Implementing a Push-To-Listen system

[CowonFTW]

This is really a continuation of Possible Hearing Aid Function.

Canalphones are great for blocking ambient noise, but in the course of walking around the city I have to pop out one side to talk frequently. Mostly to buy coffee.

JAny canalphone wearer can see the appeal of a PTL setup. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If I could tap the player and be able to hear people instead of pulling out one headphone and leaning sideways with a constipated look going "waaat?".

Besides, imagine the variants. One button (or hotspot) to listen, another to listen+record, etc. Or, one pauses the music, another just lowers the volume -80% of the mics' measured sound. Or quick tap toggles the mic on/off lock, where holding it more than a second it then becomes P-T-L and your music will resume when you release said button/hotspot.

Plausible, certainly. But I do not have the knowledge required to consider logistics, so I'll shut up now.
Thanks for reading.

[MajiKool Dragonâ„¢]

i like your idea... i have the same issue using my headphones.

[Gliderguy]

Same sentiment here.  I would like to see a new option in playback settings where pausing the player automatically went to push to listen mode until unpaused or until the shutdown timeout occurred.   Maybe have one subsetting where you can choose amount of amplifier gain/cut referenced to the volume setting.  My canalphones offer about 26 dB isolation so once I stop the music it is just like wearing mid-grade earplugs.   Great for mowing the yard-not so great for pausing the player to try to hear what someone is saying to you.

[Llorean]

So, were you planning on pulling the player out of your pocket or wherever, and holding it up to their mouth to hear them?

Have you tried listening, in general, through the internal mic in your player to see how generally effective it is in various situations.

I have some suspicion this may not be as useful in the real world as it sounds in your heads.

[Gliderguy]

My target is the Clip+ and is usually clipped to my collar or belt outside of my clothes.  I am sure there are lots of people who would use some kind of external case or armband, or if you are jogging you might be hand holding the device anyway.  Even in my pocket I could hear better than through the earplugs in  an informal test, although I concede if that were the only way I carried my device, it would be an impractical feature request.

[[Saint]]

Is it not a whole lot more practical, and courteous to simply remove your earphones?

At least one of them...surely?

I would certainly find it rude if someone would rather listen (or attempt to listen) to a conversation I was attempting to have with them through a DAP.

I also have the thought "If you want to listen to your external environment, why are you listening to a DAP in the first place?".

Alternatively, use less dampening monitors when you're in an environment that you know calls for it.

Just thoughts,



[St.]

[Gliderguy]

The times I am interested in doing this I particuarly want good isolating phones- mowing the yard, for example.  Sometimes you are doing things like that and someone comes up and wants to say a few words.  Maybe my hands are already dirty and I dont want to be digging in my ears, or maybe I might even be wearing gloves. 

Maybe I am listening at home on my couch at a nice reference level and my wife wants to just say a word or two.  I am already being considerate by not blasting my choice of music on the stereo when others are in the house.

Maybe I don't like listening to crappy non isolating buds.

If this feature is totally impractical from a  programming perspective  (I have read that it requires using the same buffer for music and recording and it is potentially a programming nightmare to try to mix the two at the same time) then please just say so instead of questioning why someone might want a feature.  There are millions of people using DAPs and they all have different situations.

[torne]

Whether it seems useful is much *more* relevant than whether it's hard to implement, generally; developers often enjoy the challenge of working on difficult features but they rarely implement features they consider to be useless.

[Llorean]

It can also be helpful to have a problem fully identified. Even if someone isn't interested in your feature, if they're aware of an existing problem they may be able to address it partially or wholly with other features as the project moves forward, so looking at the whole problem (and challenging it to see why it's a problem, and why certain workarounds aren't acceptable) can help to get a better picture for everyone.