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Listen to Music While Riding & Still Hear Cars Coming With The Posse AMK Sound Balancer

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Posse-AMK2

Posse Audio is a company that makes a mixing device for musicians to finely tune their monitor. Using the same technology, they are creating a device called the Posse AMK to mix the sounds around you, and your music while you ride.

Consisting of two small microphones and the mixing device, the AMK can balance the ambient sound using a small dial wheel. These are made because of the idea that being able to hear your surroundings when you ride will keep you safer. Mostly for road cyclists to alert them to cars, but the AMK can also be tuned to work as an audio amplifier to actually increase your ability to hear.

Posse calls this technology “Hear it All”, and the news on the AMK is that it is now small enough to be used with ear buds or other small devices. The Posse team has decided to launch the AMK device on Kickstarter, and are trying to raise $30,000 to bring it to reality. See the details and sketches of the device after the jump…


Their main reason for making the AMK device as an add-on, is that they know most people already have ear phones they love, and want to keep. This kit is an add-on to those ear phones, so you can continue using what you are comfortable with.

Posse notes that there has been an alarming increase of incidents lately involving people wearing headphones. By adding this device, some of those incidents could have been prevented by the rider being able to hear outside of their music.

“Hear It All” is an ambient sound technology that gives you the same exact binaural hearing that is natural to your ears by using two powerful miniature omni-directional electret condenser microphones. The AMK allows you to pick up ambient sounds up to 100 feet away.

Posse-AMK4

They are using Kickstarter to launch the AMK because they want the exposure and feedback from a group of consumers that they do not normally talk to. Still in the prototype stage, they will be continuing to work on the AMK, and using their contract manufacturers they have worked with since 1997 to perfect and produce the device.

www.posseaudio.com

 

 

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17 Comments
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SRCole
SRCole
9 years ago

Yurbuds are a much cheaper and infinitely less costly alternative.

Gene
9 years ago

California law still states that you can only use one ear bud. That goes for car drivers too.

Kirby
Kirby
9 years ago

I would snap the input plug off of that as soon as I stuffed it in my pocket or bag. It might be a good idea, but there are more elegant solutions to the problem; the simplest one being headphones that don’t block out ambient noises. At the very least, use a cable for the input rather than a rigid plug.

Alex
Alex
9 years ago

Weird. I don’t live in California, guess that law doesn’t apply to all of us. It’s nice to see somebody is trying to solve that problem!

Anthony
Anthony
9 years ago

My thoughts as well. Put the one ear bud in the ear not facing the road. Simple

Brad
Brad
9 years ago

Intresting. Ive been using the Otus Helmet speakers for 2 years and have been happy with everything but volume, so these are intresting.

Titanium Bagel
Titanium Bagel
9 years ago

Man every now and then someone comes up withone of those ideas where you are like “why didn’t I think of that? “. This seems like one those ideas; it pretty much takes care of any issue with listening to music out on the road. I always ride with a mirror but even so I stick to podcasts or audio books unless the road I’d nice and straight, wide and relatively low traffic. This would make music safe in really and condition as long as you are using it right. The only way I could see improving on the concept would be to build it into the audiob player itself, maybe with dying DSP processing. Alternatively you could probably accomplish the same thing with a phone app.

John
John
9 years ago

Is this really necessary? I can still hear cars behind me with my normal earbuds in. It’s not that hard.

craigsj
craigsj
9 years ago

No, this is incredibly stupid.

The problem isn’t that the sounds can’t be balanced, it’s that users don’t want them to be. You don’t need an extra device to do what can be done inherently. It also adds bulk and the hassle of an extra battery, in this case a coin battery which has never proven successful in this application. It’s an 11 on the fail scale.

Ironically, people DO pay money for devices that work in the same manner but accomplish the exact opposite effect. Should tell you something. Noise isolation is something engineers try to accomplish, failing to do that doesn’t require an amplifier, battery, and seed money from stupid people.

The solution is to turn down the volume. Those that won’t do that won’t buy this device or even use it if given to them for free.

Kickstarter really does the industry a disservice. VC’s, as ignorant and greedy as they can be, would never fund something this dumb. Poorly educated angel investors, the targets of Kickstarter, often will.

Yagil
Yagil
9 years ago

Seems interesting if you have a pair of headpones you love. Otherwise, things like the Aftershokz Gen III – bone conduction headphones, which don’t cover the ears at all – will probably be a better option. I should say, though, That there are vast differences in the gain of Bone conduction headpones. The Goldendance headphones I once had are way too quiet when there’s noise around, while the Aftershokz have ample gain to hear music clearly while I ride near busy roads, but still of course hear the surroundings.

dontcoast
dontcoast
9 years ago

im fine with a right earphone only…but cool concept

Duh
Duh
9 years ago

uh… why don’t you just turn the volume down a bit?

this just seems ridiculously convoluted.

Rico
Rico
9 years ago

I got cheap earbuds and cut one off. I also used lightweight earphones, the ones that are about 1″ across and clamped them to my helmet so they are about !.5″ away from both ears. I get stereo and still hear the road noise.

This is like using an Etch-a-Sketch for secret messages when a Magic Slate will do.

zombinate
zombinate
9 years ago

I go the small bluetooth speaker direction. Mounts on my stem/toptube, and points straight up at my face. I hear it plenty, but not too disruptive to those not immediately at my sides.

Yagil
Yagil
9 years ago

Duh – beacuse if you turn down the volume, you either don’t hear the music very well, or you may still don’t hear the surroundings well, depends on your specific earbud. From what’s described here, This gadget seems to mix ambient sounds and music and balance them, so you’ll be able to hear everything at once at a reasonable level. I’ll probably stay with my aftershokz III (unless they develop a reliability problem), but the idea seems logical enough.

Scott
Scott
9 years ago

John you can hear a prius behind you with earbuds in when you are riding 20mph ? I cant hear certain cars without headphones in, due to wind noise.

I like this idea as long as the wind noise could be 99% eliminated.

Slow Joe Crow
Slow Joe Crow
9 years ago

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it’s a very clever solution, on the other hand I think riding with headphones on is still a bad idea and no amount of technology changes that.

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