[geeks] High Quality Monaural Earbud

[hike]

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 1:55 PM, <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:

> 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
> New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
> understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
> i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.
>
> _______________________________________________
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>


Since Apple began taking orders for the iPad a lot more information has been
added to the iPad description.  I found this information about the iPad on
Apple.com this morning as I was looking at it.

Mono Audio

If your hearing is limited in one ear, tap a checkbox to route both right-
and left-channel audio into both headphones, so you can hear both channels
in either ear.


While I was planning to purchase an iPad for traveling and gifting, I did
not expect to use it for my iTunes music collection.  This newly-mentioned
feature may cause me to purchase a 32GB or 64GB model because of that
feature.