Several weeks ago, IAA partnered with A Bad Think to bring you “The Hunt,” a series of interactive challenges made by audiophiles for audiophiles.
To celebrate the release of A Bad Think’s latest studio album X, we’ve designed an elaborate patchwork of puzzles and riddles solvable only by audiophiles. Winners will be rewarded handsomely, with a number of tiered prizes still on the table. Life In Surround’s brilliant overview video is essential viewing for anyone interested:
X Marks the Site : An Interactive Game for Music Lovers - Celebrating the new album by A Bad Think
As The Hunt enters its final weeks, we’ve decided to compile all the hints in one place and offer up a handful of new clues.
Upon entering the hunt at xmarksthe.site, you’ll be greeted with one of the 10 challenges to solve. To find and solve the rest, you'll see an endlessly-scrolling infinite art. To enter each challenge, simply click the glowing orbs hidden in the imagery throughout.
Challenge #1: Subliminal
The subwoofer in your 5.1 system may make some odd noises when playing back this 5.1 file. You might want to take a look at the waveforms and see what’s causing the issue.
Challenge #2: Lucent
Again, this is a case where “seeing” and “hearing” aren’t quite the same thing. The freeware digital audio workstation (DAW) program Audacity is all that’s needed to work this out.
Challenge #3: Refrain
To complete this challenge, you may wish to review the lyrics to the song “Power and Gold.” The first line in particular contains the key.
Challenge #4: Kinesthetic
Braille is a tactile writing system used by those who are blind or visually-impaired. That said, there are only tools that will convert Braille into standard text.
Challenge #5: Sense
Though MIDI is an audio format, it can also be expressed in visual form. Keep that in mind as you attempt to solve this challenge!
Challenge #6: Moniker
In order to solve this challenge, we’d recommend revisiting Sound-On-Sound’s excellent spread on Lifelike from March 2021.
Challenge #7: Minutiae
We’d recommend revisiting our in-depth Q&A with Michael Marquart from May 2021 to solve this riddle, though the answer is hiding in plain sight.
Challenge #8: Decorum
This one is a bit tricky, but the answer can definitely be found within that image. It might require use of a cell phone.
Challenge #9: Graven
Without giving too much away, the answer to this challenge is a vintage music format that has gained quite a bit of popularity in recent years.
Challenge #10: Silence
This is a form of destructive interference, and can cause severe loss of bass in a sound recording. Some subwoofers even have a built-in switch to account for it.
We hope you enjoy The Hunt! Only time will tell who will in the end. If you haven’t already, please visit IAA’s shop and purchase the Dolby Atmos edition of A Bad Think’s X.
