Another week is gone, so here we are, a new edition of This Week in Headphoolia, a semi-humorous round-up of the week that was in the world of headphones. The soundtrack for this edition is Lana del Rey’s “Lust for Life”, streamed on an iPod over Wifi to the Philips SHP-9500S, whose detailed review I keep promising but it’s still remains in my head and in my chicken-scratch notes 🙂
In this edition too we continue with a mixed media format, with the division of the sections being on the product type instead of the medium. Videos are easy to tell, because I mention either YouTube, duration in minutes or “video” in the line 🙂
GOODBYE iPOD Nano and Shuffle
Nepenthe for the Lost Lenore! The iPod Nano and Shuffle have officially been …shuffled out [sorry, low-hanging pun, couldn’t resist] of the Apple music player line-up. But the iPods are not dead. Apple is continuing the iPod Touch line and it is doubling the storage options in the two remaining iPod Touch models at the $200 (32GB) and $300 (128GB) price points.
Details on this broke out at the Business Insider with additional coverage at Ars Technica. The Verge, ever the emotional types, take a look at the history of the Nano.
Now you know why I’m using the iPod Touch for the soundtrack of today’s Headphoolia round-up 🙂
Reality has a funny way of manifesting things. Just as the iPod Shuffle is dying, the world of crowd-funding is bringing out an iPod Shuffle type of a device for offline Spotify music listening. A (over)(re)view of this at Engadget…
DACs and AMPs
+ Schiit Lyr 2 amp review at AORNIC YouTube (17 min) along with accompanying written review
+ Fiio i1 Lightning Connector DAC/amp for recent iPhones at Headfonics
+ NextDrive Spectra DAc review at PortaFI YouTube (6 mins)
+ SMSL A6 intergrated amplifier review Part #1 at Archimago’s
OVER and ON-EARS
Not a lot in volume this week, but the reviews make it for it by featuring headphones of interest and curiosity…
+ Sennheiser HD 569 over-ears at Innerfidelity along with accompanying 8 minute video
+ Beyerdynamic Amiron review at Headfonics
+ Audeze EL-8 Titanium review at Headphonesty
+ Encore Rockmaster Live review at Headfonics
EARPHONES
+ Wirecutter-style buyer’s guide of sorts at Engadget, the best wireless earphones under $50 they say – alternately, the AMP link (Google’s AMP, not an amplifier)
+ Audio Technica LS-series comparison at Lachlan YouTube (9 min)
+ Final Audio E3000 and E2000 review at Headfonia
+ RHA CL1 ceramics review at Carrot Reviews
+ RHA CL750 review at Carrot Reviews
+ Audeze LCDi4 flagships at Headphone Guru
+ 6 minute video review of the V-Moda Forza Metallo by The Sound Guys (part of the Android Authority group)
+ Flares PRO bluetooth earphones review at Headphone List
+ Fiio F5 short review at The Verge
+ Ear tip review, the Mandarine Symbio Ws at Headphone List
AUDIO SHOWS
The blog posts from various audio shows around the world continued to roll out, here are some of them.
Headfonia is back with Part #1 and Part #2 of their CanJam coverage from London.
The LA Audio show had plenty of coverage at the Part Time Audiophile. Check their late July 2017 archives if you are reading this long after this post is posted.
MOOG Fest 2017 action now, rounded up at Part Time Audiophile as well.
Get hype for the next Rocky Mountain Audio Fest with an …unboxing of the Press Room (87 second video) 🙂
STREAMING
Google, ironically perhaps, has one of the most consumer-friendly and bang-for-the-buck music offerings, yet most people are not aware of everything they can get out of it. An All-Access Music Streaming subscription also gets you access to YouTube RED (YouTube without ads), and vice versa, and you can cloud-mix your own music files with the subscription streaming service, creating a unified library across devices ~ not to mention an additional backup of your own music.
So according to an interview, they are planning to find a way to merge their two offerings into one, to raise awareness and such. Needless to say, the first thing current subscribers think when reading this is, “please don’t break it!”.
OPINIONS
Stereophile counter-opines on a recent Wall Street Journal article proclaiming the Vinyl Boom is Over (may get paywall).
LEARNINGS
We had updates to both our tracking lists with a new edition, the Smartphones without a headphone jack got a new addition, and so did the Smartphones with Bluetooth 5.0 but with a conditional new entry. The entry is the new Motorola Z2 FORCE. Bluetooth 5.0 is a conditional entry because it will arrive only after the phone gets Android Octopus (okay, 8.0). Given Motorola’s recent track record of OS updates, this may remain a conditional entry for months and months.