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Sony SRS-WS1 Wearable Speaker - REVIEW
3K views
Jun 22, 2024
There are speakers you can jam in your ear, speakers you can stick on the sides of your head, and speakers you can place throughout your room. But with the SRS-WS1 Wearable Speaker from Sony, you can wear your speaker. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ hooked up the SRS-WS1 to his stereo, his smartphone and, of course, his television and found it to be quite a cool experience. Definitely great for computer and video gaming, it's also a way to immerse yourself in the cinematic experience at home too. But there are some issues and design oddities with the Sony SRS-WS1 Wearable Speaker too, as highlighted herein. Still, this has a lot more uses than you may initially realize... Check it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2NQtYX1
View Transcript
0:00
A speaker that you wear around your neck? Let's check this out
0:12
Oh, hang on. So, Dave Taylor here. I'm checking out this. This is super interesting
0:20
This is the Sony SRS-WS1 wearable speaker. And yes, WS means wearable speaker, so not entirely cryptic
0:29
It's actually a crazy cool idea. There's some issues, but overall it's a really fun and cool concept
0:36
It's basically a pair of speakers with actual subwoofer. There's rumblings, all sorts of stuff that goes on
0:43
And you just put it around your neck and you're ready to roll. Now, how does this thing communicate
0:49
Well, that's a little more complicated because there is a transmission unit
0:53
And I actually have it plugged into my phone. Not its recommended use, but it works well for the camera
0:59
So, there's this transmitter, as you can see. And all you basically do is you plug it into power
1:07
And it powers via a micro USB cable, which is included along with the power adapter
1:14
And so you do that, you have power. And now you can connect it via optical to your TV, which is its recommended use
1:22
Or via any 3.5mm AUX jack. So, the 3.5mm is how I actually have it hooked up to my iPhone 11 Pro, using the Apple adapter too
1:35
So, basically, again, kind of interesting setup. Plug it into my lightning port
1:41
Plug this into the transmitter. Make sure it has power. And I can listen to this as if they're like personal Bluetooth speakers
1:49
Now, here's the thing. It actually operates on an RF radio frequency of 2.4 GHz
1:55
So, it's not a Bluetooth device, which is kind of an interesting choice on their part
1:59
So, on the upside, it has very good range, super low latency, works great for television
2:06
And because it has rumble and vibration, it makes TV kind of pretty exciting
2:10
In fact, it has three vibration modes where you can have it on high or low or turn it off
2:16
And basically, it just takes the low frequencies and makes them rumbly
2:20
Which I was watching Fast and Furious. Pretty cool, actually, when there's all the exciting cars racing and trains and gunshots and all that stuff
2:30
All of it, I'm getting a very visceral experience. And indeed, that's what they say, is that this is an immersive speaker
2:36
And they're right. So, three vibration modes. It also has, on the actual unit itself, on one side, it has power on and off
2:46
And it has the three vibration settings you can change. And then on the other side, it actually has volume up, volume down
2:54
And there is a direct plug. Here it is. There's a direct plug
2:59
You can actually power it directly if you don't want to use the wireless power unit
3:04
Which also is powered via micro USB and also comes with a cable and an adapter
3:09
So, there's a lot that comes with this. A lot of wires, a lot of cables
3:13
But that's also pretty easy to work with. The idea is that whenever you need to, let's move all this stuff out of the way
3:19
I just simply put this on the charging base. And it's now charging as, hopefully, the lights are showing you
3:26
So, this actually doesn't need much charge. But, let's talk about that
3:30
So, three hours for a full charge from completely dead. And then you get seven hours of listening time
3:36
So, if you're watching TV for more than seven hours at a stretch
3:40
you probably need to take a break anyway, right? So, wireless charging, if you want to do it that way
3:46
this will need to be somewhere convenient so that you can actually lay the wearable speaker on it
3:53
And then you have the transmitter, which you could ostensibly actually just tape to the back of your television or something
4:01
And I will say that in my experimentation with my Vizio TV
4:06
that has USB ports and they're powered. So, I actually plugged in with the included cable
4:13
where it is USB 3 on one end and micro USB on the other
4:17
I just plugged that into an unused USB port on my TV
4:21
plugged the other end into the transmitter, and I was good to go
4:25
And then I used the optical cable, also included, to plug in to the TV and, boy, it sounded fantastic
4:33
And not only does it sound good, but it gives you really good range, and in a weird sort of way
4:38
So, I actually went upstairs and grabbed something out of my daughter's bedroom and all this
4:43
and I'm still listening to TV exactly at the same volume as if I was sitting in front of the television
4:49
So, that was pretty nice. If you're cooking or something, this could be perfect for you to watch the Food Network
4:55
and watch Kids Baking Championship, which we watch, or something like that
5:00
And you can listen to it and it's nice. And if it's a little soft, you can actually just turn the volume up a little bit, whatever
5:07
And then you're actually cooking or doing whatever it is you're doing
5:11
and then you can glance over at the TV as needed. So, pretty nice
5:15
Now, let's see. It is quieter than regular speakers. So, this lives in a sort of weird nether region where it's not earbuds, it's not headphones
5:27
so other people can hear it. This is not some sort of magical audio device that only goes to your ears and stops
5:33
It's not how it works. So, if you're listening to this and someone else is in the room, they're going to hear it
5:39
But they're not going to hear it as loud as you do. So, if you have a situation where, for example, your hearing might be going
5:46
and you find that you want to turn the TV volume up louder than anyone else
5:51
well, this could be a really nice solution to that because it actually would let you turn up the volume in your personal speaker
5:59
while the TV is at a volume that everyone else likes. Now, they'll still hear this, but again, not as much as you will
6:05
So, it's not as quiet as having earbuds or headphones, but it's also quieter than actually having like a full sound bar
6:15
or 5.1 sound system or something. So, again, if you're playing video games, because this will work with your computer too
6:23
if you're playing video games and you hate headphones, but your neighbors really hate when you have your volume up really loud at 3 in the morning
6:31
I mean, come on, it's 3 in the morning, right? These are a really nice compromise and they'll give you a really immersive rumble and sound
6:38
and there's a spatial sense that's actually really fun because we're used to speakers being in front of us
6:44
but these speakers are actually underneath us. And so, it's giving you sort of this cloud of sound
6:49
Now, having said that, I have to say it doesn't have great sound
6:54
It's nice and it's a very enjoyable listen, but these really aren't great for music, even though that's how I was demonstrating it
7:01
And the reason for that is they're not really designed for music
7:05
They're really designed for things like TV or video games because that gives you a lot more of the bass
7:14
a lot more of dialogue, things like that. These make actually the dialogue
7:19
if you're tired of the center channel on your TV being too soft
7:23
so you hear all the sound effects but you can't hear the dialogue, this will fix that
7:27
This is really pretty cool in that regard too. But again, it does have some odd limitations
7:33
Number one, there's no pause button. I don't know why there's not like a pause or mute button
7:38
I guess mute would be better, right? I'd like to have something where I could just say, oh, pause, sorry, mute, what did you say, honey
7:45
There's no way to do that right now as far as I can tell. But even more importantly is I appreciate the concept of the RF transmitter and everything
7:54
That's pretty cool. But why isn't it also a Bluetooth device? This is a premium-priced product
8:00
We'll get to the price in a minute. But it is very expensive and it would be really cool to be able to use it
8:07
just as a Bluetooth device. There's so much out there that does Bluetooth
8:11
Now, having said that, if you did use this as a Bluetooth speaker for your favorite music
8:16
then you might be a little disappointed in the sound. So maybe that's why they didn't do that
8:21
But I still can't help wonder why they couldn't add what I'm sure is like a dollar's worth of circuitry
8:27
and give you that much more functionality. So you ostensibly didn't need the transmitter at all
8:33
But be that as it may, it does not include Bluetooth. It does not have a microphone
8:38
It's not going to work as a speakerphone for your telephone. Although I have read some reviews where people say it worked really well
8:45
I think they're confused. There's no microphone in this product. But in terms of being on a phone call
8:52
I'm sure it would sound really great to listen to the other person. That way you just need to figure out how they're going to hear you
8:58
So get that all figured out and this would be pretty cool. But like I said, it's a premium product
9:04
It's sort of a curious product. It's two and a half pounds
9:08
It's quite light. It's easy to work with. It's easy to charge
9:13
There's a lot to really like about this. And it's really fun with games
9:18
It's really fun with movies, especially loud action movies. Movies where there's a lot going on
9:24
This gives you a real sense of presence. Very cool. But it is premium priced
9:29
Now, before I talk about the price, let me ask if you can subscribe to my channel
9:33
I really appreciate when you do that. Cool. Now, the price. This is the Sony SRS-WS1 wearable speaker
9:43
And it is $299.99 at Amazon.com. $300 for this thing. That feels really expensive
9:53
If you are interested in this category and you don't want the premium Sony experience
9:58
and it is a very nice experience, there are a lot of options for wearable speakers at a wide variety of price points
10:05
Whether they'll have quite the same fun and immersive sense that this one does
10:11
I can't say. But I will say that these are pretty fun, actually
10:16
I can imagine a number of situations where I will be using these
10:21
especially for watching movies or something. It's really its sweet spot. So, nice job with this Sony
10:27
A couple of tweaks you could make, I think, that would make it more interesting and more fun
10:31
But with that all in mind, I think I'm going to go back to my jazz
10:35
And I will say, probably not great for classical music, especially. You want to listen to music that has a lot of bass
10:43
and then you really get to enjoy that bass line. So, speaking of which, I am going to fade out with this bass line, hopefully
10:52
What's going on here? Let's see, everything's connected. Oh, it does have a timeout feature
10:58
So, if you leave it off with no music for five minutes, it can turn off
11:03
So, let's turn this on. And there we go. All right. With that, I will catch you in my next video
11:31
Thank you
#Audio Equipment
# TV & Video