Has anyone yet had experience with this? One of their ads says they “tore apart” a laptop and put it back together so the music would sound like it’s supposed to. I’m guessing this means a new sound card, and built in speakers that don’t sound as crappy as normal laptop speakers.
I can’t find anything that claims there is any special software to create music, or any kind of dj software to use at parties. According to the HP website, it has a stereo miniplug audio out – there don’t seem to be any accomodations for more than left and right stereo out. So, no Dolby 5.1 or DTS playback, AFAIK.
Another thing you need to be a decent dj is a cue channel – a separately controlled output that the DJ can use to listen to the next tracks of music without messing with what’s currently playing on the main speakers. I haven’t found anything to say the flashy sound card has that function.
Is all this hype just about a quieter, less distorted stereo output? Which won’t sound any better on average computer speakers, I’d guess.
And I see HP’s collaborator on this, Dr Dre, has an arrangement with Monster Cable to produce headphones and other hardware. That tells me a lot, and none of it good.
Apparently the audio chipset/codec quality (subjectively) through headphones is very good, but (see review) given the middling to poor screen quality on a $2,000 to $3,000 machine this doesn’t seem all that well thought out as an expensive Mac killer.
When I went to the HP website a couple of days ago, there were pages for the Envy 15 and 17, and the one reviewed is an Envy 13. Presumably it’s already been superceded. The comments I made about the lack of real functionality for creating or playing back music apply to the newer models.
And I’ve seen one ad for their Pavilion line that promotes the special “Beats Audio” package the they introduced in this Envy series. I don’t know how much extra you would pay if the sound wasn’t bundled in, but those are very very pricey computers.
Skeptic mode:
I can’t help but think this was “Designed for Music – by Marketing”. What is Beats Audio and why is it only discussed in meaningless hypespeak?
Envy was VoodooPC’s line of notebooks before HP bought them out. Voodoo was a high-end gamer’s outfit (hence the price), but neither they nor HP were known for audio expertise. And Monster’s involvement certainly does not bode well…
AFAICT, the “Designed for Music” claim means, at best, “Music sounds better when played though our headphone outlet than most other headphone outputs”. So, maybe they have a better sound card.
But they lost me when I read, somewhere in the site, a statement that the output was “tuned” by Dr. Dre and some other music celeb that I’ve never hear of. I don’t want a hip hop artist “tuning” things, I want an engineer with a bunch of meters and analysis gear measuring the output against standard references, so what comes out is as absolutely as close as possible to what came in. The only way I can interpret their statement is that they are fucking with accurate reproduction.
I get occasional work as a DJ, and I was very disappointed to find no accommodation for using the computer as playback deck. You need a cue channel – in a computer that would be done with a sound card that has two separately controlled outputs – and this doesn’t have one. I suppose you could install one – by taking out their fancy hardware which you just paid a substantial premium for.
On edit… oh yeah, they don’t mention that it sounds better through a good sound system or good headphones, which you’re on your own to get.
By targetting the audiophile crowd, you get to double or triple the price of an item without investing any more significant cost than some shiny bits and a lot of frilly marketing material. Volume will be low, of course, but the margin can make up for it.
Off topic a bit, but I resolved this by using Mixmeister software which allows for dual outputs (as does most DJ software) and buying a crappy $20 usb sound card. I use the USB card for the cue channel, and the regular sound card for the mains.
Why they couldn’t incorporate something simple like this is beyond me. You think Dr. Dre would know something about cueing music!.