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

My friends, it’s Prime Day, and that means you can justify buying stupid gadgets because they’re getting even better slightly on sale. This is what it means to be an American.

In my case, that gadget is the Neohipo ET30, a vintage-looking VU meter that spins needles as you listen to music. Mine is connected between a Sonos Amp and my speakers for maximum accuracy, but you don’t have to: it has a built-in microphone that makes the needle bounce when you play music through any old speaker in the same room. It also lights up in 34 colors. I’m in love.

I want to make it clear: there is a scale printed on these meters, but that means that literally nothing because you can adjust their sensitivity however you want. They’re just for show, and the show is awesome. You can also use the ET30’s switching function to A/B test two sets of speakers and two different amplifiers, but that’s so secondary to the meters that I won’t even 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 accept 5V from a USB-A-to-USB-C cable — plugging in a real USB-C cable does nothing. If it weren’t so pretty, I’d 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 bit cooler, but some reviews say the meters aren’t sensitive enough. The Douk Audio Little Bear is also on sale, but some reviews say you can get extra noise if you connect it directly to your speakers, which I didn’t want. Plus, the ET30 is bigger, and the whole point of this whole thing is to have big, vintage meters, you know?

In any case, the ET30 normally costs $160, but it’s on sale today for $127. It doesn’t need an app, it doesn’t collect data, and it can never be broken by a firmware update or a private equity buyout. What more could you want from a gadget?