We’ve all had moments where we wished we could tune out a particular person or muffle loud music without losing the ability to hear a friend’s voice, but standard earplugs don’t exactly allow for a lot of fine-tuning. But with a new product called ‘Knops,’ you can literally turn the volume of the world up or down in an instant. Founded by musicians, the Dutch startup aims to help you hear what you want to hear and ignore what you don’t with the twist of a tiny knob.

Each pair of knots has four modes you can switch between: the first is clear sound, the second reduces ambient ‘city noise’ by 10 decibels, the third muffles live music by 20 decibels, and the fourth is ‘isolation,’ blocking out 30 decibels. You can easily switch between the four levels whenever you want, eliminating the need to constantly pull out and reinsert your earplugs.

Noting that most earbuds are “downright ugly as hell,” the designers gave Knops a minimalist look available in four different colors and trims. You might imagine that they’d be unnecessarily high-tech, turning a simple product like earplugs into an expensive, high-maintenance gadget that requires syncing to electronic devices or battery charging. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. The creators wanted control over external sounds without the distortion that can come with electronic solutions.

How does it work? According to the creators, “Knops uses no electronics, no apps and no batteries. Instead our earbuds are acoustically engineered. The real sound is filtered using gold old physics. With the help of computer simulations and real-world prototypes tested in acoustic labs, we tuned Knops. We spend a lot of time fine-tuning the sound, so we can provide the best quality sound at every volume level. Working with the natural response of the ear canal.”

You can pre-order a pair by backing the project on Kickstarter for 58 Euros (about $62 USD) or more.

With these earbuds, you can do anything from turning down the volume on crying babies, snoring spouses and passing sirens to tuning your own mix of bass, mids and trebles at a live concert in real time. If this description sounds like a bionic hearing device of the distant future, guess again: all of these benefits are being packed by Doppler Labs into a portable pair of well-funded wireless devices already in development.

Starting with the simplest features of Here: users can turn up or down everyday sounds – basically a volume knob for ordinary acoustics all around. But it gets better: using machine learning and customizable inputs tied to your smart device, Here can also filter out specific soundwaves in real time, cancelling out unwanted sounds instead of replacing them with white noise or other filler.

Beyond this baseline feature set, however, things start to get really interesting, with audiophile-oriented features that let you add or subtract everything from treble and bass to reverbs and echoes, letting you personalize all kinds of soundscapes, from background music at bars and elevator Muzak at work to live concert performances. Users can employ presets or customize their experience on the fly then save favorite settings for later, and fans will undoubtedly begin remixing acoustics in unexpected situations, creating custom soundtracks out of walks through parks.

Like many wearables, these “hearables” are controllable from your favorite smart device and thus require little onboard processing power, resulting in more extended battery life – the buds are then recharged in a portable case. Doppler has already raised thousands via Kickstarter and millions more via tech and music company investors. Some of this money will be put toward hardware but much of which will be used to further refine their algorithms and give users ever-more-custom audio control over their everyday auditory experiences.

From their fundraising campaign: “Through two truly wireless, in-ear buds and a smartphone app, Here allows you to instantly control real world audio so you can hear what you want to hear – no matter the situation – and be fully immersed in your audio environment. Here does not stream or play recorded music. Instead, the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) inside Here acts as a studio in your ears by providing you with a volume knob, equalizer and effects to transform real world audio. Use this ‘remote control for your ears’ to have an optimal listening experience every time.”

While an ordinary pair of headphones might consist of 50-something energy-intensive components from various manufacturing processes, this ultra-thin design uses printable electronics to cut that number down to an incredible 8. The ‘roll to roll’ process uses technology as the main material for the design, simplifying its composition and cutting out all unnecessary parts.

Designer Maxime Loiseau explores the adaptability and flexibility of printed electronic circuits in place of wires, used in conjunction with a plastic welding process that joins together larger, simpler pieces rather than a bunch of small injection-molded components. That means the whole product can be made on a single production line.

The wireless Bluetooth version is only a single millimeter thick, including the speakers, which rely on the vibration of a piezoelectric cell to produce sound that’s comparable to more conventional headphones. On the wired version, a single paper-thin cable hangs from one side, leaving the other free. The junction of the cable and the speaker is highlighted in a bright color to spotlight just how flat it is.

“The project doesn’t change the way we will use headphones,” says Loiseau. “The purpose here is to offer a reflection about producing electronic devices in a smarter way. The more materials are advanced, the more they are paradoxically easy to work. Through one production process, we can then using less process, less material, energy and pieces. At the same time, I tried to use the possibilities of the process to create an aesthetic result from it, a more fair product, with no superfluous parts.”

A new way to experience galleries, their artwork and the city they inhabit, even calling it a tour sells short this extremely impressive multimedia experience. Complete with props and layered audio recordings, all interspersed with civic trivia and high-speed humor, the whole Audio Hop production feels like an well-executed piece of dynamic performance art, in which you can play any number of parts. Launching next month, this hop is well worth a stop, a look and a listen.

David Behringer, the curator of this experience, is exuberant, knowledgeable and very dedicated, visiting over 250 galleries in Chelsea each month to find the five most worthy ones to show any given group (and rotating with each tour). From start to finish, his personality and enthusiasm make it work. For an simple sample, check out his video recap below showing ten of his favorite exhibits from 2013 – then click here to buy tickets for the program starting next month.

Unlike a traditional audio walking tour, this one features both live and prerecorded sound, all delivered wirelessly to an inconspicuous device, letting its guests meander through the galleries but also break away from the group. The clips include carefully curated and edited interviews with artists and other soundbites related to a given work or its context. “A hidden radio transmitter allows you to hear your guide from any distance (in total secret) AND listen to insightful audio clips of the artists themselves while you’re in the gallery.”

Effectively, you and your fellow half-dozen tour-takers feel both empowered to enter galleries that might seem open or feel welcoming you but also liberated from the the feeling of being tied to a traditional clustered bunch of gawking tourists. You can fall behind and linger, or stride ahead to the next stop, all while absorbing auditory input in the background.

30 out of 30 reviewers on TripAdvisor rated David’s private tours as ‘Excellent’, effectively a unanimous a 5-star recommendation. WebUrbanist’s own Executive Editor had the opportunity to a sneak peak at his new and more-public offering this summer and was beyond impressed – what were individual tours are morphing into something suddenly more accessible.

If it was not already clear: we would strongly recommend taking a trip with David to anyone who wants to get a glimpse of the art world … or simply wishes to take a artfully curated walk through New York City, learning about the neighborhood, its architecture and artwork alike. Even if you are not in the area, you can still check out the blog to learn about fantastic new works.

Above: The Mots Amazing Art of the Year in NYC, 2012 edition. From TheTwoPercent.com (currently under reconstruction): “New York City contains the highest concentration of contemporary art galleries in human history. The result is the opportunity to enjoy the best art on the planet in a museum-like environment, without the crowds, for free, IF you can sort through the ever-changing 500+ galleries to find the most unique, jaw-dropping experiences. Good news, we found them. You’re invited on an unprecedented live audio experience of the most cutting-edge art in the world.  It’s a secret tour that takes you to the best, lets the artists speak for themselves, and give you complete freedom to wander.”

We’ve seen what audio frequencies look like in mesmerizing resonance experiments using sand – so how does the same concept translate to a more volatile medium? The science video blog Veritasium carried out an experiment that uses flammable gas to create the pyromaniac music lover’s dream: an audio visualization in the form of fire.

It all comes down to the vibrations produced by sound. Veritasium teamed up with physics and chemistry demonstrators to create a ‘Pyro Board’ based on the Rubens’ Tube, also known as a standing wave flame tube. Invented by a German physicist, the Rubens’ Tube shows the relationship between sound waves and sound pressure.

Sealed at both ends and perforated along the top, the pipe is attached to a speaker or frequency generator at one side and a supply of flammable gas at the other. Variations in sound cause vibrations in the air to affect the flow rate of the gas, causing the flames to change in height.

The team translated this idea to two dimensions with what’s essentially a plane of bunson burners, with 2,500 holes. The louder the music is played, the higher the flames become.