Focal XS speakers

They're a pair of computer speakers that I used at the Apple store today. They're $600 and good enough that I think I will pass up the Klipschs and get these after I am working. By that I mean they are very good. Granted, the Apple store isn't the ultimate testing environment, but it wasn't that busy and they sounded pretty great.

The first song I demoed on them was something orchestral. It was quiet in the store at the time. For maybe 15 seconds there didn't seem to be any sound, or if there was it was being drowned out by something being played elsewhere in the store. Putting my ear up to the speaker revealed that the sound was coming from the speaker. If you ask me, that's a pretty good statement about transparency. I honestly thought that it was coming from somewhere else.

I turned off this orchestral song after a bit though. These speakers have an integrated iPod dock. This is useful, if you ask me. My friends bring over iPods often and these would be nice for when that happens. Plus, the dock connects to your computer so on top of playing the iPod through it, you also use it to sync the iPod. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Anyway, I used the iPod Touch that was docked with it to listen to some songs I'm familiar with via iTunes previews. The Apple store employees don't care how loud you make things, so I did get to turn them up. They didn't sound strained or distorted even when played loud with songs that are generally loud (ie No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand). Testing conditions weren't the best though, so I'm sure I was missing some of what they have to offer. They were hooked up with the Apple TV, so they were spaced kind of far apart around a large television, and they were stuck to the table slightly behind the TV. This drowned out the sound a little.

The cabinets are plastic and resonate a lot, but for whatever reason the sound of cabinet resonance didn't seem to be there. This is just fine.

The sub was on the table though, so I didn't get to really hear that as I should've. It has a 6.5" down-firing driver and a front firing port. It didn't sound strained with the bassiest songs I tried and did sound rather musical instead of making boring thumps like a lot of computer subs. I tried No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand and Raspberry Jam Delta-V by Joe Satriani on them, for example. They both have intricate bass lines (which really make those songs awesome, if you ask me) that came out just fine. I also tried Under The Influence by The Chemical Brothers which is a very bassy song. At a few parts of the song, there is a loud bass sweep that starts deepish and goes deeper. The sub didn't sound strained during any of this.

I don't know if they have an active EQ or not. They did, however, sound like they could have benefitted a little from an EQ adjustment. I would have turned down the treble. I don't know if the iPod Touch I used in the store had any EQ settings or not though, so I can't be sure if that was the speaker's doing or the iPod's. I should have checked.

Next time I go I'll be sure to bring my iPod so I can try more of my own music. Hopefully sometime I'll get to try them in some better testing conditions though, like perhaps a quieter store or another Apple store where they aren't set up inconveniently around a TV. However, they left me very impressed. It's not unlikely that I'll pass up the Klipsch's and get a pair of these.

Fucking parents

Damn parents spoiling their kids. Today I was at the Apple store using what will be the iMac I get after I become employed when this guy and his two sons came in. They walked out with two 20" iMacs. One was for the teenager dude who looked to be about 16, and the other was for his younger brother who must have been 8. This guy bought his supposedly 8 year old son a $1200 computer. My parents wouldn't do that for me now, and we can definitely afford it. No, they wouldn't do it because they're right minded. My iMac of the moment was $1k which was more than I expected them to spend on me at the time, and more than I'll expect to spend on me again. I mean they will never get me another $1k computer because by the time I need another one I'll be of working age, and by that time there is no way they are getting me anything expensive. 

I also saw that kid walking around with an LG Voyager. I wasn't scoping this out either, they were on the other side of the table I was using. Damn other people's parents.

Beats by Dr. Dre

You may have heard of it. It's a pair of headphones, made by Monster Cable and endorsed by some guy named Dr. Dre. They cost $350 and are basically what you'd expect them to be, that being otherwise mediocre headphones that are drowning in hype and covered in endorsements and logos. I tried these today and they really disappoint.

They are somewhat comfortable, I'll give them that. But the mids were very thin. I listened to an Earth Wind and Fire song (September, if you're curious) on the iPod Touch I used them on (this was at the Apple Store) and the vocals were very lifeless. There was a huge lack of any kind of warmth, and I just wasn't "feeling" the music.  I admit, this is the only song I tried, but if you've heard it you'll know that after hearing how it sounded on them, I didn't need to hear any other songs.

Despite that it really lacks in sound quality, the noise canceling was pretty good. The apple store was busy today and therefore, pretty noisy. Even before I put on the music, there was a pretty noticeable amount of noise reduction.

So in conclusion, don't buy these. Don't let your friends buy these. These are the first Monster product I've dealt with and even though I know of their reputation among the high end crowd, I was going to remain unbiased until I had a reason to like or dislike them. Because of these headphones, I don't think I'll be buying any Monster products in a good while. I really can't believe that they are charging $350 for these, either. Not even Bose rips their customers off that much. At least Bose makes good headphones. Aside from costing extreme amounts of money, Bose's at least have pretty good sound quality and are very comfortable (much more than the Beats). But seriously, my V-Moda Vibes ($100) sound worlds better than the Beats, and they fit in my pocket.

V-Moda Vibe headphones

So I recently decided that I am getting a Macbook. To assist in this, I decided to put my expensive speaker system "project" aside and get headphones. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but I'd been wanting a pair of IEMs. So I was in the Apple store (this was when I was using the Macbooks) and I figured since I was there, I'd look at headphones. A salesman helped me out, and like all Apple salesmen (or at least the ones I've dealt with), he was pretty helpful. I told him that I was interested in the in-ear ones, and he showed me the Vibes and some Sennheisers, saying he heard good things about both. I looked over both and decided I liked the Vibe pair more. The Vibes were purely in-ear while the Senns wrapped around the ear. There's nothing wrong with that, but for the sake of comfort and portability, I went with the Vibes.

And by "I went with the Vibes," I mean I went with the Vibes the next day since I hadn't brought my wallet with me that day. So I picked them up ($100) and I took them to my house. They come in an attractive box, which shows the headphones (as in the headphones that are in the box, not a picture)through some plastic on a backdrop of some fading colors with a translucent face on them. Opening the box, I found out that the plastic wasn't sitting there, it was one of those awful hard plastic packages that you need a chainsaw to open.

After some hurt fingers and a pair of scissors that were probably dulled from opening it, I had the headphones. They feel as great as they look in the packaging.

The build quality is just great, they definitely feel like something you'd drop $100 on. They come in five colors, which all look good. The TRS connectors are gold plated and the plug is made of aluminum. The splitter on the cord that splits into the actual ear pieces is made of aluminum. The ear pieces are made of aluminum. And the cord is wrapped in a durable yet flexible fabric. All the aluminum is the same color, which is whatever color you got them in. They look very good, and they're advertised as being "fashion headphones" so I suppose that kind of accounts for something.

But looks aren't everything, sound is the most important thing. The packaging and advertising would have you believe that they were "basshead" headphones. You know what I mean, those kinds of headphones that saturate the music with way too much bass. To me, the bass is very even. It seems to be contrasted very well with the rest of the sound, not having too little or too much of it. Bass is very clear and strong though. If you do like it to sound bassy though, you can equalize them. When I got them my iPod was still equalized (I've set all my sources of audio to EQ-off since these seem pretty accurate) and the bass was a little heavy as a result. It didn't lose quality though, it kept it's good-soundingness. All the vocals I've listened to on them so far (which is a lot, I've been using them a lot since I got them) sounded warm and good. I suppose the overall sound quality could be described as "warm," although not too warm.

Ghetto frequency tests (basically I played a sine wave and then listened) show me that the advertised frequency response isn't much to believe. I think it's advertised as 12hz-22kHz, but that's just flat out wrong. They don't hit 25hz. They also seem to fail on the highs (but this hasn't bothered me much, despite this they still sound very good). They don't hit 17kHz properly, and 16kHz distorts. The frequency tests weren't that elaborate, but for whatever reason these frequency dropoffs don't seem to affect the sound that much.

They also hold up well when given noisy music. If you're a Franz Ferdinand fan, you'll probably know that they tend to make loud, busy music. In my experience, a lot of speakers have trouble reproducing it without mashing the sounds together somewhat or downright distorting. These, however, handle it fine. Same goes for Smash Mouth's noisier songs. 

Now that I've covered sound quality, I'll talk about how they fit. At first, they hardly stayed in my ears at all. After hearing them though I wanted to see if I could keep them. This was with the smallest ear gel size. My ears seem to be adjusting to them though, they're fitting and staying in much better now (I got them on Saturday, at the time of this writing it's Tuesday). It seems that the white gels (you get three sizes of ear gels and you get them in black and white) are softer and more flexible, they fit to my ears better. For the record though, my mom tells me that she has small ear canals and can never use in-ear anything because all the gels are always too big. So I might just have small ear canals. My girlfriend says they fit her perfectly, so remember that what doesn't work for me might work great for you. It's just like this with IEMs. I emailed the company to suggest that they start making a smaller ear gel size for people like me and learned that they have plans to in the next few months, so that's good news. I'm still deciding whether or not to keep these (because of the fit, the sound quality is awesome and that's why I haven't returned them already). I'm giving them until the weekend, as I'm told by a friend that this just happens when you buy your first IEMs.

So in conclusion, I would highly recommend these. There's almost nothing bad about them, and for most, the good will outweigh the bad. Go buy some.