Category: Reviews

Listening to music is something that I enjoy the old way. I don’t enjoy blasting music from my living room speakers while I’m talking to someone or when I’m in a different room. Music is something I love, and I respect the artistry behind it, so for me listening to music is an activity that requires my full attention. Trying to understand what the harmonies are doing, identifying every and each instrument they used, feeling the space created by the engineers when they mixed and mastered the song is awesome, so I’m going to share some of my favorite things to enjoy music the way I do.

I love listening to music on speakers but that means that the environment is going to affect how you hear the music, so unless you are sharing with someone else or have a nice place to listen to music I recommend you start by getting a good pair of headphones and a couple other accessories. In the future we will discuss speakers and amplifiers, and so on.

So, listening with headphones entails a couple things.

1. The reproduction medium: simply said, where are you playing your music from, a platform in a computer, or your phone, a cd player or a record player.
2. Your conversion, this is usually D/A conversion, so digital to analog, basically how are those 1 and 0’s in your laptopbeing transformed into electrical signal that you can listen to with your headphones or earbuds.
3. Amplifier, how are you increasing the volume so you can actually hear it
4. And the reproduction medium, your headphones.

All of these parts have an effect on how you hear your music, but not all of them are as important. Order of importance goes backwards from the list, so your headphones are going to be essential and fully change how you hear your music so let’s start with that.

There are 3 types of headphones/earphones we are going to discuss and I’ll share my recommendations:

• Open Back: Most professionals swear by these because they say they are the most transparent of the three options. They allow sound to flow out and in from your surronding, this is because they are not fully closed, they are never as loud but the experience is more alike with speakers. If you like to listen for long periods of time, enjoy listening in speakers or don’t want to be fully isolated these are ideal.
  • Audeze LCD 2, I tried these and they were awesome, it felt 3D, punchy, enhancing but just enough. But for me at ~$750 they were a bit outside my budget if I was going to take them anywhere otuside my house.
  • Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro are my to go headphones, i love how they sound, and how they feel. they are very flat but still having a punchy bass, something that open back headphones lack many times.You can find them for about $210 in amazon.
  • Audio Technica ATX-R50, At $170 these feel a lot more expensive, I did not enjoy them as much as the M50, not loved by all but I do love them, but they are a great player, they do lose a bit of the M50 boominess making them flater.
  • AKG K240, these my first open back headphones, everything sounded terrible the first week or so, and then I heard Paul Simon’s 50 shades and I fell in love. At ~$50 it’s very good entry point to get into the game.
• Closed Back: These are what we are most used to in daily use headpones, they have better isolation because sound from outside can’t come in as easily. Nose cancelation headpones are closed back.
  • Audio‑Technica ATH‑M50x: My favorites. alanced sound, punchy bass, and durable build make these a go-to for everyday listening or monitoring. ~$160
  • Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro: Studio-grade closed-back headphones with rich bass response, crisp highs, and very good passive isolation. ~$210
  • Sony MDR7506: Durable and cheap but they sound great, even pro’s swear by these.and they are considered insutry standards for recording engineers. ~$100.
  • Anker Soundcore Q20i: Wireless closed-back headphones with Hybrid ANC, generous battery life (up to ~40 hrs ANC), and a customizable sound via app. ~$50
• Earphones: These would be my last recommendation, the speakers in these are very small so a lot of work has to be done to be able to reproduce low frequencies and it’s easy to get ear fatigue.
  • Soundcore Liberty 4 NC Wireless: These are my recommendation, they sound ok, they are cheap, good battery and they don’t fall off when working out, but I would not use them to sit down and listen to music.

Unless there is a very specific reason you are looking for earbuds I would recommend you to avoid them and choose over the ear to enjoy the music you are listening to.

Obviously for these options we are very focused on sound quality and not as much on other characteristics, so most of these are cable options and focused on sound quality only.

Sometime soon, we’ll go for the best chair to sit down and enjoy your music, and the best bevarage to accompany it.

As a native Argentinean living in the US and also because my wife and I love experiencing new things and places, we spend long hours on planes, so we are usually testing and trying new gadgets and techniques to improve our flight experience.

I like to split things in to a couple different categories, preparation, setup, trip and the actual experience in the new place.

Preparation: This is all the planning for the trip, from where to go, any specific things you want to do, eat or see to less exciting things such as booking plane tickets and hotels, I have to say my wife is the master here, from my conversations there always one person in a couple that is best at pulling the trigger and buying tickets and things even if the other person is the dreamer thinkining about where to go. My personal recommendations here are :

1. Booking Flights and Hotels: Book it as much in advance as possible, flights and hotels might have sales or promos but 99% of the time you end paying a higher fare if you wait. If you are open to moving your trip around, sure, wait but if you have a specific date, give yourself as much time in advance as possible.
2. Layovers: When looking for flights, look for very long layovers, sometimes splitting an LA to Sidney trip with 1 or 2 days in Fiji can be a dream at no extra flight cost.
3. Planning: I used to hate having a schedule, but even if there are just 2 things you want to do, schedule it that way you are freeing up time to enjoy all the other things you want to do without a plan instead of thinking of when can you do that thing you actually want to do. If you are planning a trip with lots of experiences, excel or google sheets can be a great option if you are an old soul like me or using an app if you enjoy that.

Setup: This is the process of checking if passports are good to go, weather, how many bags are you taking, etc.

Travelling: This is the core of this article, what gadgets and things and techniques we have found that actually work and things that suck.

1. Gadgets and things we think you should try.
   • Headphones: There are two main options here, over the head or earbuds:
     • Over the head: these are your big and bulky headphones, my wife swears by them, and a lot of other people do, the Bose Quiet Comfort are my wife’s to go, they sound great, they are very comfortable, no problems if you have small or big ears. The thing I don’t like about them is that I can’t support my head comfortably, there are some cheaper options that are still very good such as the JBL 770 or a brand I swear by if you just care about audio and comfort is Soundcore
     • Earbuds or in ears, I love the small footprint they have, that I can take them to a trip and use them on the plane or for a run, I love my Bose QuietComfort Earbuds when I’m home, but I have a tendency to forget my earbuds at the gym or leave them somewhere after it so when travelling I take my Soundcore Liberty 4, they sound great, they have a long battery life, they just don’t look as good and the mic is not as great.
   • Cushion: I have lower back pain and sciatica often, so after 4 or 5 hours on a plane seat I start pacing, so a while back I started testing a couple of these, I do enjoy some of them.
     • Small and cheap: I actually enjoyed this one, it’s very small and light, it’s very small to pack so sometimes I use it as pillow if the seat is comfortable, but it’s not my first option for the my tushy, I take this one when my flight is around 8 hours.
     • For very long trips: Very similar in design to the cheaper option but tailored to your bottom, it gives a better and more stable seating with some a cooler experience.
     • Leg hamock: Some people love them, we haven’t really used them much after a couple tests, they are cool if you have some food in your bag but they are only useful if you have enough space. Our son enjoyed it when he was younger because he could support his legs.

Actual Trip: As for the actual trip other than saying just enjoy there are two main things we swear by:

1. Managing Jetlag: Go to bed at around 10 pm the first night and use an alarm clock, this will help your body get back into a regular schedule as quick as possible, this is actually something a touring musician told me they used to do.
2. Try to be as local as possible, get away from big chains and tourist places, it’s like trying to see what New York is about but just staying around Times Square.
3. Extra! If you love ice cream as much as we do, don’t buy colorful ice creams, buy from shops where you can’t actually see the ice cream