Gadgetory

so the trend for everything these days is to make gadgets smaller lighter and more portable I mean we even have smartwatches because we decided that checking your already pocket-sized phone when you get a text was simply too much work but there's one rather fat fly in the ointment when it comes to portability those huge power bricks that still accompany many of our electronic devices now many of them have gotten a fair bit smaller since the days of the original Xbox 360 AC adapter like I'm sure you could use that thing as a murder weapon but the question remains as to why we need them at all even those relatively small wall Wars for mobile phones can still be inconvenient due to how much they stick out of the wall or how they can block other outlets well the basic reason for these clunky boxes is that our modern electronics cannot use the raw AC power that comes directly from the wall instead it has to be converted to direct current or DC you can learn more about the differences between AC and DC right up here but the important thing to know is that unlike DC an AC power uses a current that is constantly switching direction so because the transistors that lie at the heart of contemporary electronics need the current to flow one way only in order to work properly they need extra equipment to convert or rectify AC power into one-way DC this is why simpler electrical devices like a desk lamp work just fine without a space hogging adapter but that doesn't explain why they need to be so big and why they can't just be built into our electronics well as it turns out a fair bit of equipment is actually needed for this simple AC to DC conversion now back in the day many electronics used linear adapters which could turn the 110 or 220 volts from the wall into a specific smaller voltage that the electronics needed but their drawback was that they gave off a great deal of waste heat I mean I guess that's no problem when the number of people on your city's power grid is measured thousands but in the modern world the more efficiently that we can perform these operations the better also all that waste heat would have been really bad to have inside the same chassis as a bunch of sensitive electronic components so nowadays most power bricks are switching adapters which means that they themselves use fancier electronics to switch voltages and current depending on what exactly is coming out of the wall and what the device specifically needs not only does this allow your electronics to work in countries with different voltages as long as you've got a simple plug adapter it's also a lot more efficient than the older linear power bricks which is why some devices do have integrated power supplies like some monitors with that said switching adapters still give off a fair bit of heat because they aren't nearly 100% efficient and the electronics inside them can create interference meaning that it can be helpful to separate the adapter itself from whatever it's trying to power if it's susceptible to that kind of interference on top of that they often include RF shielding which can add still more weight and bulk making matters worse even though modern electronics tend to be a lot more efficient than what we had a couple of decades ago some gadgets still do need lots of power and generally speaking the more power device needs the larger its adapter will be as larger components and wires are needed to safely carry the additional current the thinner smaller components just have too much resistance and can't handle all of that juice this is also part of the reason that internal power supplies for desktop PCs which can consume hundreds or even over a thousand watts are bulky and heavy with often large cooling fans in them back to our mobile electronics for a moment though these two have a lot going on but in a much smaller space and building power delivery directly into something like a phone or a gaming laptop would not only add undesirable bulk but possibly make the whole system too hot to function and increase the price of replacing the power adapter in the event of a failure so the good news is that while we won't be getting rid of them outright anytime soon as electronics continue to get more efficient with processors becoming more powerful while simultaneously needing less energy AC adapters should generally keep shrinking or at least stay smaller and lighter than they used to be good thing too because I never have enough room in my suitcase speaking of room in your suitcase I'm sure you could make some room for mass drops sennheiser HD 6 XX headphones these things sound fantastic and they are one of mass drops all-time bestsellers with over 50,000 units sold and no wonder they've got an unchanged driver and sound structure compared to the HD 650 s which are a modern classic delivering balanced mid-range and natural sounding bass and they've got a couple of improvements including a detachable six-foot cable instead of a ten-foot cable so you don't have quite as much wire to manage it comes with an eighth inch plug that's versatile for everyday use and a quarter inch adapter and includes Sennheiser's long-term support so check out the link below to join the drop today so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos if you have a comment please do leave one especially if you have a suggestion for a future video you'd like to see covered and don't forget to subscribe and follow so you never miss a tech quickie never not even once not even if you were like you had food poisoning and you were throwing up you'd be like you'd be there on your phone that sounds very awful maybe don't throw up on my face