There are a lot of ways to improve your home audio experience without dropping big bucks on fancy equipment. Sometimes all it takes is a little ingenuity and thinking outside the box.
1. Use a bowl to amplify the volume of your phone.
You’re hanging out with your friends and want to put on some jams but there’s no speaker to be found. Do not fear. Just head into the kitchen and grab any old bowl. The closer it is to the shape of a half-sphere the better it will work. Place your phone in the bowl with the speaker pointing towards the bottom. The bowl shouldn’t be too large. The ideal bowl will allow the top of the phone to stick up just a little bit. The shape of the bowl utilizes acoustic science make your phone seem much louder than it normally is.
2. Make your earbuds sound like new.
Lots of people complain that their earbuds get quieter over time. Well, this is more common sense than a hack, but still, most people forget to do this. All you need to do is clean your earwax out of the earbuds and they will be just as loud as the day you bought them. Use a small paper clip and gently pick out the gunk from your earbuds. You will be surprised and probably grossed out at what you remove. This is something you might want to do fairly regularly after you realize this.
3. Improve your home theater experience
If you already own a home theater system but are looking to improve the sonic experience without spending any more money, you should make sure you have placed your speakers properly. Placing your speakers in the right position will create a much more immersive experience. Your center channel should be directly above or below your TV and line up with the midpoint of the screen. Your front and left speakers should form a slight arc with your center channel and point towards the center of your main seating area. Make sure both left and right are the same distance from your listening position. Your surround speakers should be placed left and right in line or behind your listening position. Your subwoofer should be placed as close to the screen as possible. Make sure the sub isn’t touching any surfaces that may resonate or vibrate.
4. Binder clips can change your life
One of the must frustrating parts of audio equipment is the never-ending amount of cables you need to deal with. Organizing cables makes life a much happier place. There are a lot of products on the market to help with cable organization, but why spend big money when there is a very cheap solution. Binder clips can be used in so many ways to tame your cable situation. Use binder clips to keep extra cables coiled neatly in a drawer and they will never get tangled. Use binder clips to connect multiple cables together, so they run together. Use binder clips to on a desk or nightstand in order to keep your chargers at your fingertips. You can even use them to make tool holsters for commonly used tools.
5. Use Bluetooth headphones to make your stereo a Bluetooth stereo
This won’t work with every pair of Bluetooth headphones. However, many newer pairs of Bluetooth headphones have a 1/8” (3.5mm / aux) input on them. This allows them to be used as regular wired headphones when charge is low or Bluetooth is not ideal. Many of the newer headphones have this jack to be configured as both an input and an output. When Bluetooth is being used the jack becomes an output. For example, if you were listening to music via Bluetooth on a bus, your neighbor could plug their headphones into your 1/8” jack and listen to the same music. Because of this you can use an aux cable to connect your Bluetooth headphones to any stereo that has an audio input and now your headphones act as a Bluetooth receiver. Yes, the headphones will continue to play, but you won’t hear them as long as your stereo is loud enough.
6. Use your hotel room TV as a speaker
on Unsplash
When traveling, make sure to bring a 1/8” to dual RCA cable. This is a Y shaped cable. The 1/8” can plug into your phone or laptop and the RCA jacks can plug into one of the inputs on the back of the TV. Then just use the TV remote to select the corresponding input and now you can hear your music through the TV. You can use the TV remote to adjust volume. I have noticed that some hotels have gotten wise to this and have locked out the other inputs. For the most part though, this hack will still work. Of course, this will also work on your home TV.
Feature photo by Loewe Technology on Unsplash.
