LG Tone Studio: Awesome Surround Sound without All the Speakers
When I was in Barcelona this year at the LG booth, a rep for LG told me he had something he wanted me to see. We walked into a glass room with a racing game playing on a wall-mounted TV and a horseshoe-shaped gadget resting carefully underneath.
He told me to put the device around my neck and handed me a controller. I un-paused the game and began to try to drive around in the game. He was right, he needed to show me this.
At one point, I looked up at the corner of the room expecting to see a speaker facing down at the back of my head–there wasn’t one. I looked at him and said, “Wait, all of this is coming from this thing on my neck?” This was clearly the reaction he was looking for. We both laughed and I went back to see what else I could hear whiz by my head.
The device I was using was the LG Tone Studio one of the newest gadgets in LG’s Tone lineup. You might be used to seeing these on joggers with earplugs coming out of them and into the person’s ears. Same line of products, but very different use case.
You can get the LG Tone Studio here for a great price if interested.
The Tone Studio isn’t for running (I was even advised strongly against it as it would “fly off your shoulders if you tried”). Instead it’s meant to really be enjoyed sitting still and watching movies, playing games, or listening to music.
The device features four speakers arranged around the collar that are DTS-tuned for sound quality (the first ever DTS-tuned wearable apparently). It has a left and right speaker on the top of the device and there are two vibration speakers underneath that are used for lower-end tones like the bass.
Also on the device we have volume controls, a pause/play button, previous/next buttons, power switch, a MicroUSB charging port, a built-in microphone and call button for if you want to use it to take phone calls from your phone, and even an audio in terminal for if you want to plug it in to a non-bluetooth device. Which then makes it feel like a leash, so Bluetooth is probably the way to go.
It also can be used with included wired headphones if you wanted to be kind to those around you at some point, and a switch to control the output to those headphones vs the speakers.
There’s also a built-in DAC to provide better audio. It’ll do 32-bit out of the headphones and 24-bit for the speakers so everything just sounds more robust than normal.
You can easily connect it via Bluetooth to any phone, TV that supports Bluetooth, or speaker system that does, as well.
Another interesting feature, is you can adjust the surround sound zone to make it a bit more aimed at yourself and less audible to others around you if you want. (I’m waiting for the day they put those directional speakers I’ve seen at CES in here to make them only able to be heard by you entirely.)
All in all, I’ve never really been a fan of the collar for headphones as I’m still holding out for the day they make truly wireless earphones that actually work. But, this, when used in speaker mode, is a bit more functional of a use for this design and considering it’s meant to be enjoyed in the comfort of my home watching TV, playing a game, etc. No one has to see it on me either.
You can get the LG Tone Studio here for a great price if interested.
