Making Tech Headlines · Page 6
Teenage Engineering Gives Instruments More Places to Plug In
· New York time
Teenage Engineering has launched the EP-35, a battery-powered instrument amplifier with multiple inputs and built-in effects, The Verge reported. The previously leaked device accommodates different instruments rather than requiring a single-purpose setup for each source. Its connections include a line-in port, a quarter-inch guitar input and an XLR microphone input. The microphone connection supports models that require phantom power. Those details matter more to a prospective user than an abstract promise of creative freedom: the first question is whether the equipment already in the room can actually connect. Battery operation also makes the amplifier a self-contained option, although that feature alone does not establish how long any particular performance can last. The product's concrete pitch is a combination of portability, inputs and effects in one unit. There is something refreshingly legible about a new device whose main argument includes visible sockets. Much of consumer technology asks people to subscribe, synchronize or discover which invisible connection has stopped cooperating. An instrument amplifier can instead begin with a cable and proceed directly to noise. Whether the resulting sound qualifies as music remains outside the connector's job description, a sensible division of responsibility that other technology might consider adopting.
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