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Tom's Es

by Volker Weber

While the Sonos is playing Suzanne Vega:

I used them a month ago in Sweden for the first time in front of a live audience. Hmm, I thought, These feel weird. Not all they are cracked up to be. Very much like ear plugs, in fact.

I felt like I was in a pantomime, or underwater, and finally I remembered there was a little dial poking up out of my pocket that I had access to. I decided to turn it up — thereby turning it on. I had performed half the show with the monitors turned off! Oops. No wonder I couldn't hear anything.

It's probably the best description of what in-ear headphones do for you on the plane. You can't hear anything. And then you add some very quiet music to calm you down. I learned to go into a meditation that makes the time fly.

More >

[Thanks, Richard]

Comments

happened to me several times: I fell asleep in the plane with Agua Bella still playing on the iPhone. Great. I am using the Etymotic ones supplied by Apple Store.

The rest of that article is even more interesting. Recommended reading.

I recently got Beyer Dynamic the DTX 50 Individual. They come with a voucher for a custom made earpiece. Took about a week to get the earpiece done. The feel is phantastic, so much better than the DTX 50 with the standard earpiece or the Koss Plug - the only other in ear headphones I have tried so far. They just "fit".

I agree with Hanno; that is a post worthy of your time. Thanks, vowe, for sharing.

I find in-ear super uncomfortable. I had the Bose, but those just are average. I ended up with the Sennheiser PX450 (http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite/productdetail.asp?transid=500643) and love them. When turned on, you can't hear any of the white noise in a building or the plane noise. And they have a button to turn off the noise cancelling so I could talk to the stewardess without removing the headphones. And the audio quality is top notch.

John, I have used this type of NC headphones as well. The PXC450 is pretty much high-end. German product BTW. But I am with Headroom on this one:

The first and most crucial step for great portable audio is to get rid of all the ambient noise in the environment around you. Almost everybody these days is aware of the Bose "noise-canceling" headphones. We think those cans are just okay. We also sell a few noise-canceling headsets made by Germany's Sennheiser: the PXC300, PXC250 and PXC150 and the excellent audiophile-oriented PXC350 and the high-end PXC450 with 'Talk-Through' feature and improved noise-canceling ability. These are all nicely ergonomic, lightweight noise-canceling headphones and are somewhat better-sounding than the Bose products, but there is no big pressing reason to throw out the Bose to just pick up a mildly better-sounding noise-canceling headset. The REAL reason to throw out the Bose, or any other noise-canceling headset you might own, is to get much more thorough noise-blocking / isolation and WAY better sound quality from a portable 'sealed/closed' headphone or, especially, from a high-end ear canal headphone (ECH).

I have a great sound experience with the dual driver Super.fi 5 Pro. It all depends how well the headphones fit in your ear canal. The medium size gels are just fine for me. If that is not the case, the ultimate experience would be with custom fit ECHs.

In-ears are odd at first. But now I’m used to them, ordinary earphones are just… bleurgh!

I also have the UE Super.fi 5 Pro's - and are using them with the small sized gels - the only hassle is to "unscrew" them from the ear if a stewardess is suddenly trying to ask me something. I have found myself numerous times trying to lipread :-)

Oh, and driving the car with them can also get somewhat irritating, I usually use an fm-in-car-transmitter for my ipod instead.

I don't care what a stewardess asks me. I tell them what I want. :-)

Ceci n'est pas un blog

vowe.net is a personal website published by Volker Weber a.k.a. vowe. I am an author, consultant and systems architect based in Darmstadt, Germany.

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