Geek with Family

We bought a 2000 Lexus RX 300 SUV on Saturday. The Lexus has a factory upgraded sound system with a six CD changer in the glove compartment. On Sunday we remembered to take a CD, Decemberists’ Picaresque, with us on the short drive to the local horse farm.

In our old car (a 2004 Honda Pilot, so really newer than the Lexus) we never had too many CDs in the car because I had this great idea that we would remember my iPod (we never do because it’s always connected to me, my Mac Mini or on the night stand with drained batteries).

Continue reading The Decemberists’ Picaresque - Toddler_o_Geek Doesn’t Hate My Music Yet

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I’ve never bought entertainment software for convenience’s sake. If I try to purchase something I already own, Wife_o_Geek vetoes with, "Don’t you already have that? We need diapers." I can’t smell a dirty diaper while riding the train to work, watching Samurai Champloo on my PSP. We move out of electronics and into the baby aisle.

Why buy expensive UMDs and iPod TV Videos from the iTunes Music Store? You can rip and re-encode the DVDs you own, right? Not so fast, that’s illegal and you’ll get sued by the MPAA.

When dealing with electronic forms of entertainment you want your money to go toward improvements to the experience: higher resolutions, bigger screens, more surround sound channels, crisper and clearer, less noise, whatever. You may have a hard time paying for tiny resolution, formatted for a 2 inch screen, mono or stereo sound (Dolby Pro Logic II on headphones with some UMD titles), and compressed and noisy audio and video.

Continue reading Mobile Video Convenience versus Home Theater Quality

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Trains are loud.

If you want to listen to music on your iPod or watch a movie on your PSP without going deaf and bothering the other passengers you need in-ear headphones like my Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studios. Many commuters use Shure E2Cs. The Shures were my first in-ear set so I know when properly shoved into your ear canal they provided improved isolation and sound over the iPod’s earbuds.

Every morning and evening ride from the suburbs to downtown Chicago and back I spy fellow commuters with their in-ears inserted in the wrong ear and upside down. Switching the Shures makes the driver body point away from your head. This makes me crazy because your flipping L and R channels (ruining a sound engineers weeks of hard work to place guitar on the right, bass on the left, singer front and center and drums in back), you lose isolation and therefore sound quality and it looks like a sad dog’s limp ears. The Shures gracefully twist into your ear canal and the driver rests snugly in the concave dent behind the canal hole.

It’s easy. Go read the instructions. Print them out and consult them whenever you leave the house with your iPod and in-ear headphones.

The backwards earphones bug me so much I want to tug them out of my fellow commuters’ ears and shove them back in correctly. Please save your mace for a real attacker, I’m just improving your commute.

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Most morning and evening commutes I cannot think a single album or artist I want to listen to, so I fall back on my shuffled "Geek Alt" playlist. Once in a great while TV on the Radio will play. I only have their Young Liars EP on the iPod though I listened to their full length, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and loved the second song Staring at the Sun. This morning the title track, Young Liars, made the shuffle usually dominated by Built to Spill, Pavement and Elliot Smith (my shuffle seems to prefer those bands, somehow). This is one indie masterpiece. It has everything I love: a mix of complementary electronic and analog instrumentation different than standard guitar/bass/drums, obscure, mythical lyrics sung in three-part harmony, and an eery, driving drone of keyboards giving you just the right amount of dread to make you feel special that you’re not listening to Maroon 5. "Thank you for takin’ my hands…" TV on the Radio.

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I bought the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studio Isolation Earphones last week and have been enjoying them. Key benefits include: clean open sound with good separation of instruments and performers, very detailed yet smooth response in the upper frequencies, controlled, tight bass if not a little muted (though may improve when I figure out how to reliably lodge them in my ear canal, more later), adequate sound isolation from both your environment and the headphone wire itself thanks to over the ear hard, but pliant to fit snuggly over your ear, plastic encased wire stress relief, low listening fatigue and good comfort with the correct sized ear plug (still don’t know if I’ve found mine yet). Another great upgrade to the iPod sound system in my pocket. Read on for a more in depth look at my continuing headphone struggle.

Continue reading Ultimate Ears Super.fi 3 Studio Isolation Earphones Review

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