[geeks] High Quality Monaural Earbud

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2010 at 01:14:04AM -0500, hike wrote:
>I am in the midst of a cochlear and need to find a monaural earbud to use
>with my iPod, iPhone and other devices.
>
>First preference is a stereo plug to a monaural earphone.  That is, a one
>piece device.
>
>Second would be a stereo-to-monaural adapter to a monaural earbud.

I do this all the time because many of the older radios I use only have
monaural sockets (jacks) and all of the modern jacks are stereo.

Monaural plugs are a different length than a stereo one and plugging them in
to the wrong jack can cause all sorts of problems, from electrical ones,
to physical damage. Rarely does plugging a shorter monaural plug into a stereo
jack damage it outright, but it can cause problems if you do it for a long
time and then plug in a stereo one.

Poorly designed circuity will burn out if you plug a monaural plug into a 
stereo jack. Depending upon where it fits it can short one side (the left)
to ground. 

Is the bud a requirement? I have never found one that works for me at all, they
always fall out unless they are inserted with enough force to be painful.

I also have a problem with moisture, if I use a sealed type earphone, my
ears get infected. I can only use an "open air" type earphone for about two
hours without a rest to "ventilate".


>I am looking for one with good sound reproduction.

IMHO the best thing to do is to find someone who will make up a short adaptor
cord, one with a stereo plug on one end and a stereo jack on the other, with the
two channels joined. 

While they are at it, they can do the same with a mono jack. 

Then you can go to any store that sells headphones, from cheap junk to expensive
aircraft quality and plug them in. 

Note that there are different quality plugs and jacks which range in price
from less than $1 to around $13 each. While it is not IMHO necesssary to
buy the $13 ones, the less than $1 ones are never exactly the right size.

If you are looking for a USB one, try the "FreeTalk Everyman" from Skype.
Here they sell for $30 each including postage, I expect they are cheaper
in the US. 

They are an open air stereo headphone with a USB A connector on them, and
a boom microphone. The headphone itself unplugs from the USB sound part,
so it would be simple to insert a channel combiner in the middle.

The sound quality is excelent.

I bought two of them 3 and half months ago and used one everyday until it
started to fail due to a wiring problem last week. I switched to the other
which I had kept as a spare and ordered two more. 

I'm not sure I am going to fix the old one, or convert it into a combo
USB sound card and desktop microphone.

Geoff.
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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