#audiophile
Interesting word this week: Audiophile
From the words "audio" and "-phile" (to love). A person who holds high standards to audio and sound quality of music, and therefore seeks to purchase the best headphones available on the market.
A little background on me and music. I have probably the weirdest iTunes library ever. My iPod is the old shuffle-clip model (my original iPod shuffle- memory stick model still works; i just retired it out of sheer inconvenience, as in, where do I put this stick? in my pocket?) And my earphones are the OLD set that came with my very orignal iPod nano. Yeah, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to this stuff (short of me walking around with my Walkman, an item that in my opinion ate up batteries too quickly for me to use anymore. That and I don't have anymore CDs...) Also, I semi-illegally download all of my music from the Internet. In summary, I don't have high-quality sound to begin with, and nothing to compare it to, save the wondeful music that comes from my violin playing.
I had an Apple store gift card from last year, when my mom bought me a new computer. The Apple store used to give you a free iPod when you purchase a new computer for college. I guess they switched to gift cards because not everyone wanted an iPod? It was sitting there, and I thought, hey why don't I go buy a new set of earphones with this gift card? One that will actually fit in my ear.
Like a good consumer, I did my research before making a purchase, and the first thing I did was look up "Best Earbuds" (the ever-so-helpful Google search engine suggesting "of 2015"). The next thing was, of course, checking customer reviews on Amazon.com
One thing I noticed with the reviews is how all the low-ratings say something along the lines of "Piece of s#*t broke after a week of use." Remember, I've been using the same old Apple earphones for the past... 12? years and they still work just fine, with only the smallest of cracking in one of the rubber coating thingy. So are all these people really not careful with their belongings, or have all manufacturing gone to China where labor is cheap and materials are cheaper?
So, back to audiophiles. A friend of mine last semester said as a graduation gift to himself, he bought a nice new headset because he was such an audiophile. I didn't think much of it at the time, just that it was pretty cool he got his hands on an expensive set of headphones that had high sound quality. I'm alright with high prices for high quality products but in today's market, it's no longer the case. And with products like headphones, there's really no way to tell if the quality is worth the price without firsthand experience of the product.
Apparently, Apple purchased Beats in 2014. That explains why 85% of their products under music accessories are varieties of Beats headphones. Regarding the price... meh. It's not cheap. But I do have a gift card. They look nice, with nice colors to choose from. The cord is ribbon-flat, so it's different. I hate the branding, and the hype. But optional wingtip attachments sound great.
Let's try it anyway.
I'm no audiophile. I don't think those reviews helped much at all, nor do I know if these expensive earphones are better than my old ones. Maybe it's all based on personal preference. I mean, if you believe those $10 Skullcandy earbuds are much better than $300 Bose earphones, then by all means, go for it. If you want to go around looking all swag with Beats around your neck, that's cool too.
At least my earphones have stopped falling out of my ears.
From the words "audio" and "-phile" (to love). A person who holds high standards to audio and sound quality of music, and therefore seeks to purchase the best headphones available on the market.
A little background on me and music. I have probably the weirdest iTunes library ever. My iPod is the old shuffle-clip model (my original iPod shuffle- memory stick model still works; i just retired it out of sheer inconvenience, as in, where do I put this stick? in my pocket?) And my earphones are the OLD set that came with my very orignal iPod nano. Yeah, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to this stuff (short of me walking around with my Walkman, an item that in my opinion ate up batteries too quickly for me to use anymore. That and I don't have anymore CDs...) Also, I semi-illegally download all of my music from the Internet. In summary, I don't have high-quality sound to begin with, and nothing to compare it to, save the wondeful music that comes from my violin playing.
I had an Apple store gift card from last year, when my mom bought me a new computer. The Apple store used to give you a free iPod when you purchase a new computer for college. I guess they switched to gift cards because not everyone wanted an iPod? It was sitting there, and I thought, hey why don't I go buy a new set of earphones with this gift card? One that will actually fit in my ear.
Like a good consumer, I did my research before making a purchase, and the first thing I did was look up "Best Earbuds" (the ever-so-helpful Google search engine suggesting "of 2015"). The next thing was, of course, checking customer reviews on Amazon.com
One thing I noticed with the reviews is how all the low-ratings say something along the lines of "Piece of s#*t broke after a week of use." Remember, I've been using the same old Apple earphones for the past... 12? years and they still work just fine, with only the smallest of cracking in one of the rubber coating thingy. So are all these people really not careful with their belongings, or have all manufacturing gone to China where labor is cheap and materials are cheaper?
So, back to audiophiles. A friend of mine last semester said as a graduation gift to himself, he bought a nice new headset because he was such an audiophile. I didn't think much of it at the time, just that it was pretty cool he got his hands on an expensive set of headphones that had high sound quality. I'm alright with high prices for high quality products but in today's market, it's no longer the case. And with products like headphones, there's really no way to tell if the quality is worth the price without firsthand experience of the product.
Apparently, Apple purchased Beats in 2014. That explains why 85% of their products under music accessories are varieties of Beats headphones. Regarding the price... meh. It's not cheap. But I do have a gift card. They look nice, with nice colors to choose from. The cord is ribbon-flat, so it's different. I hate the branding, and the hype. But optional wingtip attachments sound great.
Let's try it anyway.
I'm no audiophile. I don't think those reviews helped much at all, nor do I know if these expensive earphones are better than my old ones. Maybe it's all based on personal preference. I mean, if you believe those $10 Skullcandy earbuds are much better than $300 Bose earphones, then by all means, go for it. If you want to go around looking all swag with Beats around your neck, that's cool too.
At least my earphones have stopped falling out of my ears.