Hacker News with Generative AI: Audio

Apple starts pushing AirPods owners into Transparency mode, with no easy opt out (keydiscussions.com)
A couple of weeks ago I noticed my pair of AirPods Pro 2 aggressively switching me into Transparency mode. It seemed like a bug. Again and again I would have to manually switch back out of Transparency mode. Annoying.

Apple, AirPods, Audio, User Interface, Technology

68 points by spenvo 3 days ago | 40 comments

Sonos CEO Leaves Company (sonos.com)
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., January 13, 2025 – Sonos, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONO) today announced that the Sonos Board of Directors and Patrick Spence have agreed that Mr. Spence will step down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and as a member of the Board effective today.

Business, Leadership, Technology, Audio

20 points by FinnKuhn 4 days ago | 4 comments

Free music archive (freemusicarchive.org)
Free access to original music & creators

Music, Audio, Creative Commons

178 points by empressplay 6 days ago | 26 comments

Show HN: I've been posting a sound I made everyday day for the last year (listenfaster.com)
A minute of sound a day.

Creative Projects, Audio, Sound Design, Music

9 points by listenfaster 10 days ago | 2 comments

Building Ultra Long Range Toslink (benjojo.co.uk)
This post is a textual version of a talk I gave at The 38th Chaos Computer Congress at the end of 2024. You can watch the talk that was recorded by the wonderful C3VOC team below if that’s your preferred medium:

Electronics, Networking, Hardware, Audio

278 points by ingve 11 days ago | 118 comments

Show HN: Asak – cross-platform audio recording/playback CLI tool written in Rust (github.com/chaosprint)
A cross-platform audio recording/playback CLI tool with TUI, written in Rust. The goal is to be an audio Swiss Army Knife (asak), like SoX but more interactive and fun.

Audio, CLI, Rust, Open Source

16 points by chaosprint 21 days ago | 4 comments

The Christmas story of one tube station's 'Mind the Gap' voice (2019) (theguardian.com)
If you happen to find yourself at Embankment station on the London Underground, pay particular attention to the tannoy: the station’s “Mind the Gap” announcement is pronounced in rich, theatrical tones, a voice you won’t hear elsewhere on the network.

London Underground, Public Transportation, Audio, Storytelling, Culture

34 points by taubek 28 days ago | 4 comments

OpenAI WebRTC Audio Demo (simonwillison.net)
OpenAI announced a bunch of API features today, including a brand new WebRTC API for setting up a two-way audio conversation with their models.

OpenAI, WebRTC, Audio, API

8 points by duck 30 days ago | 1 comments

Grug’s Guide to Sound (petrustheron.com)

Audio, Sound, Guides, Humor

33 points by dustingetz 34 days ago | 5 comments

Tape – the pocket audio sketchbook [video] (youtube.com)

Audio, Music, Creative Tools, Video

6 points by ChrisArchitect 45 days ago | 1 comments

Nvidia claims a new AI audio generator can make sounds never heard before (theverge.com)
Nvidia says its new AI music editor can create “sounds never heard before” — like a trumpet that meows. The tool, called Fugatto, is capable of generating music, sounds, and speech using text and audio inputs it’s never been trained on.

Artificial Intelligence, Music, Audio, Technology, Generative AI

8 points by benkan 46 days ago | 1 comments

The Color of Noise (2014) (caseymuratori.com)
Everyone knows what “white noise” is, at least intuitively. People say “white noise” to refer to the static on an analog radio or the sound of ocean waves breaking on the beach. But have you ever wondered why the term “white noise” is common, yet you never hear noise referred to as being any other color, like “red noise” or “green noise”?

Sound, Acoustics, Terminology, Audio

80 points by ekzhang 47 days ago | 12 comments

Listen to what gets lost when an MP3 is made (2015) (vox.com)
The songs you hear every day are stripped versions of the originals!

Audio, Music, Lossy Compression, Digital Audio

142 points by teleforce 60 days ago | 92 comments

Tinfoil.com – Dedicated to the preservation of early recorded sounds (tinfoil.com)
— Dedicated to the preservation of early recorded sounds —

History, Audio, Digital Preservation, Archives

79 points by cenazoic 67 days ago | 24 comments

Chi-fi tuning – Why it sounds piercing to Western ears (2020) (audioreviews.org)

Audio, Music, Culture, Sound

68 points by userbinator 76 days ago | 53 comments

Spotify Bricked the Car Thing, So I Hacked Mine [video] (youtube.com)

Spotify, Hardware Hacking, Video, Software, Audio

11 points by martin_a 78 days ago | 2 comments

Rust and C++ with Steve Klabnik and Herb Sutter [audio] (softwareengineeringdaily.com)
In software engineering, C++ is often used in areas where low-level system access and high-performance are critical, such as operating systems, game engines, and embedded systems. Its long-standing presence and compatibility with legacy code make it a go-to language for maintaining and extending older projects. Rust, while newer, is gaining traction in roles that demand safety and concurrency, particularly in systems programming.

Rust, C++, Programming Languages, Software Engineering, Audio

70 points by mcqueenjordan 79 days ago | 55 comments

Web Assembly audio decoders highly optimized for size and performance (github.com/eshaz)
WASM Audio Decoders is a collection of Web Assembly audio decoder libraries that are highly optimized for browser use.

Web Development, Audio, Performance Optimization, Web Assembly

145 points by ctoth 82 days ago | 27 comments

Hear the sounds of Earth's magnetic field from 41,000 years ago (usatoday.com)
The Earth's magnetic field is essential to life as we know it. But it’s something we can never see – or hear, until now.

Science, Earth Science, Magnetic Field, Audio, History

27 points by thunderbong 84 days ago | 7 comments

Apple's AirPods Pro hearing health features (theverge.com)
Apple announced a trio of major new hearing health features for the AirPods Pro 2 in September, including clinical-grade hearing aid functionality, a hearing test, and more robust hearing protection.

Health, Apple, Headphones, Audio, Hearing

282 points by elsewhen 88 days ago | 211 comments

Ask HN: Best Headphones at Under $500 (ycombinator.com)
Have some bluetooth BOSE headphones which turns off music when I turn my head.<p>What do you have that has been a positive experience?

Headphones, Audio, Consumer Electronics, Recommendations

11 points by danielovichdk 91 days ago | 6 comments

"Podcasts are just screensavers for your mind." (surrealtist) [video] (youtube.com)

Podcasts, Audio, Entertainment, Opinions

12 points by consumer451 91 days ago | 9 comments

Show HN: Podcastfy AI – Open-source tool to generate AI audio conversations (github.com/souzatharsis)
Podcastfy is an open-source Python package that transforms multi-modal content (text, images) into engaging, multi-lingual audio conversations using GenAI.

Open Source, AI, Audio, Podcasts, Python

14 points by highlanderNJ 94 days ago | 5 comments

Why does FM sound better than AM? (johndcook.com)
The original form of radio broadcast was amplitude modulation (AM). With AM radio, the changes in the amplitude of the carrier wave carries the signal you want to broadcast.

Radio, Audio, Technology, Sound

261 points by zdw 96 days ago | 267 comments

Reverse engineering and dismantling Kekz headphones (nv1t.github.io)
Close to a year ago, I stumbled upon the Kekz Headphones, which seemed like an interesting approach on the whole digital audio device space. They claimed to work without any internet connection and all of the content already on the headphones itself. They are On-Ear Headphones, which work by placing a small chip (I call them “Kekz” or “Cookie”) into a little nook on the side and it plays an audio story.

Reverse engineering, Audio, Hardware, Headphones

231 points by mtlynch 106 days ago | 47 comments

Reverse Engineering and Dismantling Kekz Headphones (nv1t.github.io)
Close to a year ago, I stumbled upon the Kekz Headphones, which seemed like an interesting approach on the whole digital audio device space.

Reverse Engineering, Headphones, Hardware, Audio, DIY

32 points by breakingcups 107 days ago | 1 comments

BBC archive of 33,000 downloadable sound effects (bbcrewind.co.uk)

Sound Effects, Audio, BBC, Archive, Resources

5 points by gaws 107 days ago | 0 comments

You can now download over 33,000 sound effects from the BBC archive (djmag.com)
The BBC's sound effect library is now stocked up with over 33,000 samples to download for free.

Sound Effects, Audio, Music, Libraries, BBC

18 points by tambourine_man 108 days ago | 4 comments

Noise (jake.fun)

Noise, Music, Audio

632 points by amadeuspagel 108 days ago | 85 comments

NotebookLM's automatically generated podcasts are surprisingly effective (simonwillison.net)
Audio Overview is a fun new feature of Google’s NotebookLM which is getting a lot of attention right now. It generates a one-off custom podcast against content you provide, where two AI hosts start up a “deep dive” discussion about the collected content. These last around ten minutes and are very podcast, with an astonishingly convincing audio back-and-forth conversation.

Generative AI, Audio, Artificial Intelligence, Podcasts

907 points by simonw 110 days ago | 491 comments