What this is
The AetherWave Stereo System is a photoreal audio rack you actually operate. Every faceplate is a real component wired to live sound: the knob you turn in the photograph is the knob that changes what you hear. It is not a skin over a slider. It is the front panel of a signal chain you build yourself.
This handbook covers the whole thing: your personal stereo, the radio stations you can dress with it, and the Audio Store where the components come from.
The three pieces
Your personal stereo. Everyone gets one, at /stereo-system. It is your own listening rig: a base console plus any components you add. It is free to tune, it plays every station on the dial, and it follows your account across devices.
Radio stations. A station is a public channel other people listen to. When you own a station, you can build a rack for it and press Save to Radio Station, and from then on every listener hears your sound through the gear you chose. Your personal stereo and each of your stations are independent rigs; changing one never touches the other.
The Audio Store. More than seventy components across four tiers: equalisers, dynamics, saturation, modulation, spatial units, preamps, tubes, tape machines, speakers, and meters. You audition a unit on whatever is playing, then add it to a slot in your rack. One of them, the 5-Band Equalizer, is included free with every system.
How a signal flows
Sound enters at the top of the rack and passes down through each unit in order, so the order of your rack is the order of your signal chain. The base console is always present: Transport (play and skip), the Receiver (the FM tuner), Tone (bass, mid, treble), and Power Output (the final level and your Speakers or Headphones choice). Between them sit the component slots you fill from the store.
Where to start
- New to it: read Getting Started for the two views and a tour of the base console.
- Ready to shape your sound: Building Your Rack and The Audio Store.
- You run a station: Radio Stations and the AI Host.
- On a phone: On Your Phone.
Two things worth knowing up front
Your settings save themselves. There is no Save button on the personal stereo. Turn a knob and it is kept, on the server, tied to your account, so your rig looks the same next time and on your next device.
Nothing you do to your personal stereo is ever published. Only a station rack, saved on purpose with Save to Radio Station, is heard by anyone else.