A variation of different types of speakers meant to be worn around your neck has been around for several years, without really overtaking the market. However, many gamers are still actively publishing positive reviews of such technology – as they claim that the ability to get rid of the headset creates a more comfortable gaming environment.
Traditional gamers point out the benefits of not having sore and irritated ears after hours of gaming. Other parts of the gaming community enjoy this technology as it offers both the chance to zone out from your surroundings, and the chance to engage with people around you without losing the full gaming experience.
Additionally, users such as members of the growing gambling community whose preferred entertainment is online casinos platforms, agree with the positive sentiment behind these speakers, as they offer the ability to fully immerse yourself in the casino experience. Neck speakers make this experience more realistic by detaching users from the physical constraints of a headset – thereby creating a more natural, and seemingly more authentic gambling environment with all the sounds.
Neck speakers in gaming
The gaming community has been the most vocal supporter of speakers around your neck. The reason behind this is most likely the fact that gamers use their headsets in a peculiar manner – compared to most other users. To most “traditional” gamers, the headset is both a means of communicating to other players – and a tool for listening to important cues within the game. Thus, they cannot simply decide not to use their headset – as it defeats the purpose of gameplay as it was intended, and additionally decreases the quality of the gaming experience.
Even if you decide to use standard speakers for simply listening to the game audio – your ability to communicate to your team members is compromised. Similarly, if you use other types of microphones – there’s a high chance that they will be impractical to use or will potentially be disruptive to other players in the game. So, in most cases, having a headset is a necessity.
It is then not surprising that neck speakers gained so much traction in the gaming community – as their main perk was the ability to offer the same qualities as a traditional headset, but just through a more comfortable design. Moreover, neck speakers offer alternatives to some very common issues gamers encounter with their headsets – such as impractically short audio cables, graceless design for muting yourself, incompatibility with various gaming consoles, impractical volume control etc.
In that capacity, the main benefits of neck speakers are that they are more comfortable, they offer the ability to listen to audio, and the ability to simultaneously use a built-in microphone. Additionally, they allow you to decide exactly how detached from your surroundings you want to be – by adjusting different volume and stereo settings. Meaning that you can utilize the neck speaker to fully ignore everyone and everything around you – but you can also adapt the setting to fit a group of friends playing a game from the exact same physical location.
Neck speakers vs traditional speakers
So it is easy to see why big portions of the gaming community would potentially prefer neck speakers to headsets – but in the attempt to comprehend the overall potential for entertainment innovation, we have to look a bit further.
The comparison in quality and practicality between neck speakers and traditional speakers doesn’t really make much sense – much like the comparison between high quality sound systems, and an average headset. These are two quite distinct categories that, for the most part, serve different purposes. Additionally, both have their own range of quality, cost, practicality etc.
What does, however, make sense is the comparison between neck speakers and other wearable speakers – and the comparison between neck speakers and simpler audio set-ups.
When it comes to wearable audio equipment, neck speakers present a unique type of technology, as most wearable audio equipment was constructed to endure exercise – and minimize the impracticalities of working out and listening to music simultaneously.
On the other hand, when it comes to simpler audio set-ups, the neck speaker presents a decent compromise between a headset and a standard set-up. So, if you don’t really mind other people hearing what you’re listening to – it’s more or less just a matter of preference.
All in all, the neck speaker has a great potential to be an innovative element in sound entertainment – but it does not create a revolutionary shift in it.
