The best thing you can buy on Prime Day is some silly VU meters for your speakers

My friends, it is Prime Day, and that means you can justify buying silly gadgets because they are even slightly on sale. This is what it means to be American.

In my case, that gadget is the Neohipo ET30, a vintage-looking VU meter that swings its needles around when you listen to music. I have mine connected between my Sonos Amp and my speakers for maximum accuracy, but you don’t need to do that: it has a built-in mic that makes the needles bounce if you’re playing music through any old speaker in the same room. It also lights up in 34 colors. I am in love.

I want to be clear: there is a scale printed on these meters, but it means literally nothing because you can adjust their sensitivity at will. They are just for show, and the show is delightful. You can also use the switching function in the ET30 to A/B test two sets of speakers and two different amps, but that is so secondary to the meters that I’m not even going to finish this sentence. And in the worst possible crime against USB, the ET30 has a fake USB-C port on the back that can only take 5V from a USB-A-to-USB-C cable — plugging in a true USB-C cable does nothing. If it wasn’t so pretty, I would call the police.

There are other VU meters like this out there — the Fosi Audio LC30 is also on sale for Prime Day and looks a little cooler, but various reviews say the meters aren’t nearly sensitive enough. The Douk Audio Little Bear is also on sale, but some reviews say that if you hook it up directly to your speakers, you might get some added noise, which I didn’t want. Plus, the ET30 is bigger, and the point of this whole situation is having big vintage meters, you know?

Anyhow, the ET30 usually costs $160, but it’s on sale today for $127. You don’t need an app, it collects no data, and it can never be bricked by a firmware update or private equity buyout. What more do you want from a gadget?