Like many things in life, being a good traveler requires the proper amounts of planning and equipment, both in proper balance, of course!
If you’ve got all the equipment but not enough (research and) planning done, your trip will be too disorganized and you’ll end up looking like a doofus. On the other hand, if you’ve planned too much and you don’t have the right equipment, it can make your trip downright stressful because you won’t be able to do everything you planned…
I’ve been guilty of the latter as I’ve often packed small luggages tightly and then discovered that I was limited as to what kind of travel booty (yearrrgh!) I could bring home. Other trips, I’d overcompensate by dragging along the red monster. Fully loaded, it weighed something over 40 kilos!! Ergo, its name. So my problem was that I didn’t have the right kind of luggage (equipment) to make my trip go smoothly.
Of course, it could be argued that I’ve already got a lot of junk and I don’t really need any more. But how much of my junk has sentimental value, reminding me of places and people I’ve met on my many journeys?
Not that much. But the collecting of junk is not the point of this post. Remember the title, “The well equipped traveler”? Some of the “right equipment” for me includes: Luggage, Powerbook, (a lot of) Local Currency, Maps and Travel books, iPod, good headphones…
What? Can someone repeat that? “Good headphones“.
If the iPod is truly one of the greatest travel implements of all time, the headphones that connect your iPod to your head are equally important. Unfortunately, as many of you iPodders know, the iPod comes with a pair of headphones soooo uncomfortable and sound sooooo crappy, they might as well have been designed by Microsnot. Bleagh.
After a rash of robberies separated iPodders from their iPods (given away by their white headphone cords), the advice came down from many folks to replace their headphones so they are less of a target.
The fact that the stock headphones sound like crap should be enough incentive to get new cans! But, oh well…
I’ve gone through 2 sets of cans over the past couple of years. The first set was a pair of Sennheiser Noise Cancelling headphones, model PXC-250. They sounded fine enough, except that the noise reduction doodad was penlight sized, was inline inbetween the headphone cord and the cord that went to the iPod and needed to be clipped somewhere on your person. Awkward.
But the sound was decent and the noise reduction worked well. Until on my last flight overseas where the strain relief (you know, that part where the headphone cord ends) went bad, messing up the connection between the noise reduction doodad and the headphones, thus filling my left ear with the kind of noise that makes all the earwax fall out at once.
Which is normally a good thing, except it was: painful and it was on the flight to Tokyo.
I rebounded, accepted that a year and some odd months was a good run for a modern day electronic device and started shopping around for another set of cans.
Sony had a set of headphones, model MDR-NC50, that was full sized and (according to the internet) was compared favourably to the golden standard, the Bose Quiet Comfort 2s. So I ordered a set and tried them out on another flight.
Disappointing! Sound quality: Not so good. Noise Reduction: Adequate. Much of the NR had to be from the fact that these were full over the ear headphones. And when I tried to fit them right and pushed the right ear against my head, I got a feedbacky sound that again, would make all the earwax fall out of your ear.
Except these headphones are full size over the ear and the earwax would probably sit inside the headphone. Eww, gross.
These got sent back to Amazon after trying to live with these for a month.
So I was thinking, there’s got to be another option besides US$300 cans (the Bose headphones) that can shut out ambient noise and sound good.
I did some reading on the Shure E2 and the Etymotic Research ER6i in ear headphones. Both are about US$100.
Both headphones are good at reproducing sound and blocking out noise (because you’re jamming these into your ears, thus acting like earplugs that play music) but the one difference between the two is warranty. Shure: two years, Etymotic Research: ninety days.
I ordered the Shures. They arrived yesterday.
So far, I’ve not much time to play around with these. They give you 10 pairs of earpad/plug thingies and you’ve got to find the one that fits best inside your ear. Besides making sure they don’t fall out of your ear, the earpad/plug thingies also make sure, if worn properly, makes the music sound grrrreat!
Think this entry is long?? Just get me started on luggage. Or service on airline flights! That’ll be long, that’s for sure!