I’ve had about a week with the Desolation Sound, listening almost exclusively to them. I’ve never had a high-end earbud before these, so my point of reference would be JVC Gumy buds. The Gumy has two advantages: comfort but only by a little (the buds are tiny), and of course price. The DS, as...

I got the DS today. I love them. I did not roll a high enough DEX to get the other foams on.

Weeeee!

I’m checking my email obsessively to see if mine shipped at this point. Thanks a lot, you guys. :-p

The review mentions the plastic material as a negative, but I kind of wanted something that looks cheap but is not since I get a lot of my listening in my planning time as a school educator. To be clear, though, the pictures I've seen look nice. They just don't look ostentatiously nice.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the DS. I can’t wait! (But I guess I kind of have to)

MX500 shells are pretty standard in even cheap earbuds, aren’t they? If so, I’m pretty well-acquainted I’d say. I’ll look forward to your impressions!

I’m looking for an earbud as opposed to an IEM, yes.

I can afford any of them, so price isn’t a big deal. Of my current full size headphones, my favorite is the Focal Clear if that helps.

Awaiting people’s impressions on the DS. I’m not sure whether to go for that, Serratus, or Sunniva.

1) Audio Technica ATH-AD700 2) Sony WH-1000XM4 3) Koss Porta Pro Thinking of getting Sundaras as my next headphone. I want a good portable amp/dac to use with my phone too since all of these are straight out of the jack with the lightning dongle or (in the case of the Sony’s) Bluetooth.

I like vinyl myself. No DAC required, and used media is very cheap and often still quite good. I like CDs, too, but they tend to be louder than they need to be. I prefer to be trusted with the volume.

I could sort of see booting Loveless for  OK Computer, but I really love both, and this album as well.

To these western ears, a lot of eastern music sounds weird. Beautiful, but weird.

Wow - I actually won something!   When should we expect the email/PM, and is there a subject I can look for in case my crazy email sends it to the spam folder?

I'll start by saying that I'm generally happy with my particular headphones out of my iPod classic's headphone out (I just use the PX100 most of the time, but the AD700 sounds fine to me directly from the iPod also), but the headphone out itself has become picky with the autopause nonsense with...

I love that song.

My biggest gripe is that playback isn't gapless. That really hurts songs that segue neatly into the next.

I'm just using the 160 kbps free version, and it is very nice. It's certainly missing some things, but you're always going to have that with a legitimate service.   Cool that you're from Middlesex, btw. I used to teach up there.

New Over the Rhine is p. great, I think. Absurd and touching, often at the same time.   http://www.overtherhine.com/

Kid A Morning Bell. It's more driving, and the way it ends with those whale-ish guitar sounds just slays me every time.

This is a strong set of songs as far as I'm concerned. There's always something he's throwing in that makes it a bit disconcerting, but I like that about him.

LOL crickets.   Personally, I don't think they're good at all.

Best re-issue there has been, and probably best there will be, this year.

I'm loving Badu's new album in its lovely, easygoing nature.