2014 Year in Review

Well, 2014 is coming to a close.  Was it any better than 2013?  It's hard to say.

By many accounts, 2014 was shaped by events that were more unfortunate than could ever been realized.  Domestically, in the US, we had multiple police brutality cases come to light.  None of those seemed to come to the conclusion the public hoped for.  We were swept by fear over the concerns of Ebola, which hit Africa to devastating effect but never made a particular impact here.

Overseas, by all accounts, was much worse however.  From ISIL to plane disasters, 3 of them now that another plane has gone missing on the 28th of December, the world has not been a particularly safe place.  It all seems so far away when we hear about atrocities like the December 16th school massacre in Peshawar by the Pakistani Taliban or the thousands of deaths in West Africa due to Ebola.

At home, this disconnect became increasingly obvious.  The fear frenzy sparked by Ebola, which to date only has 4 cases and 1 death in the US, was almost comical in how overblown it was.  The level of misinformation supplied was clearly crafted to feed the fear as all credible sources have said that outbreaks in developed countries would be incredibly unlikely.  Now don't get me wrong, the crisis in west Africa over the spread and fatality of this current Ebola strain is very well founded, it just isn't particularly dangerous to the US where the media went crazy.

As bad as the year's been in the world, outside the Earth we perhaps had one of the most exciting events in recent space history.  Rosetta and Philae, spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) landed on a moving asteroid, no doubt a great feat.  From a set of cute animated renditions of their mission to an xkcd comic chronicling their landing, the scientific community celebrated the success, though brief, of one of the longest and most difficult space missions to date.

In daily life I'm sure everyone has had somewhat of an up and down year.  Every time you think something good happens, you get punched in the gut with something terrible.  That's how the world is though, between all the good and bad, there's a lull where nothing seems to happen.  Sometimes, I feel like that's what we should really be celebrating.  Not praising the good, nor vilifying the bad, but celebrating those everyday events, the mediocrity is what keeps us going.

With that, I hope everyone has a good new year's.  Hopefully, this upcoming year will have more to celebrate, both good and neutral, and less to cry over.  As always, until next time.

--CsMiREK

Gear Days - Stocking Stuffer Special

I'm a bit late with this, I wanted to originally have this out yesterday night but it took a bit longer than expected.  The topic for the day is the Stocking Stuffer Special, a ranking of headphones I own that can all be bought for under $50.  The field is crowded and honestly there aren't a large number of standouts but let's get started anyways.

All told, there were 14 pairs ranked this time around and they got grouped into 2 small groups at the ends and one big blob in the middle

So let's get to the ratings:
1. Superlux HD668B
2. Yuin PK3
3. Sennheiser CX200
4. Incipio NX-100 f38
5. Panasonic RPTCM125K
6. NuForce NE600X
7. UrbanEars Plattan
8. Sony MDR-PQ5 (Discontinued)
9. TTPOD T1-E
10. California Headphones Silverado (Discontinued)
11. Klipsch S4i Rugged (Discontinued)
12. Sol Republic Amps
13. NuForce NE770X
14. Zipbuds Juiced

Gear Days - Holiday Kickoff: Beats Studio Wireless

It's holiday time and that means headphones (not that it isn't headphones time all the time).  To kick off the holiday headphone times I'll cover a pair of headphones I've recently come to owning, the Beats Studio Wireless.

So, what are the Beats Studio Wireless headphones?  Most obviously, they're headphones produced by the often controversial company Beats (now owned by Apple).  Equally obvious is that they're wireless headphones.  What else can be easily gleaned about the Beats Studio Wireless?  Well, they're over ear, closed back headphones that also sport ANC (active noise cancelling).  Now let's get to it and get on with the review.

M50 vs M50x: Changing of the guard?

Back in February of this year, Audio Technica released a followup to their wildly popular Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, now labelled the ATH-M50x.  About a month ago I caved and decided to get a pair expressly for the purpose of figuring out what has changed.  With that, let's get started.

Both the M50 and M50x are closed back over ear headphones, that much has not changed.  In fact, overall, the sound and design are really quite similar.  So what has changed?  First, the M50x has a removable cable, which is awesome.  In the box, it comes with three different length cables and the addition of having a removable cable is really quite great.  Second, the pads on the M50x are initially more comfortable and less stiff than the original M50's ear pads.  After extended wearing though, they both feel about the same.  The carrying case that comes with the headphones is the same as before.  That pretty much sums up the external differences.  Let's move onto the sound.