Telephones for Audiophiles?

Magfan

Yes, I generally now prefer email to speaking on telephones.

But sometimes of course you need to make a call, and I am starting to get a little farsighted.

Zieman, yes I get upset with home service too, and couldn't believe it when the early adopters went with VOIP and/or Skype.

At least in the early days, those services made cell phones sound like audiophile devices.

By the way, part of my irritation is having used mobile phones quite successfully in the UK and otherwise traveling around the world.

But in midtown Manhattan?!?!? the self described capital of the world, its just awful.

....and at home not too far away....its nothing but lost connections and can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

How people seem to think nothing of this and jabber away for hours on these things through a speaker phone is totally beyond me - and thats before we even discuss how they are hot, plastic, radiation emitting mass produced nasty cheap devices.

I noticed the new boutique for Vertu phones the other day in the Plaza Hotel, but couldnt bother to go in.

I would guess its a few thousand bucks for a sapphire crystalled, cheesily marketed thing that performs just as badly as the rest of them?

I have discoverd that upgrading to a 5.8 mghz (?) Panasonice wireless land line improved the range at home and also did not interfere with my wireless router.

But otherwise, please add me to the list that would pay lots of money for a nice phone that sounded good.

cwlondon

It seems NuForce now makes a Bluetooth headset in the spirit of an audiophile telephone accessory.

Interesting to read about Vocoders, frequency response and other excuses for phones that sound worse than a tin can on a string in a parking gargage underwater.

This still does not explain why performance is so much worse in the US and in particular New York City where God forbid we don't spend at least 5 hours a day, jabbering away on a speaker phone, while driving our SUVs with cupholders.

Oops I forgot - in the US, it really is all about the Benjamins.

A small breakthrough for this question, I have moved to a new office where union labor is required to do anything.

So in the end, the otherwise insanely expensive Beocom 5 telephone at $7 or 800 bucks or so was a bargain compared to hiring the union guys to run the wires.

It is nicely made, sounds pretty good, has good range, and a beautiful speaker phone charger base.

I am still learning my way around this device, but recently discovered that the speaker phone base draws its power from the handset, not the AC (or USB).

So in addition to the portabilitiy of the the handset, the speaker can also be moved around, cordlessly.

Dont know if any of you have tried the B&O phones recently, but for these or any other high quality cordless phones, can anyone suggest tricks / tips / tweaks / hacks to increase the range?

Thank you,

Kirkus,

Thank you.

There is a magazine called Make which has various DIY mechanical and electrical projects..

..in that or a similar magazine I read something about increasing the range of cordless devices by attaching a metal mixing bowl or something that mimic the dish effect that is used for satellite televisions.

However, it may have decreased the dispersion of the signal so in the end, it sounded both tedious and unattractive.

So a DECT repeater could be the perfect solution.

Ebm

That would sound better than my Verizon service in midtown New York most of the time!