Headphones

O.K. I'm back. Let's talk about headphones and how they are a symbol of where my world is going.

Back in the old days (say the seventies), I owned a pair of Sennheisers that my big brother gave me. They had these big yellow foam ear muffs and he had extended the cord so you could sit 20 meters away from the "record player" and listen to Tubular Bells. I still have these, they're downstairs in the box marked "audio stuff".

In the eighties I had this spiffy pair of Koss. I used them every day in the days of Z-Music portable disco. They worked great and saved my hearing (more or less). Even though the left ear has a slight crackle, they still work. I still have these downstairs in the box marked "audio stuff". Both these pairs have that big (TRS) jack that now only fit the stereo receiver. NOTE: They both still work.

In the nineties we moved to California. In keeping with my "world leading, cutting edge" job at SGI I spent a ton of money and bought myself a pair of Sennheiser HD580s along with a HeadRoom headphone amp. Fifteen years later, I still have these and use them at work. I repaired the headphone amp when Gabi plugged it into 220V and blew the input transformer (he still denies this). NOTE: They both still work.

Then came the iPod. This required headphones that could travel. I read that Koss PortaPro was the way to go. I bought a pair. I still have them and use them daily to listen to Time Team reruns when I sit in chair in the bedroom and don't want to disturb bwo watching TrueBlood. True, one speaker stopped working, but I sent them $5 (a new set cost $21 today) and they sent me a replacement. They sound as good as ever. NOTE: They still work.

For walking and listening to audiobooks I found a cheap pair of buds that came with one of the original mp3s players we bought around 10 years back. I have used this pair for probably 5 years. It lives in my bag wrapped around my iPod. They have walked hundreds of kilometers with me and we have listened to all sorts of books from the complete Hornblower series to lectures on biological anthropology. NOTE: They still work.

What's the point you may ask? This morning before school, blackdaughtero marched up to me and demanded a new set of headphones. "Where are the at least dozen pairs we have bought in the last 12 months" I inquired innocently. With a stamp of the morning foot and a father-is-exasperating-and-understands-nothing "OOOF!", she informed me that none of them worked. Now I know that my loving wife's iPhone related ebay fetish has led to at least fifty pairs of headphones arriving at PO Box 980 Raanana. It appears none of these are in working order (or can be found). You can open many a drawer in this house and find a crippled set of earbuds, its one speaker sadly dangling there like a one legged man. There are clumps of headphone tangled wires in baskets, most with raw bits of copper exposed where they were mercilessly ripped apart by careless users. They get no respect.

So what is one to do? I sadly looked one last time at my black earbugs that have walked Israel with me, and bade them farewell. I suppose I will never see them alive again. They have served me well. I just hope their death is quick and painless, a simple ripping apart while the band plays on and not the slow death of being drowned in the washing machine or being left deserted all alone on a bus seat.

p.s. Bwo just reminded me that I left off the story of the "Bose". Some years back a friend of bwo's gave her a set of those remarkable Bose Noise Canceling Headphones. They are a requirement for plane flight. She liked hers so much she bought me a pair - they cost multiple hundreds of dollars. Mine are in their case, nice and flat, in the box marked "Audio Stuff". They, of course, still work and are waiting patiently for my next flight. Just ask bwo what happened to hers (and where they are).