Splash Damage: MDR-E888, Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10

I’ve been back from Korea for about two weeks.  For one, it was very cold in Korea.  Freezing my butt and ears off, literally.

However, the trip was very fruitful, both personally and gears wise.  Since this isn’t my Facebook page, I’ll just have to update you on the gears side of things.  So, here is then my quick impression of Sony MDR-E888s (obtained in Korea), JVC Flats (Also obtained in Korea), and Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10.  Actually, I’ll save the impressions of Triple.Fi 10 for another post.  Suffice to say, it is one of the most impressive gears in my collection (and this includes Shure E4Cs, at one time of the more beloved IEMs).

MDR-E888:  Sony’s legendary open earbuds, all but extinct from the US Shores once the EX-series of earbuds more or less conquered the earphone market.  Of course, the EX series itself was conquered by clones and me-too in ear buds by many manufacturers, but that’s for another post.

I say the MDR-E888 is legendary (a cursory search would support this claim somewhat), and was considered as such before the Yuin’s of the world made its impact.  It is mostly a forgotten legend now that Sony no longer sells MDR-E888s, or any other high end earbuds, period.  Which is a total shame, since the E888s are very impressive, even more so than the current MDR-EX300/500 line of  in-ear buds.

Somewhat flat and neutral sounding, yet very open and expansive.  In fact, it has remarkably open soundstage, rivaling full sized open cans, Such as Grado SR60 (a very full sized open cans).  E888s takes to EQ like fish to water as well.  I dare not mod these (though there are couple of mods available) as that’s how I killed my first set of E888s (I had a set few years back, thanks to Ben).  It does exhibit some treble roll-off and feels slow at times, especially so with high-energy tracks.  However, given the general balance and openness of the phones, it’s forgivable.  What is not, however, is the large size of the drivers (16.5mm) and may be physically incompatible with certain people’s ears.

Avoid the fakes (get them from reputable source such as Audiocubes) and you’re in possession of a legendary earbuds and reminder of Sony’s glorious past.  A Reminder that Sony is, at heart, an quality electronics company, even if its current line up do not inspire such confidence.

Grade: B+, if you can fit the drivers.  C- if the drivers do not fit.

JVC Flats.  Marshmellows, but bigger.  Very decent sounding for $10-$20.  Vocals do tend to sound awfully sinusy at time.  Rather unremarkable when it comes to sound.  And I think that’s the point here.  But given the price, these are much better bang for your dollars than other closed or clip-ons at this price (save KSC-75s).  Much better than Sony’s offering at this price.  The MDR-V160 comes to mind, which are piss poor compared to the Flats.  The MDR-XD100s are a better pair of cans, but they are two different beasts.

Having sad that, however, I can’t generally recommend the Flats as much as I thought I would.  Given the general good feeling from Head-Fi and what not, I may have expected more from these than what they can offer.  But for the price, it’s entirely unremarkable and inoffensive.  Which is a big enough statement as is.  I suppose.

Grade: C+

Splash Damage: Freezing my Butt off

Damage will be in Korea for the next month or so. Hopefully, I’ll have something more interesting to post in the coming month then I did the past year and a half or two.

Splash Damage: Grave Spinning as Power Source

Oh dear my, oh dear me.  If people spinning grave could be tapped as a source of power, I’d imagine that Mr Miles Davis’ grave would generate enough to power the entire city of Los Angeles…

Here then, are a set of Monster Turbine In-Ear Speakers.  Admittedly a decent set of cans on their own, they’ve gone and jazzified that up a bit with gold and brass trim, and other things so that there would be legit excuse to charge US$499 (MSRP) along with a modest $100 on-line discount (gees, thanks Monster!).

According to this article, they are OK’d by the Davis family and comes with the endorsement of the estate.  Also, they include some magical Monster Mojo to make older recordings sound lush and full.

Nice to know that the likeness of Mr. Davis will be on a set on a good sounding but overpriced set of Monster products.  Like I said, if this trend continues, we can go ahead and tap the spinning graves of celebs and musicians whose images will grace these products to power the nation.  Huzzah.

On a different note, I’ve migrated most of the materials on Damaged Gears to (http://www.damagedgears.net), which you can visit.  Nothing new there yet, but that will change eventually.

Damage Reviews: MDR-XB40

Damage had a pair of MDR-XB40

Sorry, no new pithy posts about new year resolutions (way too late for that), or HOPE about change.  I’m getting back to what I do best.  Reviewing the heck out of interesting low to mid-range headphones and DAPs. This time, Damage focuses his laser vision on the MDR-XB40 Earbuds, recently released by Sony in some random fashion to appease the bass head audience.

All 10 of you (I kid, for the 11th self-professed basshead).

Wait, do I still have an audience?

Now that I’ve got you all hot and bothered, should you blow your hard earned $60 for these guys?  Read on.

Splash Damage: Hacking your NWZ-A72X/82X

I had wanted to put in a thought about the Sansa Clip/Fuze (apparently, they are the darling DAP of 2008. I should get one before I even think of posting anything about them though). Instead, some splunking around the web resulted in enhancing your NWZ-A72X/82X series though this takes voiding your warranty to some degree. Ready? Good, let’s go, after the jump.  Not your cup of tea, don’t follow the jump.  Instead, read the next post about Spiralfrog.

Splash Damage: Maxell Peanuts

Maxell Peanutz, quite possibly the worst and best buy of 2008

Quite possibly, the worst and best buy of 2008.

Why is this the worst buy?  Well, it sounds like your average $2.99 earbuds.  Muddy and terrible, overbearing bass, 1930s radio quality vocals, and quite possibly nonexistant sounds over… 13 or 14kHz range.  Let’s be generous and say 14 kHz range.  WIthout serious EQ action on your source, you will think to yourself, why oh why did I waste $14.99 (or less than $10.00 if you find them on sale) on this peanut of a headphone?  After all, you can get some seriously good peanuts and a lot of it for the same price (about a year’s worth if you shop around a bit).

But wait a minute…  Are those equipped with double tipped flanges?  And are they compatible with my MDR-EX Style earbuds?

What has been very interesting the last 4 to 5 years is that the eartips on many of these semi-canal earbuds uses the same cushions/flanges/tips as the Sony EXs.  Now, the tips on these guys are slightly (ever so) smaller than the tips on the EX style (and other EX tip using) earbuds.  However, not so much smaller than it makes fitting the double and triple flange tips from the Peanutz impossible, mind you.  Just a little elbow grease goes a long away.

And the new double and triple flanged tips gives you additional isolation and fitting to the EX series.  The double (think small and medium tips glued together for a quick visual) brings extra bass to the party, the visceral, deep, meaningful bass.  There’s a bit of clarity in the mids and the trebles as well, but not as much as you’d suspect.  That’s actually enhanced a bit (not much though) by the triple flanges, which we will get to in a moment.  The enhanced isolation, ever so slight, however, is what most people will be looking for with the users of the EX series and the double flanges.  These Peanutz bring increased isolation and bass to a series of earbuds (mainly the EX-82/5 and 90) which could use a bit of bass boost here and there where its sorely needed.

The triple flanges (think some of those triple flanges pressure relieving earplugs) gives better treble and mid-range performance, though not as much as you think.  The bass, however, sees very little benefit from these tips, though isolation increases ever more so for the triple flanges.  Pair these with the noise cancelling EX style buds and you’ve got yourself a serious contender for a cost effective noist reduction earbuds (see Philips).

And with a small investment of $10 ~ $16, you’ve just given yourself a very nice upgrade.  How nice?  Well, how about entry level In-Ear Monitor level of isolation type upgrade?  Mind you, the EX and EXstyle buds are nowhere near the IEMs in terms of actual monitoring.  But for increasing your enjoyment?  Well, every little bit helps.

Too bad the actual Peanutz are beyond help.  Had the Peanutz sounded actually decent, it would’ve been gravy.

iPod Nano 4G vs. Other DAPs

Well, the rumors of his Steveness death was, indeed, greatly exaggerated.  What wasn’t exaggerated, was, the greatness of the 4G Nano.  On the surface, the 4G Nano is bee’s knees (and just as sharp as one).  On the surface, the Nano is set to be one of the most powerful and feature rich DAP to grace the world.

Not. So. Fast. My. Friends (to borrow the parlance of one sportscaster).

The Zune made some noise the day before, and other DAPs has been making noise as well.  Sadly, since they do not bear the beloved fruity logo, those features for the most part went unnoticed.  Let’s review the new features one by one and see where the New Nano stacks up.

1) Accelerometer.  Allows for use of Coverflow.  For the most part, I have no qualms against Coverflow.  However, it has two weaknesses, both of which I noticed on my Touch and on other’s 3G Nanos:

• Album Art and Tagging.  Let’s face it, it’s heavily reliant upon the coverart being properly tagged along with other tags for it to be a compelling feature.  Without it, it becomes an exercise in fuility when fumbling over to find the right album.
• Clickwheel.  On the Touch, the Coverflow is very neat with the touch screen interface.  I didn’t find the experience to be nearly the same with Clickwheel.  Optimized software may change this.

The 2D interface used by the Zune and the Sony Network Walkman makes navigation a breese using the D-Pad.  Even on a bloated Zune 30 (80 as well), using the D-Pad, one can easily find the album, song, or artist.  The 4G Nano’s new navigational interface (Browse Album/Artist while playing) now puts it on the level field against other DAPS.  It’s about time.

2)  Genius.  Also known as SensME (Sony’s new generation Walkman), Rhapsody Channel, or Zune’s newfangled Social Community/Personal Picks.  All of these are designed to sell songs over the internet.  Genius can be very compelling with a subscription plan.  If there ever was one for iTunes.  All of these “features” (read gimmick) remains to be seen, though the Zune’s Social is probably the most compelling out of the three.

3)  Shake Shake Shake.  Sansa Shake for kids grown up.

4)  Vertical Base.  Goes back to the well tested and well loved format.

The Nano is a solid DAP to be sure, but it lacks the WiFi of the Zune, the Bluetoothiness of the Sonys, and finally catches up with both of them in features and navigation.  Welcome to 2007.  We hardly missed ye.

And if you are reading this, that means you’ve just survived the Large Freaking Hadron Collider.  Congrats.  The world goes on and on and…