Music to my Ears

Remember the 80's when everyone played their music on cassette tapes on a great big boom box?  Okay so maybe I'm a little too young to really reminisce those days, but I do remember having one when I was a kid.  Boy were they big, awkward and hard to transport.  If I walked around with one of those things nowadays I would get some pretty funny looks, maybe even catch a post of myself on youtube the very next day. 

Then things got a little more high tech in the 90's.  We had these nifty things called CD players and you could even get them in a tiny portable size.  What a revolution for music.  No more cassette tapes just small, compact CDs with a little tiny player.  Now I do remember walking around with one of these on my hip, a large set of ear muff head phones over my ears.  I'd probably get some funny looks wearing on of those out these days as well.  I mean things have advanced so much kids don't even have stereo systems anymore.  Not with the easy accessibility of MP3 players or iPods.  Do people even still by CDs, I mean other than me?  Sometimes I still feel like I'm in the stone ages.

Today I was really missing my old stereo that could broadcast my  music throughout the entire house.  When I'm busy doing housework, I don't want to be wearing little earbuds in my ears or carry around my phone.  Last time I did that it ended up taking a dive in the bathtub.  Nothing a big bag of rice can't fix by the way. 

Imagine my surprise when I saw this little post on Pinterest.  Just a flicker picture really, no directions on how to make it, but then again it looked pretty easy.  I thought for sure I could make that and so I did (instructions provided below).  I was a little disappointed at the advertised sound quality.  The post advertised that it would fill the whole room with music and so it did, but then again so did the phone by itself.  In fact I didn't hear much of a difference between the two.  I was in need of something more, bigger, better.  After reviewing another post in which you simply put your iPhone into a glass for greater amplification, I decided on a science project.  A contest if you will to determine which was better, louder, with more robust sound.  Something worthy of true stereo sound.

Science Experiment

Hubby was willing to help out with the experiment (must have been the Queen being broadcast at high volumes that brought him up from the dungeon) so I posted him in another room.  Starting with just the iPhone, I played some Queen at high volume, gradually turning it down and instructed him to inform me when he could no longer hear the music.  With the standard iPhone 4S he could no longer hear the music at the 6th volume bar.
I the turned the volume back up to where he could hear it and placed it inside the "speaker" set pictured above.  Gradually turning it down he informed me he could no longer hear it at 5 volume bars.  A minor increase in amplification.  I was looking for more so we continued on with the experiment.

After repeating the process in the tall skinny glass, small fat glass, and medium rounded glass he reported loss of music at 1 volume bar, 2 volume bars, and three volume bars respectively.  Awesome, a huge increase in amplification was reported for the tall skinny glass, however, in this glass the sound became slightly distorted due to echo.  Therefore we determined that the greatest amplification that still produced a high quality sound came from the short wide glass.  Finally a winner worthy enough to be dubbed a stereo.

Now off to do some chores :(  Wish me luck.

How to make a stereo out of two Solo cups and a toilet paper roll

Step 1:  Gather your materials as pictured below.
 

Step 2:  Placing the TP roll on the Solo cup, mark four dots on the cup to delineate how big your circle will need to be to fit the TP roll.
 

 

Step 3:  Using your sharpie connect the four dots you made into a cross or circle on your cup.

 

 

Step 4:  Use scissors to cut out a circle in your cup along the markings you have already made.  Be careful as the plastic cups are fragile and may end up a mess like this one.

 

Step 5:  Cut out a portion in the middle of your TP roll that will fit your iPhone.  Once you have your cutouts made, fit the TP roll inside the holes.  It should look like this.  Place your iPhone inside the cutout and play away.  It should amplify your music a little, but you get much better amplification by simply placing your phone into a glass or ceramic mug or glass.  Note: as proven above, a shorter, fatter glass works best.