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Apple Recalls Beats Pill XL Speakers As Fire Risk
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has released a voluntary recall announcement for the Beats Pill XL range of speakers, advising customers that the rechargeable device is a fire risk, and advising them to stop using the devices immediately. Apple bought the manufacturers out in 2014 after the successful release of the XL speaker range in November 2013. The announcement reads in part: "Because customer safety is the company’s top priority, Apple is asking customers to stop using their Beats Pill XL speakers. Customers who purchased a Beats Pill XL speaker should visit www.apple.com/support/beats-pillxl-recall for details about how to return their product to Apple, and how to receive an Apple Store credit or electronic payment of $325."
There doesn't need to be a term for it, you can just be someone that appreciates good playback equipment and production in music. The word "audiophile" is now thoroughly linked with the kind of idiots you described. That kind of stench can never be thoroughly erased.
The incredulous claims about vinyl and cabling have been around for a long time, but more recently computers have opened up a whole new level of foolery. There are programs out there that supposedly "keep your audio data in the CPU cache" instead of RAM and have some BS rationale as to why that improves audio quality. Then there's the high-res music stuff that's been gaining particular traction in recent years (not to be confused with lossless compression which has gained traction around the same period) especially as "respected" musicians have come to launch placebo-based product lines for people who want their music oversampled to several times beyond the limit of human hearing. I keep this link handy as a particularly thorough rebuttal to the claims they make:
http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo...
The other nice thing about this link is it's from xiph.org - you know the guys who developed FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Opus, etc.? They know more about audio reproduction, particularly digital audio reproduction, than Neil Young will ever know. He lacks either the will or the mental capacity to educate himself on the shit that's coming out of his own mouth when he gets up on his "digital music is terrible" soapbox. It's like, even if they accept that etched PVC disks aren't the pinnacle of audio reproduction (welcome to 1940), they have to invent some convoluted, cumbersome, expensive way to do digital audio so that their playback system is esoteric enough to please the Gods of Rock. I think Neil takes a particular shine to the "expensive" aspect, since he stands to profit from it all. But hey I'm sure he's a renown philanthropist or something, plus remember he wrote a couple decent songs 40 years ago? Fuck Neil Young.