What do you use to listen to the music you love? Do you prefer headphones or earbuds? Perhaps you consider it sacrilege to listen to your tunes with anything less than an optimum surround-sound system in an acoustically perfected room. Any particular style or brand of speaker?
This silly little article made me think of starting this thread:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/te...er=rss&emc=rss
Here are some snippets of the article to give you the basic gist:
Quote:
Battling the Earbud-Wearing BluesBy DAVID POGUE
Do you have trouble making iPod earbuds stay in your ears? Does the least bit of exercise make them fall out? You are not alone. You, like thousands of other Americans, suffer from Earbud Cartilage Deficiency Syndrome (E.C.D.S.).
Fortunately, there is hope. Treatment comes in all shapes, sizes, designs and materials. Indeed, these alternative earbuds may even appeal to the normal-eared, because let’s face it: standard earbuds can be uncomfortable. They are three things that your ears are not: hard, perfectly round and uni-size. Here are the four categories of E.C.D.S. solutions. (I didn’t consider full-cup headphones, on the premise that they would diminish your reputation in public even further.)
EARBUD GRIPPERS The first approach is to fasten something onto your existing earbuds to make them grippier or more comfortable.
BUILT-IN HOOKS Another solution: earbuds with built-in, over-ear hooks. (They may interfere with glasses.)
HEADBAND STYLE A foldable headband that bends the earbuds right into your ears. Incredibly lightweight (and cheap-feeling), they’re incredibly comfortable, and they would stay on even if you had no ears at all.
IN-EAR rubber or foam tips wedge all the way inside your ear canal. Thedesign does more than prevent fallouts. It also blocks external sound, giving you a bit of noise reduction on, for example, plane rides (and making them more dangerous for biking and jogging). And by sealing your ear, these deliver far better sound. Each type comes with different tips: silicone domes, triple-flange stoppers, foam cylinders and so on. The hope is that you can find a tip type that feels comfortable for long hours and still seals your ear.
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For years I was hooked on noise-cancelling circumaural headphones. Their bulkiness didn't matter to me - just their incredible ability to isolate the sound and transport me into the world of music, far away from the shrill voices of my sister's young children. Then my favorite little fluff-ball entered my life and nibbled through the ever-important cord. Crushed, and more than a little perturbed, I went through a few sets of cheap earbuds and headphones, hoping to save up for noise-cancelling headphones again. I soon realized that anything less than perfection was not going to stand up to the heinously loud lab background noises that I encountered in my daily life such as the hum of growth chambers, the raucous fans of class 2 sterile lab benches and chemical flow hoods, the stirring of motorized microscopes, or the never-ending sput-sput of running centrifuges (and let's not forget chit-chatty officemates).
That's when I came across a concept that worked even better than noise-cancelling: Canalphones. They are basically in-ear noise-blocking buds. Ingenious!! Why cancel the noise when you can block it out entirely? A combination of earplug and earbud was bound to exist - somehow my husband found them and got me a wicked little pair. I am now addicted to my in-ear buds. I can't imagine my life without them.