The ampjacket is a new iPhone (and iPad mini) case that is designed to boost your phone’s volume simply through acoustics without the need for battery draining accessories. The case has been sculpted to divert the phone’s speaker through boosting channels at the back of the phone that increase the volume, making the sound, according to the packaging blurb, twice as loud.
Other than basic phone features like texting, the thing my iPhone is used for most is playing music. I listen through headphones as I walk to collect my son from pre-school, with the phone on the kitchen counter as I cook dinner, and propped in a glass on high volume when I take a shower. It’s quick, portable and allows me to carry my music with me at all times, although sometimes there is a problem.
Houses can be loud places and trying to listen to my preferred orchestral scores as the tumble dryer spins, the extractor fan whines or the shower hums – well, sometimes my iPhone’s speakers are just not quite up to the job. So when I was offered the chance to try an ampjacket phone case I was very interested.
Naturally I was dubious about this supposed doubling of my phone's volume, so as soon as the new case arrived I snapped it on. The case looks nice and stylish but has one fairly obvious (and large) flaw, its size. The boosting channels more than double the depth of the phone and a bulge at the bottom means it can no longer be stood on that end without it tilting several degrees to the left; it’s not a case you really want to be keeping on the phone at all times.
Here I faced another problem with the case: it is nigh on impossible to remove. I tried for 15 minutes before giving up, my fingertips raw from being scratched by the edges of the case as it snapped back into place. My husband was eventually able to remove it by digging his nails under the case and prising it off with some application of force, something that I couldn't do without breaking off half my nails. However by this point any ideas I had previously entertained about snapping the case on when I went for a shower and then reverting back to my usual day-to-day case had been abandoned. It is simply too much effort to bother with for anything more than a sustained period where you need the extra volume.
Speaking of volume, I ran a simple test to see how well the ampjacket did at boosting the volume of some music by playing the same two pieces twice, once with the jacket on and once without. To keep the experiment as fair as possible I kept the phone the same distance apart from the microphone recording the tests, kept the phone in the same position, and kept everything on the same surface without changing anything in the room. Have a listen to the two recordings I made. You’ll first hear the music without the ampjacket boost, then with:
X-Files Theme Comparison and Harry Potter Theme Comparison
In both cases there is an obvious increase in volume but it’s hard to quantify just how much of an increase. However when you see the data presented visually, the differences are much clearer.
The ampjacket is definitely providing a significant amplification to the sound and easily living up to its marketing claim, it is very impressive and works wonders for my quiet scores. However, I soon happened upon another issue that you may have already noticed in the previous audio clips but which became much more evident when I listened to some rock music.
The ampjacket worked to significantly increase the volume but in doing so it massively distorted the sound, making it unbearable to listen to – at some points it was physically painful. In order to listen to music without distortion I had to turn my iPhone’s volume right down to around halfway, making the output not much louder than at full volume without the ampjacket on, and if I’m doing that then what exactly is the point of the ampjacket?
I was also interested to compare the amplification of the ampjacket against the method my husband and I have been employing around our house for several months. Rather than investing in docks for every room, the kitchen and bathroom are home to drinking glasses that are used as a rudimentary amplifiers. For a further test I used an amplification method popular on the internet, that of placing the phone inside a cereal bowl. I played the same clips and recorded the results.
Interestingly, the bowl method appeared to actually reduce the volume output of the phone. The glass did provide some amplification (although not nearly as much as the ampjacket) and did it without the distortion effect. The underling problem of course is that the iPhone’s speaker was never designed to deliver sound at the kinds of volumes that the ampjacket is providing, so amplifying its output will eventually lead to the sound disintegrating and becoming unlistenable.
So what do I say about the ampjacket? Well it does what it says on the box; the volume output of your phone will be significantly upped, possibly in the long-term if you have as many problems removing the case as I did. It certainly has great potential as a tool for the hard of hearing, boosting the volume of ringtones and notification pings. The thing is that high volume does not necessarily equal high quality and you have to consider whether or not the loss of audio quality and $30 price tag is worth it to you just to blast out your music extra loud. As for me, well, I still haven’t removed my low-tech glass amplifiers and I think they’ll be seeing plenty of use for the time-being.
An ampjacket was provided free for this review.
