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Lee Hanken
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hpr_transcripts/hpr1812.txt
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Episode: 1812
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Title: HPR1812: Headphones and a $2 Microphone
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1812/hpr1812.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:38:03
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---
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This is HPR Episode 1812 entitled, Headphones and another 2 Microphone.
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It is hosted by John Kulp and in about 20 minutes long.
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The summary is, I talk about my various headphones and I walk to my office.
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This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
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Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code, HPR15, that's HPR15.
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Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An Honesthost.com.
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All right, is it recording?
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It appears to be recording.
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I check the level, maybe bring the level down to 70, okay, I'm going to leave it at
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that.
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I'm going to tuck my recorder into the little case, you're still recording?
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Yep.
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Okay, so this is John Kulp and Lefayette Louisiana and I'm going to do a different sort
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of recording this morning.
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Dave Morris, among others, has said that he enjoyed hearing environmental sounds in
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recordings and so I'm going to record an episode as I walk over to my office this morning.
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I'm leaving my house now and walking down to the end of the street where there's a big
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apartment complex.
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A few days ago we had an incident here, I think it was on Wednesday of last week.
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Some drunken loser blew through the stop sign and crashed his car right through the wall
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of the apartment on the end.
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This was about 230 in the morning and when I woke up at about 530, I never heard the thing
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happen but when I woke up at 530 there were still cop cars out there with their blue lights
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flashing and curious thing though, a few days later I got an email from one of the students
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in my summer class saying that she had missed the deadline for one of the quizzes and she
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said she missed the deadline because there had been a terrible accident at her home and
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attached pictures and when I opened up the picture and look at it, it was the apartment
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right by my house with the car sticking right out of the wall.
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And so the resident of the apartment whose apartment got crushed was one of my students.
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Sorry for the noise, they're doing maintenance on the apartments here and right now that
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maintenance is in the form of powerwashing the entire exterior of the buildings and
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walking across the bridge and now I am on campus.
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When we moved here in 2001 the first year we had a rental house that was pretty close
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to campus but not right on campus and when it became clear that I was going to get to
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keep my job permanently we bought a house on a street that is right next to campus and
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so I can walk over to my office in about 10 minutes and if I get on my bike it only
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takes about four or five minutes.
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Where was I going with that?
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Oh, anyway.
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So, oh, I remember what I was going to say.
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So it was kind of a surprise to me that the resident of the apartment who that got
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crashed into was one of my students and you might wonder, well, why didn't you know
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this and well, the answer is because I teach this class online and unless there's
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some big problem I never see any of the students face to face and so I don't know
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them.
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So anyway, of course I granted her an extension to get the quizzes done and all that.
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So anyway, that's enough about that.
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I thought the topic of my talk today was should be headphones.
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I use several different kinds of headphones and I thought I would talk about the kinds
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of headphones I have and what I use them for and that kind of thing.
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I'm sorry, it's it's going to sound like I'm getting all out of breath now because I've
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been walking.
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I didn't think I was that out of shape.
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It's not all that strenuous of walk that I'm doing.
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It's a little bit hot here.
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One other thing I want to say though before going to be further is that the microphone
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I'm using right now is a $2 microphone.
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Now one of the barriers to recording HPR episodes that people have mentioned is a lack
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of a decent microphone.
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Well, I think with this episode I can prove that you don't need to set the threshold very
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high to have a good enough microphone.
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This is this microphone.
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It's a little lapel mic with a windscreen and I bought it not too long ago.
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On Amazon I bought three of them for $6 with free shipping.
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Now this little microphone, you can buy them in quantities of like 500 and so I think
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it sounds pretty good actually.
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To me it certainly sounds better than what I would think of a $2 microphone sounding
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and I've got it plugged into my Zoom H1 recorder and so that's how I'm recording.
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I can see in the distance that we've got a whole bunch of
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freshman for the fall semester on their orientation tour walking around in red t-shirts and
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whatnot.
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Anyway, so let me I put the list of headphones on my phone so I wouldn't forget what they
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are.
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Okay, so in order of I don't know best to words, maybe in no particular order, my most
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recent headphone acquisition pair of Bose Quiet Comfort 15 headphones and I
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had been wanting a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort for a long time mostly to counteract
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the trumpet that you may have heard in previous episodes of mine that happens
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next door.
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I hear industrial noise coming from somewhere and I'm going to try to walk away
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from it.
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That's probably just one of the giant air conditioners on campus.
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So the guy whose office is next door to mine is the trumpet professor and of course
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a trumpet is a very loud instrument and in our building we have absolutely no sound
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isolation from one office to another and so for the longest time I thought my
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gosh, I really need to get some kind of headphones or something to help keep this sound
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away from me and so as a Christmas present last fall I chose a pair of Bose Quiet Comfort
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15 headphones and if you keep up with this kind of thing you'll know that that's not
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the most recent model.
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The most recent one is the Bose Quiet Comfort 25 but I wanted to try to get them used
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so I could save some money.
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Retail there like 300 bucks and I just couldn't see spending 300 bucks on a pair of headphones.
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So I found a pair of QC 15s on eBay for $160 including shipping and a bottom and they're
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awesome.
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They're the pretty comfortable.
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They sound amazing.
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I mean the Bose headphones are really, really good quality.
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They sound amazing.
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The noise canceling is pretty effective especially for white noise type things like if I were
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wearing them right now walking over to my office I would not hear any of the industrial
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noise that's probably coming through the microphone right now.
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So they're really good at canceling out that kind of thing and it actually performs better
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than I thought it would against the trumpet also as long as I'm listening to something.
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Now sometimes people will wear the Quiet Comfort headphones without even listening to anything
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they'll just turn on the noise cancellation to get rid of background noise.
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And if I wear them like that I will still hear the trumpet but if I'm listening to something
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like the wonderful open Goldberg variations or the open well tempered club here while
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I'm sitting at my desk and trumpet guy next door with playing his trumpet I can barely
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hear the trumpet so they actually work pretty well.
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The only negative that I have about the Bose Quiet Comfort, well two negatives, one is
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that they require a battery but the battery seems to last a very long time and so that's
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not a huge problem.
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The other negative is that they're not as comfortable as I would like for them to be for headphones
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to cost that much money.
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They're pretty comfortable but I wouldn't want to wear them for a really long time.
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The next best set of headphones I have is actually maybe I'll wait and talk about those
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because I can't remember the model number but if I talk about the other ones first then
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by the time I get to my office I will be able to simply look at the headphones and tell
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you the model number.
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So another pretty cool pair of headphones I have is a pair of Aftershocks, let me see,
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Aftershocks that's spelled word after followed by S-H-O-K-Z, Sports and that is S-P-O-R-T-Z
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M2 Bone Conduction Headphones, these are pretty cool headphones, they use this bone
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conduction technology so there's nothing actually sticking in your ear or going over your
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ear.
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Instead they rest on your temples and they conduct the sound through your bones.
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I'm going to pause for a second.
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I just passed a large group of incoming freshmen being conducted on their tour.
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The bone conduction headphones have these little pads that rest on your temples and you
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can hear the music because it's resonating in your skull or something.
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I don't know exactly how the technology works but they work pretty well.
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The sound quality is nothing like you would get on say the Bose headphones but it's perfectly
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good sound quality for listening to speech like podcasts and it's not terrible for a music
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as long as you're not trying to listen to them as an audio file.
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But the advantage of the bone conduction thing is that you can keep your ears wide open
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and they market these to people like joggers and bikers who for safety's say should not
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have things stuck all the way in their ears where they can't hear cars coming, stuff
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like that.
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These Aftershocks bone conduction headphones also have a microphone and so you can plug them
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into your phone and use them as a headset.
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I use them almost any time I'm going to call my parents or some other place where I think
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I might be on the phone for more than two or three minutes.
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I'll put on this headset and use it that way so I can talk hands free and it works amazingly
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well for that.
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Okay I'm approaching the intersection of McKinley and St. Mary which is where my building
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is located.
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We can probably hear all the cars.
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When I see another group, oh there's a group of parents and students over there getting
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their tour.
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The summertime is when they do a lot of the orientation stuff here.
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So students either who are thinking of coming here or who have already committed to come
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here and have to go through orientation, they're all over campus right now.
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Crossing the street.
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So the next pair of headphones that I'll talk about is my Sony.
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I have some Sony earbud type headphones that hook over the ear and rest that way.
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I've had a bad luck with ear buds because for some reason my ears just are not shaped
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the right way and so ear buds just fall right out but I really like the kind of ear buds
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that have these little clips that go over your ear and hold them in place.
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So the headphones I use the most in terms of hours, like just day in and day out might
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go to headphones for listening to most things is just these Sony.
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They are the MDR J10H ear headphones with non-slip design and I think I paid about 20 bucks
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for them but when I looked on Amazon they were priced at $34.99 so I don't really know
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the deal with that.
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Okay I've just walked into my building.
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Good morning.
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How are you?
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I'm okay, how are you?
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I'm doing well.
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Good.
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Okay, I'm now in my office so no more noise so now you know exactly how long it takes me
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to walk to work every day.
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So the Sony thing they don't sound great but they sound good enough and they're lightweight
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and they don't fall out of my ears and they have those little hooks that go over ears
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but that also means I can kind of hook them over my shirt collar and hold them there when
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I'm not actually using them in my ears.
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So that's my most often used pair of headphones.
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Okay, so now I'm sitting at my desk and looking at the Sennheiser headphones.
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This is the Sennheiser MD500A or wait, is that HD?
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Hang on, HD, one of the letters was rubbed off.
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The Sennheiser HD500A headphones.
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These have large ear pads that go completely over the ear but they're also kind of open.
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I mean they do not cancel out any sound at all and these headphones are the best ones
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I have for listening to stuff in high definition when there is no environmental noise that
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I need to contend with.
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Like since trumpet guy is not here right now, it's summertime and he doesn't come around
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that much in the summer.
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If I wanted to listen to something I would put these headphones on, they sound absolutely
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amazing and they're extremely comfortable.
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The Bose ones are not quite as comfortable.
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They're not terrible but these, I mean they feel like air, they're so lightweight, they're
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so comfortable, I could wear them for hours and never notice that they're on my head.
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Absolutely love these headphones but they do not block out noise at all.
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So that's the only downside for those.
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I think they cost about, they're 8 or 10 years old now, I think they were about 150 bucks
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new back then and there's probably some newer model or comparable thing available now.
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Okay, so let's see I've talked about the Bose Sennheiser, aftershocks, the Sony, okay
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the very last ones I want to talk about are the Howard Light 1030-110 sync noise blocking
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stereo earmuffs.
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This is a little bit a different thing here, before I ever got noise cancelling headphones
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I wanted to have something I could wear when I was working outside in the yard or doing
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other things where I needed to block out noise and still be able to listen at a decent
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level and I found these things on Amazon, they're very affordable, they're about 30 bucks,
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35 bucks and they are earmuffs and so they're great for when you're doing things like
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mowing the yard or hammering things, if you're doing something very loud or an environment
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that's really loud, you can wear these and then plug in your audio source to it, you
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can wear them just as earmuffs or you can plug in an audio cable and use them as headphones
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at the same time and the reason these are so great for that is because they block out
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the sound really well in terms of reducing the decibels of potentially dangerous sounds
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in your environment, but also that means that you can listen to your music or your
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podcasts at simply a normal volume, whereas if you were using earbuds or something like
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that you'd have to turn them way up to dangerous levels to be able to hear them at all.
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This allows you to listen at a safe level and have those annoying sounds blocked out.
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So they're pretty cool, they're very uncomfortable though, so I don't wear them for long periods
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of time, I mean almost any earmuff is going to be uncomfortable because they squeeze your
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head so hard, but anyway, that is a rundown of my headphones and with that I think I'm
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going to start walking back home. I'll close my office door and start walking out the
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front here. How are you doing? Good, how are you? I'm going to be tour guides for the
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many incoming freshmen, just came racing in the building looking for the restrooms.
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Okay, now I'm back outside and heading back home. So I think that's probably enough, I'm
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going to sign off now and next time I'll probably go back to my normal mode of simply sitting
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at my desk in a quiet environment and recording a podcast. Thanks for listening, I will talk
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to you later. Bye.
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You've been listening to HECKA Public Radio at HECKA Public Radio dot org. We are a community
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podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday. Today's show, like
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a podcast and click on our contributing to find out how easy it really is. HECKA Public Radio
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