• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Are phone speakers irritating, or am I just too sensitive?

Nervous Rex

High-functioning autistic
V.I.P Member
I just realized that I get incredibly annoyed when anything is played on a phone speaker. It doesn’t seem to matter what it is - music, someone talking, anything.

Something about the tinny speakers on a cell phone just grates on me.

Is it just me? I haven’t read anything about large groups of people hating the sound of cell phones.
 
I dunno about everyone else, but as far as I'm concerned, phones in general are just irritating.
 
The sound is too tinny for me too. It hurts my ears. If I play music it has to be over headphones or via speakers.
 
The quality is usually pretty terrible. I hate it when somebody wants to show me a song through phone speakers because I usually can't make out what's going on, so I just have to say "Mhmm".
 
I also can't enjoy many post loudness wars recordings, in part because it makes my ears hurt, in part that I am used to listening to things with really good dynamic range before that trend started...and early MP3s in particular sounded so clipped, like huge pixellations in sound form. Always hated those...
 
Some people's phone mannerism is too much - they overemphasise words, pronunciation and enthusiasm.

I want to slap them.

However, if it's with regards to audio quality in general - I hate tinny speakers and poor sound quality.

Ed
 
This is one of the reasons why, for long calls, I do not like using my cell phone--I went back to running a landline phone off a Bluetooth adaptor & paired my cellphone up to that.


Best thing for performance, though, is the regular old landline phone. For actual use, the landline telephone is your friend.
Good phones would be (Not covering wall phones because it's less fun to have to nail one to a wall)

Western Electric 2500. (Push button dialing, most surviving models have 12-button keypads.) It's a phone. The plastic handset is pretty great, and basically it's the classic 500 wearing push buttons. These are legitimately great corded phones.

Western Electric 500. I rate this phone right under the 2500, mainly because it was available only with a rotary dial. This is the classic rotary telephone and stayed in service from about 1950 to the 1980s. Many remain in use--they are just good phones.

Western Electric 302. I rate this under the 500 as a daily user, but there's nothing wrong with these at all--they're just old. These were designed in the late 1930s and are a 1940s icon. They have a smaller footprint than the 500, though, so that's great. Now why I do like these is because they have the famous F1 handset on them. This is a solid Bakelite handset that remains cool to the touch, has an interesting texture. The cloth cords are a fun texture during phone calls if you are the fidgeting type. Unfortunately for modern users these only come with a 10-digit rotary dial.

Western Electric D1/202. This phone I'm rating down at the bottom tier, even though it's an excellent telephone if you get a really sweet deal on one and like playing electrician.
Unfortunately, though, these were built right at the end of the 1920s and discontinued some time in the 1930s. Due to their advanced age (by now they are going on a century) they're a lot harder to find at a low price--and even if you find the phone, the internal network, mechanical ringer, and anti-sidetone condenser are contained in a steel "subset" box that has to be wired to the phone on a long cord. These boxes got lost over the years.
Oh, and for added fun, though some of these turn up with F1 handsets (yay!) the collectible version has the E-series handset with the "bullet transmitter." Easily recognized by the asymmetrical spit-cup transmitter these are not the most reliable handsets in the world, and they cost more than regular F1 types.
This is what my phone is like--202 with an F1, original ringer box (forgot what model really) and an Xlink gateway to Bluetooth purchased on eBay below MSRP because I price everything according to "eh, kinda works."


Anyway if you really hate talking on the phone-
and you're like me & hate the "oh I'm so qUiRKy aNd sEnSiTIvE i doNt tALk on tHe PhONe hehe txt only pls" nonsense that people are getting into--

Go and get yourself a telephone that was actually designed with ergonomics in mind, rig that up to your cell so you can use your own number & avoid paying 2 separate phone bills, and then maybe talking on the phone will be a lot easier.
 
Best thing for performance, though, is the regular old landline phone. For actual use, the landline telephone is your friend.

I have a landline that is still using copper wires that were dug down in the 1890s! :) I never have to charge it and it always works.
 
Yes. I too have some weird sensitivities when it comes to select audio sources. Could be worse...for those like myself who can hear a difference in certain ABC network television shows. "Station 19", "Grey's Anatomy", "The Good Doctor"...for instance. While my Samsung widescreen defaults to surround sound, these particular shows sound as if it were being broadcast inside a tunnel! Very disconcerting and annoying. That if I want to mute this effect, I must basically change all my sound settings to as "vanilla" as possible.

And no, I don't hear such things on any other networks or shows. Just these. Though my tinnitus comes through no matter what I hear. :(

All that said, so yeah...hearing so many acoustical considerations through phone speakers also annoys the crap out of me. :oops:

And I'm guessing that most people may not even notice. :confused:
 
Last edited:
I have a landline that is still using copper wires that were dug down in the 1890s! :) I never have to charge it and it always works.

Now THAT's what I call serious infrastructure.
If I can ever find a place with copper line phone service again, I'll get it. I enjoyed the luxury of an ergonomically friendly house phone that would work even in the middle of a storm or power outage.
 
Some people's phone mannerism is too much - they overemphasise words, pronunciation and enthusiasm.

I want to slap them.

However, if it's with regards to audio quality in general - I hate tinny speakers and poor sound quality.
Ed

I have a friend who gets very irate any time someone is using their speaker for a phone call in a public place. I'm nonconfrontational but he will loudly ask them to turn of their speaker and put the phone up to their ear.

I seriously wonder if it's the tinniness that set him off. I think it's the same for me. I think that the louder the phone is, the more tinny - and irritating - it sounds.
 
I started this thread this after my wife watched some video on her phone. It was a country song - not something I should find annoying - but for some reason it just grated on my nerves. She had the volume up pretty high.

And after I wrote the post, I remembered that I watch videos and TV shows on my phone all the time. I thought, "Am I a hypocrite? It's okay for me to play stuff on my phone, but no one else around me can?"

But I think it's about the volume. At lower volumes, phone speakers are less annoying. The louder they are, the more tinny and shrill they sound.
 
I dunno about everyone else, but as far as I'm concerned, phones in general are just irritating.
Here here! I hate talking on the phone. I'd rather text, that's easier. Of course there are dir-hards that insist you speak to them.
 
I went through a phase in my life (early 20s) where I could hardly talk on the phone at all...particularly with complete strangers. Luckily I somehow managed to snap out of it taking a job in insurance that required phone contact all day long. Though dealing with the same insurance agencies over time made it easier, as I became familiar with the same voices.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom