British Pizza Chain To Install Cones of Silence 122
itwbennett writes "British pizza chain Pizza Express is installing iPod docks and soundproof domes in booths of their new iPizzeria stores. 'The idea is that you can plug in your iPod and play whatever music you like without disturbing other diners,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'But I'm sure it'd work for talking about government secrets and other spy stuff, too.'"
Apple specific? (Score:1, Interesting)
Will it work with other mp3 players too?
Re:Why a dock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Try teaching people to turn the amp down when you plug in the device. Pops and clicks can get pretty loud when you insert a TRS connector.
I wish you luck in your endeavors!
(PS: I think you're right, but there are some issues involved here that need some extra engineering.)
Re:Why a dock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a novel idea. I haven't seen anyone do this and it's probably patentable - except by posting here I have prior art ;-)
I built a guitar fuzzbox. Plugging in a lead made all kinds of pops and crackles, so I modified the circuit so that when the plug was out it fed a small bias voltage to the amplifier stage. holding it muted. When you plug in a jack lead it disconnests the bias using the same contact you'd use to disconnect a loudspeaker on a headphone jack. The bias voltage slowly leaks away over about 250ms allowing the DC conditions in the preamp to settle, driving it out of cutoff and passing audio normally (well, except for the intentional distortion).