Gear Days - New Year Over Ear Invitational Part 4: The Winners

And here we are, a few weeks into the new year with the best of the over ears.  As you might have noticed, the 'losers' didn't just include the bottom 10 but neglected a couple and included the AKG K7XXs.  But let's talk about that as we go why don't we, this one'll be long with 13 headphones.

The first of the 'winners' I want to talk about are the Beyerdynamic Custom One Pros.  These are an interesting pair of headphones because they allow you to control the amount of bass you listen to with these sliders, one on each earcup.  So why are these on the 'winners' list while being in 14th place?  Simply put they're very interesting.  Part of the reason why they're ranked so low is because they're kind of expensive at around $215 for the quality of sound they have.  The other reason is that why you bring the bass up to louder amounts it seriously degrades the sound quality.  The bass gets really bloated and slow.  The idea and premise behind them though is quite interesting and I do quite enjoy them even though I ranked them as low as I did and for that I think they belong on the 'winners' list.

Next up is the other sub top ten ranked pair of headphones, the Bose QC15s.  Yes, there's a new version of these headphones in the QC25s but I don't have those so you'll have to live with this.  Honestly, these are here because the noise cancelling is just that good.  The sound is...odd to say the least.  Out of all the headphones I looked at this time around, they had this really odd vocal focus that made their mids very odd.  The bass was pretty decent but I just couldn't shake the odd mids that were so very partial to vocals and so oddly weak when vocals weren't involved.

Skipping over the Beyerdynamic T90s for now, I'll talk about those last, let's get to the AKG Q701s in 9th place.  The Q701s honestly sound very similar to the AKG K612 Pros when unamped.  Amped is a different story with the K612s getting uncharacteristically sloppy with the Q701s maintaining their sound.  The general sound is that the bass is pretty good with a strong yet not overly strong volume.  The mids are clear and detailed and the highs are sparkly without getting out of hand ever.  The stage is wide and natural.  Overall the sound is not the reason these headphones are here.  The only reason they're here is because the headband has bumps on it that are really annoyingly uncomfortable.

Gear Days - New Year Over Ear Invitational Part 3: The Losers

Oh the 'losers', the disappointments, the stay at home headphones.  Whether the price to performance ratio was off or the sound quality just wasn't there, these headphones just didn't stack up to the fierce competition for the top, regardless, it's important to talk about them so here we go.

At the bottom of the scrap barrel are the Audio Technica ANC7b headphones.  At $130ish with admirable noise cancelling, these headphones fit into an interesting niche in the low end noise cancelling headphones department.  While their noise cancelling is admirable, outperforming both the Audio Technica ANC70s and the Beats Studio Wireless, I just couldn't enjoy their sound quality in comparison to the other headphones in the group.  As I stated before in my ANC70 vs ANC7b post, the ANC7bs suffer pretty greatly from the tin can syndrome.  They have overly strong bass, that isn't even good, which paired with an already small sound stage makes things almost claustrophobic.  While it's true that with noise cancelling on they sound significantly better, they still don't really get up to par with some of the other headphones in the group so they get the lowest ranking.

Moving on are the VModa Crossfade LPs.  Note that these are the first incarnation of them and that there is a new version.  That said I just couldn't get behind the sound.  When I first reviewed them back at the tail end of 2013, I gave them quite a high rating.  That said, I have listened to a great deal more headphones and honestly I don't think they sound that good.  Maybe it's because I tend to favor mid and treble heavy headphones over bassy ones but I found that the Crossfade LPs just lacked on so many levels.  The bass was overly strong and not crisp, just kind of boomy.  The mids were weak and the stage was overly small.  I wouldn't say they're particularly bad headphones, just not really all that good either.

Gear Days - New Year Over Ear Invitational Part 2: The Rankings

First off, this ranking took a really long time to do.  I've found that listening to multiple headphones for differences can be really difficult.  After 5 or 6 you start forgetting what the other ones sounded like and it all kind of blurs.  Also, I haven't done the amped ratings yet so there will be an edit to this post when I do end up finishing those.  Regardless, let's get to the standard rankings.

From top to bottom in ranking:
1. Superlux HD668B
2. AKG K612Pro
3. Sony MDRV6/MDR7506
4. Audio Technica ATH-M50
5. Beyerdynamic DT880
6. Incipio NX-100 f38
7. JVC HA-RX900
8. AKG K7XX
9. AKG Q701
10. Beyerdynamic T90
11. Audio Technica ANC70
12. Scarlett HP60
13. Bose QC15
14. Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro
15. California Headphones Co Silverado
16. Beats Studio Wireless
17. NuForce HP-800
18. VModa Crossfade LP
19. Audio Technica ANC7b

Some notes to consider when looking at these rankings:
The Sony MDRV6 and MDR7506 are for all intents and purposes the same headphones which is why they share a spot and have the exact same ratings.
Comfort, price to performance ratio, and certain extra features like noise cancelling or interesting sound profile factor heavily into these rankings.  For example, the Beyerdynamic T90s are ranked 10th place purely for price to performance ratio reasons while the AKG Q701 is docked for comfort reasons mainly.

Next up is the loser's list which is largely the bottom of this list but not completely.  Expect it up in a couple days.  Until next time.

*Edit*
After checking out some select headphones through the Aune T1 MK2, there are some surprising results.  None of them really change the standings but I'll go through a couple points here.  All three AKG headphones and the Beyerdynamic DT880s took a lot more volume to get equivalently loud as compared to the other headphones.  The Aune T1 MK2 tended to increase bass response and lighten treble response except in a couple of cases.  Those cases being on the Beats Studio Wireless and the AKG K612 Pros where the bass got weaker and the treble got stronger.  Also, even though some of the headphones appear to do worse, that doesn't necessarily make them as low ranking as in the base standings without amping/driving through the Aune T1 MK2, this is evidenced by the fact that I didn't give values below a 5.  I'll talk about each of the headphones and how they changed due to being run through the Aune T1 MK2 more in depth in the following posts.

--CsMiREK

Gear Days - New Year Over Ear Invitational Part 1: Introduction

Before moving on with the year and new and exciting things, I wanted to do my big winter headphone review.  The contenders this time are all of the over ear headphones I own, currently 20 of them.  As usual, head over to the headphone spreadsheet for more complete breakdown.  As this is the "heavyweight" division, at least in terms of price, I'll be handling this particular post a bit differently than some of the previous ones.  First off, this will be just an introductory post going over the gear used to test and some other considerations.

During previous group headphones posts, I used my Focusrite 2i2 hooked up to a PreSonus HP4 so I could listen to multiple headphones at a time.  I will be doing so again for the majority of the testing.  Additionally, I'll be running a few headphones through an Aune T1 MK2 tube DAC/amp with its stock tube.  The reasoning behind this is that I've found that this particular group of headphones has a handful of individuals that sound markedly different when amped differently and in most cases better.

Another thing to note will be the inclusion of 1/10 ratings which I have shied away from in the past.  However, I want to have as much available range to work with in the ratings scheme.  A 1/10 rating in this sense only means that that pair of headphones ranked the worst out of the ones tested.  During the spring full listen, the 1/10 ratings will likely not be so far down.  The last bit of interesting information is why some headphones might rank higher during one listen versus another.  In going through the beginning of this listen through I found the California Headphones Co's Silverado headphones to have significantly worse bass than during the under $50 listen and so it loses out to the Incipio f38 which it beat prior.  Part of this has to do with my ears listening to different things on one group compared to another.  Our hearing adjusts somewhat to any sounds we hear which makes objective listening quite difficult.  Also, sometimes I change my mind.

Upcoming in this series of posts will be, the overall rankings followed by a post on the 'losers' with the last post of four being a post on the 'winners'.  I hope you enjoy, the next post should be up Friday.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

What is Music?

Occasionally I'll put up posts where I feel like I have an intimate knowledge of a subject, all the while rejecting all sense of it.  This is one of those kinds of posts.  It's a topic that I often think about and is best boiled down the the three words in the title, What is Music?

Over my short lifetime I've heard tens if not hundreds of thousands of pieces of music.  From Bach to Shostakovich, Alstroemeria Records to Mozart, Lady Gaga to Frank Sinatra, music takes on many forms.  Long ago there was Gregorian chant, music passed down much like history, through oral tradition.  Eventually, such things were written down, though not as specifically as things are now.  However, this is a wholly Western view as music also existed and evolved in the East, among other regions of the world.  From Indian ragas to the largely pentatonic stylings of ancient Chinese music to the music of Africa (which I know little about but is significantly different than other regions), it's pretty clear that music has grown organically from many roots.  What binds these threads together and why did humanity create music?

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.

Gear Days - Fall On Ear Classic

This year's Fall On Ear Classic featured 8 entrants and honestly was quite surprising to me with the end results.  As a note, the Fall On Ear Classic may be a biannual thing as I don't find myself liking on ear headphones all that much.  In general, I find on ear headphones to be quite uncomfortable. Another note is that my views on how bassy particular headphones are may be quite biased, both personally and as an effect of the gear with which I am doing my testing, it tends to give all headphones a not insignificant bass boost.  Anyways, onto the results.

How very colorful, just missing purple

From top left to bottom right, the Beats Mixr, Yamaha PRO 300, Sennheiser Momentum, Harman Kardon CL, Voxoa HD (Bluetooth), Outdoor Tech Privates (Bluetooth), Grado SR80i, and UrbanEars Plattan.

Exact numerical breakdowns can be found in the headphones spreadsheet under the On Ear tab but let's get to some reviewing.

Musical Discovery (genre) - Math rock

I'm aware it's been a long time since my last post and I'll eventually get to giving my conclusions of the summer 2014 anime season.  It might not be until I clear up the fall 2014 anime season though.  In the meantime, I'm gonna put up some music related posts to come back a bit more to how I started off this blog.

The topic of the day is math rock.  Math rock is a derivative of post rock and progressive rock that focuses on interesting and different uses of time signatures.  While most music currently (both rock and otherwise) follow a relatively strict 4/4 beat, meaning the beat is in 4 beat cycles, math rock employs shifts in time from 3 beats to 2 beats.  It is also common for math rock to use more exotic time signatures like 7/8 or 11/8 as well as abrupt or frequent time signature switching.

The thing about using 7 or 11 beats to a cycle is that it makes it difficult to count.  3 beats or 2 beats are short enough that it is obvious when listening to a 3 or 2 beat passage.  7 or 11 beat passages on the other hand blend in, being just one beat shy of a 4 beat cycle (8 or 12).  This leads to some interesting interactions where beat can be obscured greatly while appearing to have a relatively static sounding 4 beat.

The two bands in particular I've been listening to in the math rock vein are 'toe' and 'how to count one to ten'.  Both bands are based out of Japan and are mainly instrumental bands. The thing that strikes me about both bands is how well they are able to layer sound.  Honestly, I am quite poor when it comes to hearing and listening to beats.  However, their ability to layer different rhythms and lines fascinates me.  If you want lyrics and a catchy line, don't listen to either of them.  However if you want well formed and interesting musical ideas and good clean guitar sound, they're both fantastic.  At the current moment I'm tipping towards 'how to count one to ten' because I find the music more refreshing, but that's my opinion and if any of this sounds appealing I recommend you check both bands out.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

More anime, 4 to go for me.  This time we've got Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun.  Nozaki-kun is about a high school mangaka or manga writer/artist known for shoujo manga, in English terms, manga aimed towards girls.  However, contrary to the stereotype of a female mangaka we get a completely deadpan male.

From that description, it's pretty obvious that Nozaki-kun is a slice of life anime.  However, it also starts off with a bit of a gag scene where another main character, Sakura Chiyo, tries to confess to Nozaki.  It's too bad that he construes this as her wanting his autograph.  Somehow this leads to Chiyo becoming an assistant to Nozaki.  As much as that setting sounds like the back drop for a full out romance, at least from the first episode, it seems that that might just become a recurring gag.  To add to the comedic effect, we find out that Nozaki really seems like a complete airhead when it comes to romance even though he's shown as one of the best shoujo mangaka.

Overall, I'm a bit torn on how to rate Nozaki-kun.  On the one hand it is a generally well crafted gag based slice of life/comedy anime.  However, on the other, it doesn't seem to have characters strong enough to really shine.  Nozaki feels a bit lifeless and Chiyo feels like the personification of a girl in love trope.  That said, there's really not much offensive about the anime as a whole.  I would say that it's worth a watch but if you don't immediately like it, I can't really say it would be worth watching how it continues.  For a rating I'll just go with a 5/10 as it's honestly quite middling for me, I'm not offended by it nor do I think it's particularly good.  I could put up a picture but I'm not sure there's too much of interest here.  Let's power through the remaining anime reviews.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo Ghoul is up next.  If I were to give Tokyo Ghoul a genre, I'd probably have to say supernatural action.  The basic premise is that the world is full of humans and ghouls.  Ghouls are beings that eat humans and have supernatural powers but there is no indication in the first episode of why they exist or how.  However, ghouls remain hidden in the world, disguised as normal humans.

Getting into the episode, we have a young boy (again really?), Kaneki who is interested in a woman at the coffee shop he frequents.  They go out on a date where he finds out that she's actually a ghoul.  At this point, she attacks him and tries to kill him so she can eat him.  Unfortunately for her, something happens, probably not an accident, where construction equipment falls on her, killing her.  Afterwards, Kaneki, in critical condition goes to the hospital where he needs organ transplants.  Thankfully, he can get organ donations from the now dead crazy ghoul who just tried to kill him.  Too bad for him though, now he's half ghoul and apparently when ghouls try to eat anything that isn't human flesh, it tastes like shit, which makes Kaneki go crazy.  The episode ends with a fight caused by Kaneki wandering into another ghoul as he's eating.

Summer 2014 - Akame ga Kill

Back to action we have Akame ga Kill.  If I were to describe Akame ga Kill in one word it would obviously be assassins.  Expanding on that, Akame ga Kill is really a story about a boy from the boonies who travels to the city in an attempt at more wealth for his village.  He finds out quickly that the city is no place for naivety as he is tricked and almost killed by his 'benefactor' who's really a sadistic bitch.  This leads him to meet a group of assassins known as Night Raid who he ends up joining.

Wow, didn't expect to put that all into one paragraph.  Well, I guess it's time for an image.

Animation wise, Akame ga Kill is pretty good.  Some of the more dramatic shots are drawn in the style above which is kind of cool.  Plot wise, it's not terrible.  The fight against the corrupt capital isn't horribly original but it's not an overplayed plot either.  The action itself is quite good although there isn't much except at the end of the episode.  The music is done by Taku Iwasaki, which if you know much about him, means that you get pretty non intrusive music that is quite good and fits the atmosphere well.  All in all though I'd give this episode a solid 7.5/10 for being a good introduction to something that could be good.  Stay tuned for the next anime update, Tokyo Ghoul.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Locodol

Next up on the summer 2014 anime list is Futsū no Joshikōsei ga Locodol Yattemita, which hereafter shall be called Locodol because damn if that isn't a long ass name.  In the context of this anime, I'm not sure if this is actually a real thing or not nor do I care, Locodol is a portmanteau of local and idol.  After explaining that, it's pretty obvious that Locodol is another one of those fluff slice of life animes.

Going into the actual episode, we have a high school girl, Nanako Usami, who just really wants to get a swimsuit to go to the reopening of a pool in her town.  Unfortunately, her parents won't give her the money she wants to get a new swimsuit.  Luckily for her, her uncle has a job for her and is willing to pay for her swimsuit.  Thus, she is wrangled into being a local idol with an upperclassman of hers, Yukari Kohinata who appears to be just do it because.  Anyways, we get a scene with swimsuits and singing and all in all it's just plain fluff.

No image this time around because honestly I don't really think there's anything worth putting up here visually.  That isn't to say the animation is bad, it's actually pretty decent, I just don't really think there's that much to put up.

As to what I thought of the first episode, I thought it was ok.  It's relatively cute without being pure cute overload or super moe based.  The humor is light and generally tasteful.  I will however say that I enjoyed the background music.  The music was composed by Hasegawa Tomoki, also known for Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and I think his understated and colorful style really helps out the episode as a whole.  I'd give Locodol a 6/10 propped up by the music.  If you're looking for a light anime, I personally enjoyed Barakamon more but if idols are your thing, I think Locodol does a good job.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Barakamon

We're gonna keep going until we're done.  More anime, this time Barakamon.  Barakamon is a slice of life comedy about a calligrapher named Seishu Handa living on a remote island after getting exiled for hitting a calligraphy director.  Honestly not too much happens so I'll keep the review short.  The episode consists of learning some of the quirky characters on the island, including a roguish little girl and the jovial mayor.  All in all it's a pretty decent first episode if you like slice of life and comedy without a huge amount of mystery.  As a kind of fluff anime without too much substance it has its fair share of cute with a bit of serious.  I'd probably give the first episode a 6/10.  Since this is a short post I'll just leave this GIF here.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Argevollen

Continuing with the anime theme is the other main mecha of the season, Argevollen.  Set in a war torn continent, shocker, Argevollen really seems to be a story of a young mecha pilot, Susumu, who gets caught up with an experimental mecha named Argevollen and the young lady, Jamie Hazaford, who we'll say comes with the mecha.

More specifically, Susumu is part of a small squad apparently out in the middle of nowhere as the enemy forces from Ingelmia siege one of the last standing defenses of Susumu's country, Arandas.  In retreating, he and his squad come across a civilian trailer under attack by enemy forces.  Of course, as a young and hot headed soldier, Susumu defies orders to ignore the trailer and goes in like a dumbass.  But hey, if he didn't there wouldn't be an anime to say is full of cliches.

Anyways, he goes to try and save this trailer, which now only has a single survivor, what we find out in the next episode is a young "engineer", Jamie Hazaford.  I say "engineer" in quotes because honestly it seems like she has no fucking clue what the hell she's doing and yea I'll leave it at that.  She boots up Argevollen and makes Susumu pilot it as well he is a pilot and he dispenses with the remaining enemies with nothing but his fists and feet.

Summer 2014 - Aldnoah Zero

First up on the anime review block is Aldnoah Zero.  Taking place in a world where some portion of humanity has migrated to Mars, Aldnoah Zero is a mecha anime focused on the tension between the Vers empire of Mars and the inhabitants of Earth. At the beginning of the episode you're introduced to the crown princess of the Vers empire, princess Asseylum, her name most likely not coincidentally sounding like asylum.  In any case, Asseylum is convinced that there can be peace between the Martians and the humans of Earth.  To that end she decides to make a trip down to the surface of Earth as a sign that she sincerely wants peace.

At this point we switch away from the elegant princess to Earth where we learn that 15 years ago the Martians destroyed the moon in some crazy war.  We also learn that, at least in Japan, teenagers are being taught how to operate mechas to defend against the potential of another Martian/Earth human war.

Anime season summer 2014 START!

Ok so maybe I'm a bit late with this as technically anime season summer 2014 started on July 1st, but I really hadn't watched enough of the first episodes until now to make a substantive effort.  Anyways, just like how US television has shows scheduled around the 4 seasons, so does anime in Japan.  Over the next week or so I'll be posting my thoughts on the first episodes of various anime.  The way I'll organize this is by having a page on the side bar labeled anime.  For each season I do reviews I'll have a link to another page with links to first episode reviews and another page for links to end of season reviews with a small section on my recommended anime for the season.  Seems a bit convoluted but is better in my opinion to needing to actually search stuffs.  Also, for more first episode impressions check out animenewsnetwork which has a lot of anime related information.  Anyways I hope you enjoy the anime reviews.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Gear Days - Summer Super IEM Showdown

Since I've been at the headphone collecting game for about a year now I thought I'd start doing yearly headphone roundups broken down by headphone type.  For summers I think IEMs or in ear headphones are worth a look at.  For falls I think that on ear headphones are a good topic.  And for winter I think that over ear headphones are the most fitting.  In spring I'll do the full gambit with a full relisten and a completely updated ranking.  Why such arbitrary month matchups?  Personally I think summer is the season most about traveling and a good pair of in ear headphones can take you a long way if you don't want to get noise cancelling headphones.  In the fall, I like walking around outside as the temperature begins to drop but isn't too cold yet.  On ears tend to be cooler to wear outside than over ears so they get fall.  Winter is the coldest month and over ear headphones can work as pretty good earmuffs so that's that.  Spring is the time for rebirth and a fresh outlook and so a full listen will be good to reassess the top and the bottom alike.  Now for IEMs.

Currently I have 9 pairs of in ear headphones.  Ranked from 1 to 9 they are:
1. Brainwavz B2
2. Klipsch X10
3. Shure SE-315
4. Sennheiser CX200
5. Sol Republic Amps
6. Klipsch S4i Rugged
7. Nuforce NE770X
8. HiSoundAudio HW2 Wooduo 2
9. Zipbuds Juiced