot be given. The radiating surface should be chosen empirically, trying to use materials with the least sound absorption, less massiveness and a larger area. However, it should be borne in mind that different people perceive the volume of the sound source differently. The former understand that the music sounds loud enough when the naked and untrained ear can hear all the distortions in the sound introduced by the amplifier of the sound source and the speaker. The latter perceive loudness exclusively as a low-frequency component, which should iterate and massage all the internal organs of the body. Still others, by virtue of age, are not at all able to perceive the high-frequency spectrum of the sound with the ear and prefer to tweak the high frequencies to the maximum, compensating for their own hearing loss. Therefore, the volume should be approached from a scientific point of view and specialized instruments should be used to measure sound pressure.

In some cases, even despite the presence of a good vacuum sucker and adhesive silicone layer, the column cannot reach its maximum power due to the fact that it starts to bounce. The sound quality suffers significantly, creating the overall impression that the traditional speaker simply does not match the power supplied to it from the amplifier. In this case, it is necessary to ensure the best contact of the vibrodynamics from the radiating surface: clean the adhesive layer, it is better to glue the suction cup, fasten the bracket or just press the vibro-speaker with your hand. Electromagnets create too powerful oscillations, and they become some problem. We have to reduce the volume of the sound. By the way, such methods of pumping sound space are used in the construction of super-powerful speakers or subwoofers. Some manufacturers even use servo motor technology to transfer vibrations that are significant in amplitude to the membrane.

What's up with the sound?

In order to understand how the speaker sounds, I will go two ways. To begin with, I will try to deal with PartyFon MAX at the level of numbers, so to speak, with an objective point of view. And then I will apply my personal, subjective opinion, at the level I liked / did not like.

To assess the vibrodynamics at a quantitative level, I applied a program for mobile on the Android Professional Tone Generator platform. The application allows you to explore the sound path of your device, ranging from the DAC and ending directly with the speaker system. The main use that interested me was what frequencies the PartyFon MAX is in principle capable of extracting from the space around us. The resulting assessment will be carried out through the perception of the ear of the generated tone, or rather not the tone, but how it is reproduced, whether there are any distortions.

If my grateful reader wants to repeat the experience, then first of all you should try to find out your own possibilities in perception of sound. This will require the highest quality headphones that are at your disposal. Why headphones? Yes, because the external acoustics of a mobile phone is so bad that it is unable to reproduce sound above 12 kHz, while in complete headphones it can reproduce as much as 14 kHz. And the good Shure will give out to the maximum a maximum from the DAC of the mobile phone and stop somewhere at the level of 16 kHz with the frequency response declared by the manufacturer 22–1,700 Hz. On the other hand, my own ear ceases to hear the frequency at about 19 kHz.

Application for testing the sound path, generating tones

Let me remind you that the manufacturer Partyfon MAX declares support from 40 Hz and up to 20,000 Hz. I will use the transmission of the sound wave on the vibro-speaker via Bluetooth, in order to avoid the possible influence of the smartphone's DAC and fully rely on the DAC inside the vibro-dynamics.

Bluetooth technology has made a long evolution from simple and low-quality voice transmission without wires between devices, but its use for high-quality audio broadcasting is still doubtful. There are several profiles with which you can transfer sound from your device to your device using Bluetooth. And they differ in sound quality very significantly. Even in the most advanced case, using the A2DP profile, there is no guarantee that when using the profile, the codec will be used, transmitting sound without loss of quality. In most cases, for the sake of compatibility, the situation is just the opposite. It's a shame that the manufacturer of PartyFon MAX doesn’t specify which profile and with which codec its device is used.

frequency range

So, let's turn to the measurement results. The most important here are the boundaries of the stated range. I took measurements and came to ambiguous conclusions. First, I found a fairly high background, constantly coming from the top speaker. So noise PartyFon MAX sound path. The noise is constant when the device is turned on, and noticeable if you bring the vibrodynamics at a distance of about 30-50 cm to your ear, even at a low volume set. Alas, no Hi-Fi here and does not smell, high-end sound device should not make so much noise. But for use as a mobile vibrocounter, such noise is not critical at all.

During the test, the device showed "phenomenal" ability to transmit low frequencies. The sound was starting from 5 Hz. Rather, it was heard that the sound is reproduced, but in fact the frequency range was compressed to the lower limit of the performance of the mobile vibrator unit. In other words, any signal with a frequency below 40 Hertz sent to the device over the wireless channel will be compressed to one frequency in the 40 Hz range. Who makes the compression, the applied profile and the Bluetooth codec or the ADC speakers are no longer important. This is neither good nor bad, this is a feature of the work of a particular device, and at the same time the subwoofers of some manufacturers.

At the upper boundary, everything is a little different. The speaker stops sounding at around 17 kHz. Such a high rate is achieved due to the upper dynamics. In fact, such loudspeakers are used in automobile sound installations as high-frequency "beeper". But do not regard the 17 kHz as a kind of flawed device. The vast majority of people on the planet have much more modest abilities to perceive high-frequency signals and simply will not hear even 17 kHz.

During testing, I found that even if the smartphone is located next to the speaker, then the radio channel will constantly slip interference. They are invisible and are filtered out by mathematics during sounding, but sometimes they still slip. If you are in a zone with a high concentration of Wi-Fi networks and working microwave ovens, then the melody of your favorite song can be spoiled by interference.

When testing with a sinusoidal tone, I was able to detect obvious flaws. At some frequencies, the device makes sounds that should not be made at all. The sound source can be a banally poorly fixed posting inside the vibrating column, which enters into resonance and begins to vibrate itself, causing unpleasant sounds. , , , -, , .

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A vibrator is a good acquisition, but it could be even better if some additional functions were implemented in it. For example, I would be interested to have a built-in radio. Not always in mobile conditions, on the smartphone there is something that you can listen to. Not always in modern smartphones the radio function is implemented. And not always and everywhere there is an opportunity to use Internet broadcasting. In such a situation, the built-in radio receiver would have saved the waiter in nature who are beginning to fade.

It would be nice to have magnets at the base for light attachment to metal surfaces. It is much easier to magnetize the vibrator to a metal door or a long pole, rather than using a suction cup. The suction cup, though made of quality material, is still not as reliable as a powerful magnet. At least in the Soviet "headphones" magnets were.

You can control the volume during playback in two ways. You can adjust the volume on the source, read the smartphone, and you can increase or decrease the volume of the rocker on the device itself. And it is here that a little dissonance arises. Sometimes you just do not understand where you need to turn up the volume. Catching the phone or pulling a column? The possibility of coordinated control of the volume from the source would be much more convenient.

And again - the volume control rocker. From a certain point of view, it is convenient. You just need to remember that pressing the rocker will turn on or pause playback when connected via Bluetooth. With a short press on the "+" or "-" rocker player of your smartphone will jump to the next or previous track. And with a long press and hold, the speaker will change the volume in one direction or another. And it was here that zest rummaged. If you do not have experience in pressing the rocker on the vibrator column, you will constantly change tracks or pause playback, instead of changing the volume. Along the way, you'll awfully curse at your clumsiness. It is inconvenient to use such a mega-button that combines all the controls at once. Not less complaints and triple-band switch on the case. The one who is responsible for the mode of the column: work from the cable, do not work at all or use Bluetooth. Constantly skipping the desired position, still swearing relentlessly. In general, in terms of usability there is much more work for engineers of the manufacturer.

And, probably, the most important thing. PartyFon MAX is equipped with a built-in microphone. But at the same time it does not possess the functions of automatic adjustment of the built-in equalizer to the used radiating surface. After all, it is possible to carry out a simple sound calibration by installing a vibrator on a new surface. The sound in this case will be as close as possible to the ideal.

Demonstration of opportunities

I tried how much he burns in the living conditions and conditions of my workshop. It turned out that the loudness emitted by the vibrator is not so small. If we use suitable sound-emitting surfaces, then the Patifon outputs stably about 100 dBA , and even more at peaks. Let me remind you that 100 dBA is the level of afterburning of a train in the Moscow subway. At the same time, at the same mark, the maximum sound pressure in portable headphones is limited. Limited, at the legislative level, of course. Therefore, in my opinion, there is simply nowhere louder, especially for a mobile-portable product.

findings

Despite my preliminary skepticism regarding mobile vibrating columns in general and directly against PartyFon MAX , the device showed itself exclusively from the best side. The vibrator column performs the stated functions, it is pleasant to use it, no critical flaws were found. We can say that the column - the perfect product. However, I immediately wanted to get a more powerful version, not MAX, but TurboMAX weighing one and a half kilograms. You screw this to the concrete ceiling on the anchor bolts and turn on the anthology of Russian rock. In a moment, all the people perforators calm down.

Author Vladislav Kravchenko ( kvv213 ), Moscow