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An interesting review/interview

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on November 15, 2017 at 21:40:20

Linked below is a very interesting review between a reviewer/user and a designer/manufacturer. It is not of an audio product, but the similarities between this field FPV (First-Person Viewing) of remote control aircraft - specifically "quad-copters" - and modern "high-end" digital audio are quite striking. Both:

Use complex digital technology
Appeal to a small niche audience
Use similar manufacturing processes
Use similar assembly techniques
Desire to hide IP, as patents are largely costly and ineffective

and many more parallels that are uncanny. There are also may differences:

Audio vs. video
Audio grew up prior to the internet revolution, while FPV grew up after the internet revolution

As a byproduct of this last point, the weakened middle class looking for a "hobby" or "entertainment" can only afford to spend $1000 to $2000 on the entire system - whether it is an audio system or a quad-copter. There are super-elaborate quad-copters that cost $10,000 to $20,000, but typically the only people that can afford them are government agencies (police departments, rescue services, et cetera). No "normal" FPV enthusiast could afford such a thing, just as no "normal" music lover could afford a $20,000 audio system.

In the world of FPV, if a person has enough money to spend many tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars, they will more likely simply get into the world of "real" flying - gliders, airplanes, or even jets or helicopters, rather than settle for the simulation of real flying that an FPV affords their enthusiasts. I suppose the audio analogy would be the ultra-wealthy simply going to live concerts whenever they wanted rather than settle for an artificial home reproduction that can never match the real thing.

Most of the technically inclined here will likely have little trouble following the concepts in this review/interview. There is a an entire specialized lexicon for FPV, just as there is for audio. About the only thing that threw me were the many references to a "patch" antenna. I asked my son (one of whom is an FPV enthusiast), and he explained that with the microwave-range radio links, they often use circularly polarized antennae. It turns out that these can be easily made at low cost by using printed-circuit techniques on thin PCBs that are only a few inches square, looking literally like a "patch" that one would put on an old clothing.

There are three take-home points I would like to emphasize:

1) The review/interview takes full advantage of the video capabilities of the internet. (High-end audio is just starting to do this.)

2) The reviewer/interviewer had no problem at all singling out one product as being markedly superior to other competing products. (High-end audio seems to have a lot of troubles in this area.)

3) Both parties agreed that it is nearly impossible to make any kind of meaningful correlation between measurements and the actual user experience. (Again, very much unlike high-end audio, where people constantly try to correlate measurements with perceptions).

It's quite long at around 30 minutes. Often I will speed up speech videos such as this one, but when I tried my brain simply could not keep up - partly due to foreign concepts and partly due to poor sound quality with the video connection to the inventor/designer.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

• Video interview with a digital product designer   (Open in New Window)

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Sonic Craft

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