Portable music and Headphones verses "earbuds" UPDATE

Gentle reader,

Yes, I know that I JUST made a post last night about Airsoft versions of Glock pistols. However, as music and accurate reproduction of music is one of my main passions, I wanted to write a post about headphones.

If you are of the Ipod generation that has transitioned to "smart" phone for your aural pleasure, you probably listen with earbuds. They are small, easy to pocket and unobtrusive. I get it, and believe it or not, in the audiophile (mostly guys, that have lots of money to spend on expensive equipment in the belief that they can buy good sound) world, one can buy custom-made-to-fit- your-ears, earbuds that cost several thousands of dollars. You read that right!

Think about it from those manufacturer's point of view: Our eardrums are TINY. Yet, before we get old, they are capable of hearing the deepest bass, 20 Hertz or cycles-per-second, to the highest treble, 20,000 Hertz or cycles-per-second. So, why cannot premium earbuds, with even tinier diaphragms inside them, be able to reproduce that same range of sound? I suspect maybe they can.

However, most casual listeners of the, (what is it now, Z generation?) are probably listening to MP3 music. Perfectly content with that because they know no better. "Know better that what?", you may ask. That to make digital music files small enough to fit lots of them in portable players and cell phones, they had to remove a lot of the music. Mostly at the top and bottom of the sounds. Since you are listening to your tunes through cheap earbuds, you have no idea that the music can sound a LOT better. a WHOLE lot better! So who invented MP3 anyway? 

According to Eureka People: "How Karlheinz Brandenburg invented the MP3. Brandenburg, part of the MPEG team, had been a PhD student at the German University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in the 1980s, when one of his professors instructed him to work on the conundrum of how one might transmit music over a digital ISDN phone line." 

What pleases me and the headphone industry, is a lot more people, are buying real headphones to listen to their tunes. Look around, I know that means looking up from your phone, and you too will see people using headphones. This is very good. 

If you know someone who is really into music and has a nice stereo at their place, ask if you can come over to see it and hear it. You won't be sorry you did. I had just such an experience in 1975 and there was no going back to what I thought was perfectly good sounding music.

Being that I am an old fogy, (old fart, if you prefer) I have been listening to music at home, in my car and at work since those 1970's. So, my idea of "portable music player" is this:

Lest you not know so, SONY for all practical purposes, invented portable music with headphones. Yes, "transistor radios" were the first and they came out in the early 1960's. But taking your OWN music with you and listening to it, well SONY invented the "Walkman" for that. They played cassette tapes. If you saw the fantastic film, Super 8, the clerk in the gas station was using a Walkman, thus not hearing the unseen monster outside the station. Others electronics makers quickly copied it, but SONY were the first. The silver thing above is a later iteration of the Walkman, it plays CDs and this one also has an FM radio in it. CDs like records which spin at 78, 33 1/3 and 45 RPM, are subject to skipping if the player is jarred. Well, the engineers solved that problem with CDs so they could be played in cars and in portable players like the one above.

You may be like, "CDs. Who listens to CDs anymore?" A lot of people do, they have gotten a lot better in quality than the first attempts back in the 1980's. SONY, by the way, along with Philips co-created the CD as well. I still remember being shown one in 1985 or so. An older friend asked me if I'd ever seen one of these, and he was holding a CD. I hadn't. He opened an early version of the player above, it had a window so one could see the disc spinning. He pressed "PLAY" and handed me the headphones. I listened, he then pressed "PAUSE" and the disc KEPT SPINNING! Then he pressed "PLAY" again and it started right where it left off! "How do they do that? I asked. He didn't know. Well that player cost hundreds of dollars back then and it would not be until 1995 before I bought my first CD. Only because the particular album I wanted did not come in cassette form. I didn't have a CD player, but my girlfriend (now my wife of 20+ years) had a CD boombox and I was able to play it. But I digress. This is supposed to be about headphones.

So, those headphones are similar to the ones that shipped with the player. The original 'phones ear cushioning foam fell apart. How I got those particular headphones is also part of why I decided to write this. Below is how I found them at a thrift store:

My mother and sister are life-long knitters so I bought them to show to them. Plus I wanted some smaller headphones to use with the Walkman as my only 'phones are way too big for that purpose. I was very curious what was inside all that red yarn. So I performed a headphone-ectomy. The headphones survived, but the knitting died. Inside were some really cheap COBY units. If you look at the font SONY uses and the one COBY uses, well imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or perhaps they were hoping people would think they were buying a SONY product. 

See what I mean? They sounded OK, but only OK. Probably not much better than earbuds, which I have never used. So, I'd read that Radio Shack was back in business with the idea they would go back, somewhat, to what they were famous for. Intrigued, being a lifelong Radio Shack customer, I went to the local store to see. To my surprise and delight, they had things I hadn't seen in YEARS. They even have "transistor radios"! What I was looking for was better headphones than those COBY ones, but still light enough to use while moving along. They had a few and I picked out a pair of fold-able ones:

"AUVIO" is Radio Shack's high-end products line for the discerning audio and video customers. And these headphones do sound very good. 

Well, the R/S clerk told me they had a buy-one-get-a-second-for-half-off, sale, so I picked out another pair of AUVIO headphones:

I liked the red color and they seem of high quality and looked comfortable. And they are. 
 

 

Now, these particular headphones have the dual purpose of having a microphone as well for computer use, I suppose.

Note the extra ring on the plug above, near the black part? That's the microphone's connection and that black thing is the mike itself.

These two sets of 'phones sound really good, yet being "closed-back" they are unsuitable for using while walking or riding. While one can enjoy the music, they can't hear outside noises that one might need to hear for safety's sake.

Here are a couple of the headphones that I have had in the past:

Both sets are KOSS brand. Very expensive when new, in fact I could not afford them then. Each was a thrift store find. As you can see, I had to replace the plug on the HV/1A models. This was before I got good at such things.

The HV/1A models are "open back" design. See the slots inside and outside the colored ring? This is similar in purpose to the "reflex port" on some speakers. They also allow the wearer to be aware of sounds around them. The foam on these were also rotted away, and I found ones of similar size at, wait for it....Radio Shack!

These are also vintage KOSS professional headphones. They are closed-back as you can see. The substance, whatever it was inside the black ear cushions had fled the scene years ago and replacement ones from KOSS were smaller is size, so I devised a way to put them inside these cushions. Black RTV glue sealed the holes I'd made to insert the new cushions.

I don't know what the silver thing is for above. Perhaps to put a microphone on the headphones. One can still buy the descendants of these. They are called PRO 4AA, or maybe 4AAA by now. Be prepared to pay a lot, however.

I have not had either of these for many years. Frankly, the PRO 4A ones are not very comfortable for long listening use. 

I subscribe to several Audio magazines these days and decades ago read High Fidelity, Stereo Review and Audio. None exist today, I think Stereo Review joined with a video magazine and thus still exists in spirit, at least. 

While most things in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound are WAY beyond my humble means, I still read them for the music reviews and less expensive products they review sometimes. One of the writers, (when did writers become "editors" anyway? Isn't the Editor's job to edit what the writers wrote?) anyway, one of them was raving about these Audio Technica headphones that used to be JDM* but were now available in the USA. From their "AIR" line, the ATH AD700 models were what he was talking about. I found them for a fraction of retail at a camera store on line. *Japanese Domestic Market. In other words, not made for export. I think the car industry invented the JDM acronym.

I have been just thrilled with them too! Take a look:

Most headphones clamp to your head. Frankly, this can get old. One of the reasons I don't like going to the shooting range is the ear protection (like most headphones) hurt my head after a while. THESE do not clamp. The little devices at the top, REST upon the top of your head and the music making parts REST on your ears. Rather they rest AROUND your ears. These things are big!

Obvious by the many holes above, these are clearly open-back design.

The two photos above clearly show just how big they really are. Oh, but one quickly forgets how silly they might look with these on once the music starts!

UPDATE!

We decided to stop by Tuesday Morning, a local store that sells a variety of stuff, usually at a great discount. My wife was looking for a couple things, and as often happens, MANY things are picked out. I found two things, a book I've been wanting, but forgot all about: WINNING The Racing Life of Paul Newman by Matt Stone and Preston Lerner. Yes, THAT Paul Newman. Awesome book, which I'm nearly done with. AND a perfect set of compact, but high quality headphones made by KOSS, as in the two pairs I used to have above. They are PRO35A units which you can see below:

As you can see, they have titanium drivers. Titanium is a very hard metal. It seems to me it would not be suitable for drivers, being inherently stiff. But since the drivers are small....All I do know is that they sound very good and I'm happy with them.

The black device on the cord is a sliding attenuating device. A volume control, in other words. If you can read the specs on the back of the package above, it shows they put out 103 db @ 1meter with one watt. That is a SPEAKER measurement, not a headphones measurement! But anyway, they are very comfortabe, sound great and are just what I was looking for to use walking or riding.

TA-DA!

If you really, truly want to hear ALL the music and sounds the artists and musicians went to so much trouble to make and the recording engineers and producers worked so hard to make the music sound just so, buy some really good headphones and plug them into your AV receiver and play some music! You DO have an AV receiver for enjoying all the surround sounds in your favorite movies and shows, right?

No cell phone or other portable device that plays less than 100 per cent of the music honors all those that made the music in the first place! So do your self a favor and really get into your "tunes" the way they were meant to be enjoyed!

Last words:

One drawback to my getting interested in something, as this exercise and post has done, is started me in on collecting headphones! When will it ever end?!

Thanks for looking!

Scott 

Glock pistols in Airsoft form

Gentle reader,

Firstly, a word on "Airsoft". There are three types of replica guns that shoot plastic balls. These balls measure 6mm. There are three types of propulsion that "fire" these 6mm plastic balls: "Spring" powered, which requires the operator to "Cock" the gun, be it a pistol or a rifle EVERY time before the can shoot. The second type is "Gas" and "Gas blow-back". These use a mixture of flammable propane gas and a small bit of gun oil. The magazine that holds the 6mm plastic balls also has a chamber that holds the gas mixture under pressure. Unlike spring models, these are semi-automatic. In other words, cock the gun first and it will fire one 6mm plastic ball everyt ime the trigger is pulled. Just like real semi-automatic pistols and rifles. These are often confused in the media. They, especially some less-than-learned politicians, will refer to these guns as "automatics" or "assault rifles" which in the Military, at least in the rifles case can be fired fully automatically. In other words, cock the rifle the first time, select full-auto, pull the trigger and the rifle will keep firing until it runs out of bullets. Lastly (back to Airsoft) is "Automatic Electric gun". These, mostly rifles, use magazines that hold many 6mm plastic balls and use batteries to power an electric motor with a gear box that can fire the 6mm balls singly or fully automatic. To learn more about this subject go to: Airsoft gun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Now, if you have ever played "soft ball" you know those balls are NOT soft. Neither are these 6mm plastic balls. There are guns that propel them at many hundreds of feet per second. Multiply that "feet per second" by 60 and by 60 again and you get miles per hour. There are major league pitchers that can throw close to 100 miles an hour. Many Airsoft balls go twice that fast. You get hit by one of these and they hurt! So although "Airsoft" sounds harmless, they are not.

I have written about Airsoft guns that I have had in the past. I am 59 years old and played "Army" as a kid with my brother and friends. We would never have dreamed about all the types of toy guns available today. We used Daisy air rifles that fired nothing and looked like cowboy rifles. Swing the handle down and back up to cock it and it went "poof" and if it wasn't worn out, it also had a kick to it. We also had what was called a "trainer rifle" which sort of resembled a 1903 Springfield Rifle. Some even had a wooden "bullet" inside painted gold. They only clicked when you pulled the trigger. But like all kids, we used our imagination.

Back to the subject at hand. I, thanks to being married to a wife in law enforcement, and also a gun nut, eventually I got into real guns for a while. That enthusiasm has waned of late. But I did write about them here: The Robb Collections: 22 caliber guns and: The Robb Collections: ISSC MK22 rifle fully "tacticool" 

The articles I wrote about the airsoft pistols I bought before getting real guns can be seen here:

The Robb Collections: Airsoft M1911 pistols: 2 varieties  and here: The Robb Collections: More on the Airsoft pistols 

So, now that you are up to date on the history or Airsoft and of ones that I have had (none of them do I have anymore) take a look at what were never supposed to be made, at least that was Glock's hope. Glock in fact had made it very clear that they did not want any Airsoft replicas made of their pistols and for the most, the Airsoft industry complied. For a while, at least.

I don't remember where I got my first "Glock" Airsoft pistol, ebay, maybe. It is made by WE Tactical in Taiwan. It closely replicates the Glock 17, by as you will see, they left the "lock"  off of the pistol's slide. It is the one in the middle in the two photos below.

The "G 17" is a gas blow-back pistol and the magazine holds a number of 6mm rounds. It is "charged" with "green gas" or "red gas" or plain propane, if you have the right adapter through a fitting at the bottom of the magazine. Cock the slide after inserting the magazine and it will fire one round for every trigger pull, just like the real one. My wife and I compared it to her real Glock 17 and it is very hard to tell the difference. The structures are the same and they come apart the same way as the real one. Polymer body, metal components inside and a steel slide. That's the squareish part at the top, that one cocks by sliding it towards the rear of the gun. The gun fires and the slide slams back the forth, just like the real one. Nice kick to it as well.

Next one I found was the smallest one above. It was made, apparently in 2000, by HFC, also in Taiwan. I have not been able to find any information on this one. Glock may have sued them. It is modeled after the Glock 33. It is a "spring" model, one cock, one shot. This cocks the same, is quite heavy (metal weights secreted inside the gun and the magazine, I suspect. It cannot be taken apart without tools.

Lastly is my latest purchase, it has all the correct Glock markings and is a "17L", or long model.

It was made by Tokyo  Marui in Tokyo, Japan and I bought it from an Airsoft dealer in Hong Kong, China. To send it to me, they covered all the "Glock 17L" markings on the box, gun and even the instructions sheets. Plus, they glued the required orange tip to the end of the barrel as required by US law. It too is a spring model, one cock, one shot. It is mostly plastic with a metal barrel and other mechanical components. The slide is plastic. It is much lighter than the HFC model 33. It too cannot be taken apart without tools. It requires quite an effort to cock the slide, but I suspect it may get easier with use.

Now a series of photos showing details and differences in the three guns and also how much each weighs with a magazine installed.

Above and below is the 17L from the left side and details on the slide.

Above slide details of the G 17 and below the HFC 33. Clever how the made those letters inside of a pseudo-G.

Above is all three guns from the right side, with their various markings that are more representative of what they are, than what they portray.

HFC 33 above and below.

And below, their curious: "COMPLETED 2000" markings.

Above and below is the WE G17 from the right side and details below. Not easily seen on the left-side views is "Gen4" on the handle indicating it is the 4th generation Glock 17 they replicated.

Like the real pistol, it came with different "back straps" that allow one to customize the grip to fit different hand sizes.

The hole in the magazine reveals the filler hole for the gas. By the way, one loads the propane as a liquid, bottle pointing down, this allows for far more shots than loading it as a gas.

Above and below is the 17L model with details from the right side.

Above are the three magazine. The "33" on the left, "17L" in the middle and "17" on the right. The smaller ones are all plastic save the spring and weight inside. WE even copied the Glock's signature holes and numbers that let you see how many rounds are in the real magazines. I have six and unlike the smaller "spring" models, there is no plastic in these magazines.

The 17 weighs in at one pound, eleven ounces with no rounds in it.

The 17 L is less than a pound at thirteen point six ounces.

The 33 weighs one pounds three point four ounces.

I missed the Berettas that I used to have and bought this gas blow-back, all metal model a while back. It weighs one pound, fifteen ounces.

As a comparison for this article, I weighed the two M4 airsoft rifles I have. The all-plastic one weighs only one pound three point eight ounces. The very realistic, fully automatic all metal (and plastic) M4 weighs a hefty seven pounds four point four ounces. Part of that weigtht is the 4X scope I have on it.

This concludes the post about my latest Airsoft guns. Oh, I haven't shot any of them in ages, either. 

Thanks for looking!

Scott