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Tag: audiio

Snowsky Retro Nano DAC

Published January 3, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I asked for the Snowsky Echo Mini DAP (digital audio player) for Xmas. I got the Snowsky Retro Nano DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) instead, because it turns out those two devices look exactly the fucking same in pictures.

A DAC improves and amplifies digital music and allows it to be pumped through wired headphones. You can Bluetooth it to a networked device or USB it for a hard connection to a computer or anything with a USB-C hole.

My office speakers are actually an ancient Altec Lansing inMotion portable set that is no longer made. They connect to the computer through the computer’s headphone jack. I Bluetoothed the Retro Nano to my phone and plugged the speakers into the Retro Nano’s headphone jack. Suddenly all the podcasts trapped on my phone sound better.

There’s an app that goes with it called FiiOMusic, which can set equalisers – I’m on iPhone, so the app can only reach what’s in iTunes. I experimented with “Breath Of Odin” by Julian Cope, and on the “classical” setting it picks out all kinds of sound detail that is otherwise barely there just playing the mp3.

I was a little frustrated that I didn’t get the mp3 player – the sound is great on the cheap player I picked up last year but the UI is awkward – but I am finding uses for the DAC and I suspect I will uncover more. The thing comes with a lanyard, so you can hang it around your neck, plug earbuds or 4.4mm IEMs into it, Bluetooth it to your phone and then walk away from your phone and just listen. Which has an appeal to me these days.

Snowsky Retro Nano on Amazon.

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SONIC FACTION

Published September 12, 2024 by Warren Ellis

I got a digital care package from Hyperdub the other week. (Thanks, Marcus!)

Sonic Faction presents… the ways in which sound and voice can produce new sensory terrains and provoke speculative thought.

… a discussion of the potential of the ‘audio essay’ as medium and method, a machine for intensifying listening and unsettling the boundaries between existing forms: documentary, music, ambient sound, audiobook, field recording, radio play….

Very much in my recent zone, as you can probably tell. From the introduction (which I captured by pointing a Rabbit r1 at the screen and telling it to transcribe what it saw):

While some of the texts here set out from one or another of these existing forms as a point from which to approach the audio essay, all testify to its specificity in terms of cognitive possibilities, discursive scope, and auditory experience, while making it abundantly clear that its potential remains largely underexplored.

The audio essay! A fascinating form. Still alive on national broadcasting here, and in podcasting (the Heyoon episode of 99% Invisible stays with me all these years later), and, apparently, in gallery installations? What else could the form do? Anyway. I could go on about this forever. Good book.

It’s out in a month or two, and you can order direct from Urbanomic or pre-order from Amazon (UK) (US) for November.

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THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT Trailer

Published August 16, 2024 by Warren Ellis

Episode 1 of my audio drama podcast THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT, goes live on 20 August wherever you get your podcasts. This is the trailer for the full six-episode series.

More details at the website.

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