Tuesday, January 26, 2010

IPoding Athlete Audio Earphone - Update: more custom earphone options at the Apple Store

Last week i did a post about the importance of good hearing protection while listening to one's tunes at the gym. I noted that there's a cool deal in the UK for custom sleeves to be fitted to the very cool etymotic research made-for-ipod ER 6i. While these are way cool for folks who don't need a mic with their earphones, some folks do, as their ipod may be an iPhone.

So i had a wee chat with ACS head honcho Andy Shiach late last week, and he informed me i'm a wee bit out of date. Etymotic has a headphone called the hf2 which is like the 6i except with the necessary inline mic AND they have a custom in-ear phone program AND ACS is doing the custom ear sleeves for them AND you can go into any apple store (in the UK right now), and buy the custom pack: you get the headphones and a vouchure for the custom sleeves. And this program is about to be rolled out world-wide "very soon" The vid below shows how it works.



Folks in the US right now can head to Ety's site to take a peek.

I'll update the site as soon as i learn of the Apple Store US release.

Technical Note: real protection
I also asked Andy about the differences in db ratings on the ety site, claiming 35-40 decibles and the custom sleeves rating 26db on the customhearing.co.uk site, especially since i find the sleeves much better. He explained that the 35-40 db may be the attenuation at some frequencies, but not at all. Indeed it may be quite a bit less as some hotter frequencies. On the other hand, the custom sleeves provide 26db at least at all frequencies. Cool.

So now, even less excuse not to protect one's hearing AND get improved audio experience at the same time.

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