My earbuds — those tiny plugs you stick in your ear to listen to an iPod — have taken as much abuse as a piece of equipment can take and endured it without complaint. Though widely derided when the first iPods came out — the technical term was “piece of crap” — the plain white earbuds have served me well. Admittedly I’m not finicky about sound quality. If I were, I wouldn’t be listening to my music library on an iPod, with the earbuds that came in the box, while walking around a mall where every store has its own music playing, volume turned up to compete with the neighbor’s music, the mall’s muzak, and the pianist pounding out show tunes in the food court. Purist audiophiles shudder at the idea of portable personal mp3 players, super-compressed music files being, to them, an abomination. The apostates who have embraced new technology say that at the very least, one must ignore the iPod earbuds and get a proper pair of noise-canceling cushioned headphones, the kind you clap on like earmuffs in the dead of winter.
The earbuds in question came with my video iPod in late 2005. Since then they have gotten snagged on furniture, violently yanked off my ears, and attacked by my cat Saffy, who likes to floss with expensive wires. I’ve slept with these earbuds on, trod on them, accidentally pulled them, and they survived. Last Christmas the white outer sheath came apart and I thought they had to go, but they continued to function. So I resolved to use them until they died, which was last week. I turned on my iPod and heard ... nothing.
This was an emergency situation. I cannot be without an iPod or some sort of personal music device; it’s a matter of survival. Since high school I’ve never been without a Walkman, Discman, or iPod — not because I need to hear my music all the time, but because in this crazy city, it’s the only sort of privacy one can have outside of his or her own house.
Do you have any idea how loud Manila is? Music blaring everywhere, bass and treble cranked up so you can feel it, television news anchors and game show hosts yelling, the traffic rumbling and screeching, the hell of perpetual karaoke, AM radio announcers proclaiming doomsday,
FM radio announcers babbling insipidly in phony American accents, everyone talking their heads off all the time. No wonder people do stupid things, they can’t hear themselves think. (Or the noise is a convenient cover-up for the fact that people don’t think.) This city is shouting you down; a personal music player is a form of self-defense. It creates a force field around you, shuts out the world that is trying to swallow you whole, and defines, however tenuously, a space that is yours.
As long as your force field isn’t loud enough to shut out the sound of that bus coming at you.
I wish I could “bask in the music of the outside world,” etc., but this is the wrong place for that, and probably the wrong century. Then again, peace and tranquillity freak me out. Many years ago I was staying in a dorm in New Haven, Connecticut and I couldn’t sleep because it was so quiet, I thought I could hear serial killers cutting out letters from magazines. Still not as quiet as the village in Tuscany where I could hear the neighbor’s refrigerator humming — and the neighbor’s house was a mile away. (I have pretty good hearing for someone who’s had headphones on for decades.)
I read somewhere that Martin Scorsese takes a light meter to the cinema so he can see if the movie is projected properly. I’m going to carry a decibel meter around to record the general assault on our eardrums. At the movies I often find myself covering my ears because the sound is too loud.
The last time I left the house without my iPod, I was sitting in a coffee shop with my book when this guy at the next table started speaking in a very loud voice about his burning, hitherto thwarted desire to be a stand-up comic. From his age and demeanor I suspect he was talking too loudly because he couldn’t hear himself — possibly damage from prolonged and extreme headphone use. It took all my limited self-control to keep from going over to his table and saying, “You can’t make it as a standup comic because you’re not funny.”
Another reason we need personal music players: To keep us from hearing things that would cause us to voice opinions that may get us killed.
Periodically, news reports trundle out research showing that earbuds are more likely to cause hearing loss than earmuff-type headphones.
This is an example of how people blame technology for their own dumb behavior. It’s not really the earbuds’ fault, but that of the people who listen to music too loud and too long. However, it is true that earbuds don’t block outside noise as well as cushioned headsets do, so earbud users overcompensate by turning up the volume and unthinkingly shredding their ears. You have to take extra care of your ears because despite advances in technology, hearing damage cannot be repaired. If you listen to music too loud, you will become that guy who keeps saying “What?!” Researchers suggest that you keep the volume on your music player below 60 percent of the maximum — doable — and use it for only one hour a day — I don’t know about that.
This being an emergency situation, I went to the nearest Apple store and bought earbuds. The problem with buying earbuds is that you can’t try them — once you open the package, they’re considered sold. You are sticking them in your ear, so you have to be sure you won’t reenact a scene from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. I got these Philips “mix and match” in-ear headphones with five sets of interchangeable colored caps so I can coordinate them with my wardrobe! They’re so cute, and I totally have the outfits to go with the black ones, the black, and the. . .black.
The Philips earphones are efficient enough — the sound is the same as my extinct earbuds — but the plugs are too large and keep falling out of my ears. Due to their size, I cannot try the suggestion I found in a Slashdot forum. Someone suggested placing the earbuds in your nostrils and plugging your ears. Apparently this produces a voice-in-your head effect, and you can crank up the volume without worrying about hearing loss because the sound is resonating not in your ear canals, but in your mouth and sinuses. I have no fear of looking ridiculous, but if I try this I’ll need a new pair of nostrils.
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So I’ll put the question to you, knowledgeable reader: What are the best headphones or earbuds for personal music players? E-mail me at emotionalweatherreport@gmail.com.