Mon, November 17, 2008
Why They Hate Us—11:58 AM
Reading some highly excellent reportage from Daring Fireball's John Gruber and others on the subject of iPod/iPhone earphones, I was reminded to paw through my stash of extras to replace the set I usually carry to the gym with my iPod shuffle, which have recently developed a buzz in one ear.
I had to find a set with the proper cable length, because Apple has varied this over time, and the shorter ones won't reach my pocket with enough slack to work out – reason enough to stay home and watch TV instead, if you ask me. Once I had them all out, I became curious about audio fidelity. Theoretically, the technology gets better with each new set of earphones they release, and I had a seven-year spectrum in front of me – would the newer ones sound appreciably better?
To test this, I set up something like the split-screen effect they use on TV when they want to sell you the re-mastered version of a DVD you already own. ("Look how crappy your version is next to ours! Throw it away!") I plugged one set of earphones into the shuffle, and another into my iPod touch, then cued the touch to play whatever song was currently going on the shuffle, with one set of earphones connected to each ear. The first thing I noticed is that two different iPods will keep remarkably tight sync with one another (something two CD players or two Super-8 projectors will not do, just ask Joe or anyone else from our Cinema 290 class). Also, my sophistication as a listener falls far short of being able to distinguish between two sets of decent earphones. But it was damn fun getting the songs to sync up, especially the period as I was narrowing it down – songs sound funny when the left channel is a half-second out of sync with the right, even though it will give you a headache if you do it too long.
Then I briefly saw myself as an outside observer would have: a pudgy white dude on the sofa, with a Coke in one hand and a TiVo remote in the other, listening to two iPods at the same time. Kind of indulgent, right? Like a grimy street urchin should've happened by my window at that moment, and assumed that was my life: strolling around listening to a pair of iPods while he was scrounging in the gutter for chicken bones and rat droppings. ("Honey, he's teasing you. Nobody has two television sets.")
