New Audio and Gaming Speaker System Survey

[alisterN]

Hi,

I am currently a final year Product Design student at Derby University and am currently involved in designing a new speaker/headphone system for my final year degree project. I am currently in the research and market research stage of the project and was hoping to enlist some people to fill out a quick and painless questionnaire to aid me with my design and research.

My product idea is a new and unique personal audio system it is primarily a 2.0/2.1 speaker system that runs just like any other but has a inbuilt headphone dock. The dock is situated in one of the speakers and acts as a recharging station as well as a transmitter for the Bluetooth headphones. The system works that if the headphones are attached the speakers act as normal speakers would, but once removed the headphones are then activated and become the output device for the audio. This product gives in summary a two in one option which allows the user to have both speakers and headphones at there disposal and allows for easy use.

Please could i ask you to spend a couple of minutes filling out and completing my survey:
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=p635palgmc8a50n511516

Thanks for your time and help.

Regards A

[saladin]

That's a nice idea. Not great for LAN usage, if you need the speakers to communicate with the headphones, but still, not bad.

[Hex]

I'm not sure I'd personally buy this system, though it does seem like a neat idea. The major drawback IMO is that the headphones would only be usable with this system - when I spend money on a pair of headphones I wanna be able to use them with any audio device. The other issue of course is that you'd be restricted to the headphones/speakers that come with the device, compared to most audio equipment where you can mix and match amps/speakers/headphones becuase they use standard connectivity options.

[Sideshow]

Think you might also want some kind of manual switch: lose the headphones and you lose the speakers too.

[Sid]

I wouldn't buy them, based on the fact that you're using Bluetooth, which has an optimum range of just 5m. Most decent headphones come with around 5m of cable, so I don't see the point in having such a short range wireless transmitter unless you deliberately want to make the quality of the audio signal deteriorate.

Some sort of audio over IP protocol, delivered over WiFi (30-70m range) so that I could receive bit-perfect audio to the 'phones anywhere throughout my house - now I'd consider buying that.

In terms of battery recharging on the speakers - it's an interesting idea, and I can imagine it would appeal to the low-end market as a novelty. Whether it would sell and make a profit, who knows, but I do think it's certainly a good idea for a product design project.


Edit: I have a couple of problems with your survey.

"5. What price would you give a product such as this?"
I have no idea as I haven't seen/heard the product. If you build the speakers to be in the same league as the B&W Nautilus et al. and the headphones to be in the same league as the AKG K1000 et al. people will probably pay around £50,000. I Imagine you aren't intending to built an ultra high-end system but I said this to make a point - you can't put a price on something that doesn't exist or even has any specs.

"7. When it comes to audio products how big do you feel a substantial system should be compared to standard average systems?"
I have no idea what this means. Define "substantial system" and "average system".

"9. To you do you see compatibility to be a strong selling point?"
Compatibility with what? I expect my speakers and headphones to take an analogue signal at a specified power rating and impedance level but in this case (as I imagine you'd be sending digital signals over bluetooth) I can only assume that you'll be providing active speakers and headphones, each with a built in DAC - in which case, the only compatibility required should be the connectors for the digital input to the speakers where I would expect to see Optical, RCA Coaxial, and perhaps XLR for AES/EBU if you're catering for the higher end that want balanced digital.

If you were to build a system something more along the lines that I had suggested (using Wifi), it would enable users to buy any speaker/transmitter unit and any headphones/receiver unit, given that they'd all be using WiFi. Actually, the same would apply to Bluetooth. The only problem is, if you're using a built-in dock for your proprietary 'phones, then none of this applies.

"17. Do you feel the speaker function of the product should be a 2.1 system with the added subwoofer to help attract and create a much better system overall?"
This question seems to suggest that a seperate subwoofer is better. If I see systems that include a seperate subwoofer unit, I usually think that the speakers must be very poor quality. A good 2.0 system should product bass more than adequately.

If you can sort these problems out, I'll answer the survey.

[To0]

Bluetooth has a delay, it is no good for gaming. Agree with Sid on his points about the survey and several others.

For the record:

Looks are completely unimportant to me.
You cannot make something overly strong.
If a product like you suggest was on the market I might buy it, I can't say for sure if I would or would not. I like the idea but if the quality is poor, if the fit was wrong if you hadn't killed the bluetooth lag then no I wouldn't buy it. If it was a flawless realisation of your concept and my current speakers and headphones died, then yeah, why not.

[Fil2eFly]

sounds like a good idea. ATM i use a 5.1 speaker system and i have my 5.1 headphoens all pluged into my pc. if probbaly be intreated in this if it was a good sturdy high quality system.

but, i probbaly wouldent buy this, im a sucker for 5.1 and i dont like the sound of bluetooth for gaming