Back in 2008, I began making the transition from casual music listener to full-fledged audiophile. This was the year I sort of reached a sense of enlightenment and I began to reevaluate my tastes in music. I stopped listening to the radio and started listening to what I consider to be “good” music (IE anything that’s not on the radio), especially when it came to Hip-Hop, on my Zune whenever I went out. During this time, my Zune and I were inseparable. Any time I was driving, it is always plugged into the car’s stereo and set on shuffle mode and when I was a passenger, I always had my headphones on my ears, a trend that rings true to this day.
Back then, I owned a pair of Sony clip on headphones which had been decent for a while but when I made the transition to audiophile they just couldn’t cut it, especially after I picked up a pair of the full size and great sounding Sennheiser HD280 Pros. So, I had to do some shopping and eventually settled on a pair of $40 (at the time) V-Moda Bass-Freq earbuds that I managed to get from Amazon for $20. Based on reviews I’d read, these earbuds offered good sound quality while also delivering a very strong and deep bass. Being somewhat of a bass-head myself, I decided to order them based on their low price and bass-heavy sound.
After all this time, I’ve finally decided to write down my thoughts on the earbuds that have served me well over the past year and a half or so. Without any further delay, read on for my thoughts on the Bass-Freq earbuds.
Earlier today, I received my Head-Direct RE0 In Ear Monitors (IEM) which I ordered early last week to replace my aging V-Moda Bass-Freq earbuds which decided to call it quits shortly before then. So, I recorded a short “unboxing” video which I’ve uploaded to YouTube and will be shared below.
After my Bass-Freq earbuds decided to call it quits, I did a bit of research into the world of portable headphones, coming up with a number of positive candidates in the process. My search turned up quality portable headphones from a number of manufacturers both familiar (Ultimate Ears, Klipsch and Shure) and not so familiar (YUIN and Fischer Audio) and after reading reviews on a multitude of portable headphones, I finally decided on the Head-Direct RE0 IEMs.
A few of you may know Head-Direct and they’re pretty famous in the audiophile community for being one of the leading importers of headphones and other audio accessories from a number of small overseas companies, some of which I’d never even heard of before venturing to Head-Direct’s site (YUIN being chief among those). As it turns out, Head-Direct decided to venture into the highly populated IEM market themselves and begin selling their own RE line at varying levels of quality. Among the highest of these was the RE0s which, until the fairly recent release of the RE252s, were the company’s flagship IEMs. I checked out a number of reviews on the headphones before making my decision and saw that they were very close to the top of their class and could easily hang with some of the best on the market, even those which cost 2 – 3 times more than the RE0s themselves. After going to Head-Direct and seeing that they were on sale for $79 (down from $169), I was sold and placed my order.
So, I’m pretty sure you’re wondering if these things live up to the hype. So far, I have to say yes. I’ve listened to a number of songs on them already such as Wale’s Contemplate, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and 2Pac’s Temptations and they all sound great. I instantly noticed that the sound is, above all, transparent. The clarity in the sound signature jumps to the forefront the instant music begins playing and is immensely satisfying. After listening to my V-Modas for as long as I have and comparing them to the RE0s, they’re far muddier and less…open. The low end on the V-Modas is satisfying, but it really can’t compare to the RE0s and honestly, I didn’t expect them to, given how inexpensive they are (about $20) in comparison.
Now, I haven’t heard a great number of the more expensive IEMs so I can’t vouch for the quality of the RE0s just yet in comparison but I can say that they have impressed me right out of the box and, considering that IEMs with dynamic drivers such as the RE0s sound better after they’ve been broken in for a number of hours (10 – 50 is usually enough but some audiophiles say they need upwards of 100 hours to sound their best), things can only get better from here. I haven’t even listened to them with my portable headphone amp yet so I can tell that I’m in for a treat when they’ve been broken in and I listen to them amped.
As of now, I’d give the RE0s a high recommendation. This should be taken with a grain of salt seeing as I’ve only had a few minutes’ worth of listening time with them thus far. At the price they’re currently available for ($79), I honestly can’t see how you can go wrong with these as they offer exceptional depth and clarity even now, before they’ve been broken in and settled into their final sound signature. So, if you’re interested, you can check them out here. Keep in mind, however, that this is marked as a “Christmas Sale” and Christmas has obviously been over for a long time now. It’s highly likely that this sale price isn’t going to last for much longer so get them while you can!
I’ve already posted my initial thoughts on whether or not the iPad needs to exist within Apple’s hardware ecosystem but now I’m going to shift gears and examine what the iPad means for gamers. After all, the main focus of Apple’s iPod Touch refresh last summer was gaming so it’s clear that Apple wants a nice big slice of the portable gaming pie that had previously been dominated by the likes of Nintendo and Sony with their DS and PSP systems. Now, the iPhone and iPod Touch represent logical gaming platforms and legitimate challengers to Nintendo and Sony’s portable gaming dominance because of their competitive price points, abundance of features in and outside of gaming, generally far cheaper prices for games and portability. The iPad on the other hand, is a different story altogether. While it has been said that the iPad will run most of the applications (in this case, meaning games) designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the real question is not only whether or not the average Joe will want to play games on the iPad as opposed to the already firmly established Nintendo DS or Sony PSP but whether or not someone will want to play a game on the iPad as opposed to the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Before you read, keep in mind that these are my gut reactions and are meant to be taken with a grain of salt.
Earlier today (or yesterday, if you want to get technical) I was in the midst of a History class while Apple unleashed their latest invention upon the world so I missed all of the liveblogs and typical launch fervor that was surely running rampant throughout the internet around 1PM EST but after coming home and seeing just what Apple’s iPad is going to be when it releases in approximately 60 days’ time, I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed. After the veritable deluge of rumors and speculation that has been spreading through gadget blogs for months now, I was expecting more. I was expecting more or less an Apple netbook (minus the keyboard) running a pared down version of OSX for $500 – $1,000, I was not expecting Apple to unveil what is essentially a giant iPod Touch. Honestly, given its feature set, I have no idea why this thing needs to exist, especially at the prices Apple is charging for the different versions of the thing (and there are a lot of them).
Forza Motorsport 3, released on October 27, 2009, is one of the best racing games ever made due to its excellent array of single and multiplayer game modes, large and varied selection of cars, incredibly realistic racing physics and unparalleled accessibility (at least within the racing simulator genre). Another important aspect that Forza 3 also excels in is in its highly impressive visuals, running at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second. Because of these excellent visuals, the in game photo mode allows for some truly breathtaking images.
Now, I’m not exactly what you’d call an expert photographer but I’ve become positively enamored with the game’s photo mode after a few trips to the Forza Motorsport 3 forums and taking a look at the multimedia showcase forum, in which budding photographers and folks obsessed with the sheer beauty of four wheeled vehicles meet to share the images they’ve taken in Forza 3. Taking a look through some of the threads there, I was amazed at the levels of realism and artistry that people were able to achieve with Forza 3’s photo mode and decided to try my hand at producing some high quality images of my own.
So, I decided to revive my long dormant Flickr account and create a gallery of the best images I’ve come up with. Some of which I’ll share below.
Clicking on any of the images above will take you to the full size 1280 x 720 version of the image you click on, which is also a part of my Forza 3 gallery at Flickr. If you want to view the rest of the images I’ve uploaded, just check out this link.
So check out the images if you like and let me know what you think.
The only question is, am I going to participate this year?
Well, I’m going to give it a shot, but I still can’t be totally sure I’ll be able to make it to 50,000 words and be proud of the 50,000 words I’ve written. Ever since I found out about NaNoWriMo, I’ve been racking my brain, trying to think of something to write about and, while I have a few basic plot points down; I don’t have the story fully outlined the way I want it yet. Some people have told me to just start writing and fill in plot details as I go but I don’t know if that will work for me. I’ve tried that in the past and it’s never worked out well for me.
The main concept I have been kicking around and will likely go with is a spy novel, starring three agents working for a top secret black ops organization within the NSA (which I haven’t named yet…) is codenamed “Silver Bullet” and has absolutely nothing to do with werewolves, despite said codename. I have the first couple of chapters outlined, a few important plot points including the major plot twist that occurs near the end and, of course, the end. I figure that’s enough to go on for now but I keep second guessing myself. There’s a lot of research that I still need to do in order to present something that’s reasonably accurate as government agencies, weaponry, tactics and covert operations aren’t fields I typically study but I’m relatively sure that I know enough about these fields to write something that’s reasonably accurate and believable, at least to the average reader.
I have another concept in mind involving vampires but they seem to be the flavor of the month right now and I want to write about something that’s not so common in…everything these days (I call that the Twilight effect). The only problem with not going with this is the fact that I feel like this concept would be easier to write. I already have most of the story planned out and filling in the plot as I go along wouldn’t be terribly difficult, or at least not as difficult as I perceive my original concept to be.
This is me right now.
Now I know the goal of NaNoWriMo isn’t to produce prize winning works of pure literary genius but I don’t want to produce a steaming pile of garbage either. I want something that’s readable and at least mildly interesting. Perhaps this is just me second guessing my ability as a writer but I honestly don’t know if I can deliver that in 30 days, as much as I’d like to, especially now that I’m behind schedule with my outlining. Today is the first of the month and I’m supposed to write the first 1,667 words of my novel today and I haven’t yet done that. Perhaps I can get enough of the outlining done tonight to have a solid idea of where I’m going with this and be comfortable enough to actually start writing. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out shortly after I’ve concluded this blog post and gone back to my outlining.
If any of you have any tips or suggestions, let me know, I’ll certainly be glad to hear them.
That’s National Novel Writing Month to the uninitiated and, long story short, I’ve been thinking of writing something this year.
I found out about it back in late ‘07 and while I thought I wanted to write something, I never got around to taking the project seriously. Last year, NaNoWriMo passed me by, without me remembering that it was going on until it was too late to contribute something. To be honest, I just remembered it a few days ago when a buddy of mine brought it to my attention. Now, I’m frantically trying to come up with something to write about.
See, the object of this month long literary event is to encourage aspiring writers of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The way I have it planned out; I’ll have to write some 2,000 words a day every day (excluding Thanksgiving, I figure I’ll want a break around that time) until the end of the month deadline. Whew. That sounds like a great deal of sitting in the glow of my laptop’s screen with a Microsoft Word document open, typing away whilst trying to resist the temptation to aimlessly browse the web, prowl around internet forums, watch reruns of My Wife and Kids or turn on my Xbox 360 to play another round of the upcoming Forza 3 or GTA IV expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony. This will unquestionably be a true test of my willpower.
As I lay in bed last night trying to get to sleep, a torrent of questions flooded my mind, leaving me restless for a while before I was finally able to drift off to sleep. What will I write about? Can I really write 50,000 words before the November 30th deadline? Can I crank out something that’s actually worth reading in such a short period of time? And, perhaps most importantly, do I have the discipline to stick to my writing schedule for 30 straight days?
One of my biggest flaws is that I am a chronic procrastinator. I’m worried that I’ll end up putting this off over and over again until a few hours before midnight on the 30th when I finally decide that I need to get something done but by then it will be too late and the challenge would have passed me by…again. This isn’t something I want to take lightly but I’ve never been able to discipline myself like this before and perhaps that’s because I’ve never had to. I’ve put off even the largest school projects until the last minute (sometimes, even, the day they were due) and still managed to put out “A” quality work. That fact has made me understandably cocky regarding my ability to do anything at the last minute. I guess the difference here is, if I do procrastinate, it won’t be like I’m failing a major assignment, I’ll just be letting myself down.
I haven’t decided whether or not I want to do this. I recognize this as something that could be hugely beneficial to me but recently, I haven’t been in the mood to write. I guess the best remedy for this is to…write. I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things by writing a few reviews but so far, nothing has really rekindled that creative spark that has been lying dormant for so long. I will say that the idea of working on something for NaNoWriMo has gotten me a bit more excited as of late so maybe all I need to get back into the mood to write is to start writing in the first place.
Whatever I decide, I’ll keep a steady stream of updates coming. If I do decide that I want to participate in this, I’ll probably create a new blog for chronicling my progress on a daily or weekly basis. If I do, I’ll be sure to spam the links everywhere. Who knows? I might even revive my long dead Twitter account to keep folks updated.
My name is Justin McBride and I’m a guy who enjoys writing, playing games and writing about playing games. Sound lame enough yet? Well, I have other interests as well such as hanging out with friends, watching TV, going to the movies from time to time, surfing the internet, listen to good music, drive at speeds I shouldn’t be driving at and so on. The problem is, that’s all stuff everyone likes to do, so why write about it?
