Belkin's RockStar channels jams to five others

Sure, we've seen star-shaped hubs before, and headphone splitters are a dime a dozen, but Belkin is out to make sure your entire posse can get a listen to your favorite tune whenever they please. The six-port RockStar audio hub touts a single input-only socket alongside five other ports that can be toggled between input and output, essentially allowing certain DAPs to funnel different songs to different individuals. Of course, we can't really understand why you'd need to be all up in each others' grilles while taking a listen, but we suppose the kids these days have their reasons. Expect it to land this March for around $20.

[Johan Glamér @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:23PM]

Yepp, and the battery lenght will be reduced 5 times.

so if a batteries lifetime is 5 hours mp3 playing it will be 1 hour...

it would be a battery inside the "thing"

[Andrew @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:25PM]

I really doubt the battery would be cut by any significant amount. What are you talking about?!

[Andrew @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:39PM]

Umm, it probably wouldn't affect battery life at all.
Since you're outputting the same amount regardless of whether you're using this device or not.
The only exception to this case would be if you had to max out your volume to ensure that everybody had adequate volume levels.

[Numetheus @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:00PM]

I fail to see how this will effect battery life. Regardless the port will always use the same amount of electricity. If you suck water through a straw harder, you get more water. Same does not work for this. Earphones do not SUCK electricity! LOL That port is OUTPUT. Whatever it pushes is whatever it pushes. It will not effect electricity draw.

[Wolfticket @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:02PM]

It wont do anything to the battery life of the player but without any additional amplification it will kill (or should that be maim?) the volume on all 5 headphones.
You don't get something for nothing.

[Shane @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:38PM]

It's called Ohm's Law, people...Learn it...

[Grant @ Jan 3rd 2008 5:59PM]

i think he meant that it will kill battery life because you will need to set the volume on full blast to hear anything through 5 headphones.

Even the loudest DAPs probably couldn't go loud enough to hear it at an acceptable listening level through 5 headphones.

[Zegora @ Jan 4th 2008 3:10AM]

I've forgotten this one my self. Here it goes:
"Ohm's Phase Law states that the phase of a waveform has no effect on how the ear perceives it. The law was proposed by physicist Georg Ohm, who also proposed famous electrical law, which is similarly called Ohm's law." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm%27s_phase_law]

[Joe_Templeman @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:23PM]

Ooooh, I can just hear the audophiles screaming...

[Andrew @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:24PM]

Welcome to the social!

[rndmnme @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:59PM]

I do hope people "go social" with it. I want to laugh at the click group walking down the street all tied together thinking they look cool.

[Tom @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:24PM]

Awesome. So now if you all want to listen to the same thing you have to make sure all of your cans have the same impedance. Everybody will be rocking some 32 Ohm cans but one poor sap will have the 16 Ohm Apple Earbuds to go along with his bleeding eardrums. You could try for a volume control and an integrated amp to drive all those phones, Belkin.

[Shane @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:40PM]

Tom:

How do you know there aren't active components in this thing? There could at the very least be passive resistor networks to take care of any impedance mismatches. I would assume it MUST have some sort of active components to do what is described. It can be done passively but the losses could potentially be pretty bad....

[Carl M @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:37PM]

Multiple headphones can be wired in two ways:

-wired in parallel: resistance drops as more headphones are plugged in, power usage increases, output amp in device can get overloaded.

-wired in series: resistance increases as more are plugged in, power usage decreases, volume to listeners decreases.

[Jon Daive @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:38PM]

I wonder what the RIAA will have to say about this.

[James Cameron @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:49PM]

Welcome to the Matrix.

[Blake Harris @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:07PM]

The RIAA was my first thought, too... do all 5 users have a legally purchased copy of the CD?

[Matt B @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:40PM]

Wait 'til the RIAA sees this. The freeloaders must be stopped!

[Golferal @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:43PM]

I've come to the sad realization that I don't have 5 friends to share my music with. :(

[Sam @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:51PM]

With devices like this, we are going to have an HDCP-like protection scheme that locks the music to the headphones you had in your ear the very moment you ripped, er.. purchased the music.

[Wwhat @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:52PM]

Hah, I'm sure that if you connect more than 2 headphones to ANY MP3 player or PMP the sound will become too soft to be useful, so this is a pointless product indeed. unless they add a headphone amplifier and powersource.

[Scott G. @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:05PM]

Couldn't agree more.

[zzebi @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:53PM]

I bet RIAA lawyers have already sued those five kids on the picture.

[blade417 @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:58PM]

Something like this would be useful for roadtrips with like 3 or 4 kids in the car...
On the other hand, I would rather get them all their own mp3 players. I can hear them arguing now...
"I wanna hear the crazy frog song!"
"No, I wanna hear the new Britney Spears!"
"DAD!! He keeps pressing pause!!!"
"My ear is bleeding..."

[Zak @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:04PM]

Sweet, I'll have to bring one of those to my next orgy.

[Richard Lai @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:07PM]

Dammit, was gonna say the same. Ah well, there's always the good old box speakers.

[Blake Harris @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:15PM]

of course you can now add five iBuzz 'accessories'...

[CaptCaveman @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:36PM]

The best I came up with was the electronic version of a circle jerk...

[bob sakamano @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:14PM]

my question to belkin is

at what point do they recommend a group of friends to forgo the headphone hub and use a more conventional speaker for listening to music together?

[kyle @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:14PM]

i have a similar setup for watching movies in the van. it is 4 99c headphone splitters from wal-mart, all plugged in to each other. i get one input and 6 outputs.

[Rainier @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:28PM]

"That's my port!"
"Shutup! I'm using that port!"
"Oh Hellll no! That one is mine!"
"Can't we all just get along?"
"Quiet you dummies, I can't hear the music!!!"

[Akshat @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:51PM]

uhh .. what kind of friends do you have?

(just kidding)

[Zordon @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:29PM]

Go! Go! Power Rangers Zeo!

It's Morphin' Time!


Zeo Ranger I – Pink!

Zeo Ranger II – Yellow!

Zeo Ranger III – Blue!

Zeo Ranger IV – Green!

Zeo Ranger V – Red!

Gold Ranger Power!

[SteveMB @ Jan 3rd 2008 5:03PM]

Ok!

[somebody @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:34PM]

Wouldn't it be better just to use say a SPEAKER?

[Akshat @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:50PM]

As a college student, I can think of at least one thing this could be useful for - watching movies from your laptop. Laptop speakers are many a time not loud enough, and if you're watching a movie with your friends on a single laptop, this would come in handy.

Not sure about sharing tunes on an ipod though ...

[Dirkus @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:53PM]

Yeah, this is nearly useless. Show me one of those energizer AA battery based iPod charger dealies with a built-in speaker, and we've got a deal.

[netposer @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:08PM]

Misleading title. It should read:

"Belkin's RockStar channels jams to four others" (not five)

[Sam Zebian @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:11PM]

uh hello?? Isn't Zune the answer to this problem??

[Akshat @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:23PM]

at a slightly higher investment ...

[Sam Zebian @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:31PM]

not if you haven't bought a PMP yet... or you plan on replacing your old one soon

[jubestwager @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:31PM]

This is the most anti-social device I've ever seen.

"Let's stand in a circle and watch each other listen to music!"

[Hardcore @ Jan 3rd 2008 3:39PM]

Is this really a problem that needs to be addressed? Has there really ever been a point in mankind's history where 6 people were standing around in a circle and they all had on headphones and they needed to listen to something together and it had to be in private so a speaker couldn't be used? This reminds me of those useless 7 person bikes. http://www.gadgetspage.com/wp-content/7PersonBike2.jpg

[MattyG @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:21PM]

i'd rather have this on my computer, my speakers only have 3 inputs on them!

[MattyG @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:21PM]

i'd rather have this on my computer, my speakers only have 3 inputs on them!

[The_Steven @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:22PM]

And the spokesperson for the RIAA says:
"Hey, wait a minute, sharing music is illegal!"

[Christian @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:49PM]

Lol, this idea is nice, if you guys were seating down or in a place where you really can't be too loud, what I can't wait to see is people acutally walk with this, a bunch of people tied up with such connection(s).

[sevendegrees @ Jan 3rd 2008 5:38PM]

time to bust out the minidisc players and start dubbin again!

[ratnikh @ Jan 3rd 2008 10:54PM]

Can my girlfriend and her five friends each use their OhMiBods with this?

*grin*

Everything has a purpose, my friends.

[Korneel @ Jan 4th 2008 6:58AM]

Buy a Zune and you can send those songs to others