Occassionally, looking through the magazines littered around doctors waiting rooms mainly, I've come across those alluring ads from Bose. Bose equipment by and large is painfully expensive though so I've always viewed the ads in the same way that most of us view the ads for Sunseeker Yachts within in-flight magazines. But, things are changing in my life and I'm turning to technology to help me out.
I'm heads down on the new book at the moment (I'm on annual leave from Edenbrook), and come mid January I'll be doing a soul destroying commute for a few months for the new job. I needed to find a way to turn a 4 hour a day commute into highly productive work time to keep up the writing schedules. I used to be able to write quite happily on trains and stuff but in my old age it's become harder and harder to tune out the screaming kids, the annoying cell phone jingles, and of course the annoying over-loud yuppies that enjoy showing how important they are by using their cell phones to broadcast every detail of their lives to the other train occupants. I've also grown more and more annoyed by the rubberneckers that seem to view anyone with using a laptop as their own personal source of reading and entertainment for the entire trip. For the latter I've turned to 3M. They do an awesome film cover for screens that will black the screen to anyone at more than 15 degrees from square on - ideal for thwarting the rubber neckers.
The sound issues of the commute though were a worry, until I came across an ad for Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones. By planting chips and microphones in the earpieces, the headphones are able to sample the noise from the outside world and then invert the sound wave to cancel the noise out. It all sounds very Star Trek, and wholly unbelievable of course, and I've since found that there are quite a few manufacturers entering this game now. All the reviews though state that despite the price being in the upper echelons of eye-watering, the Bose headphones are still the best. So I ordered them.
They haven't arrived yet, but today Heather, my daughter Elly and I, took a trip up to London to the Apple Store on Regent's street, since Heather and I are both seriously considering a return to the world of Macintosh for all things non-work related. While Heather wandered off to drool over a demo of Logic 7 and all the music making abilities of the Mac's, Elly and I wandered around the store as a whole eventually coming to the iPod display. There, hung delicately on a rack above two ipods, connected and ready to go, were the Bose headphones I've ordered.
Now, I'd heard that noise cancelling headphones work best with constant noise, especially low droning from engines, trains and things like that. I didn't expect them to be all that good at all at getting rid of other noise, like people speaking and such. But, they are. The Bose QuietComfort 2 Headphones are absolutely stunning. They are very light (given their size), really comfortable (thanks to the large ear cups) and absolutely awesome when it comes to removing pretty much all noise around you. Putting them on is like stepping into a sound proof, vaccum sealed booth. All noise suddenly disappears. You can still hear people's voices, but the transformation is like going from a theme park full of people shouting and screaming, to the delicate murmurs of hushed conversations in a gallery at the Louvre. The difference is phenomenal. I should point out as well that that sound difference comes just by putting the things on your head, before you've even started to play music. Kick up a tune on the iPod (or, I imagine, any other electronic sound source) and you'll just melt. The sound quality of the QuietComfort 2 headphones is sublime. Rich mid and high tones with well rounded, perfect bass. Classical music sounds as if you're getting a private performance at the Albert Hall. All other kinds of music are equally intimate.
At around 275 pounds sterling the QuietComfort 2's are, once again, wallet shatteringly expensive. But, you really do get what you pay for. I can't wait for this little bundle of joy to arrive in the mail, hopefully this week. I have to say though that what little spare time I have right now is being thrown whole heartedly back into my flight sims and Counter Strike, so I fully expect to return to work after the headphones arrive with accute shell shock if they work half as well with games as they do with music, and silence.
11:29:24 PM 
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