Life is a State of Mind

So I had no interest in getting myself an iPod nor any other portable music player since I left the military. I had a Walkman, and later a portable CD player - but then I stopped traveling regularly and no longer needed portable music. I listen to music all the time on my computer, home stereo, and in my car, but I have not needed portability.

Years ago my wife snagged a Diamond Rio 500 (slick little MP3 player) and it was an interesting novelty, and remains a decent MP3 player because it uses standard memory cards and can be expanded easily. When she later got an early iPod, I inherited her old Rio 500 and used it for short bike rides. That has been good enough for years.

She upgraded her iPod, and sold her old one to our dance teacher. Recently she just upgraded again (she has a shiney new black 60GB iPod Video), and once again I inherited her old device, this time a very nice 20GB 4th generation iPod. Initially I was thinking, what would I do with this thing…

After a few days I figured out that I needed some accessories to make it work, so I grabbed:

Dock everything combo adaptor ($23):
http://www.sendstation.com/us/products/pocketdock/combo.html ( it is smaller and handles both firewire and USB connectivity and charging)

Y-adaptor with volume controls ($16):
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/smartshare/” (for sharing your audio with someone else’s headphones)

Headphones for travel:
Etymotic ER-4P ($160) - noise dampening Canalphones (http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er4.aspx)

Belkin headphone to headphone plug cable (apple store) - this plugs my iPod into the Prius

So the noise blocking Etymotic headphones are stunningly awesome, both as ear-plugs (-38dB makes for a really quiet airplane ride) and as fantasically clean audio monitors for great music and really easy to hear spoken words. Shure and Ultimate Ears both get good reviews too, but for the music I listen to the Etymotics have cleaner crisper sound. If you like rap and never listen to classical, you might check out the Etymotic ER-6i, Shure E2C/E3C/E4C, or Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro instead (for less money than the ER-4) or the Shure E5C or E500PTH if money is no object.

I spent the recent trip to the Bahamas listening to fun podcasts and music, and I gotta confess that though I am a late adoptor to the whole iPod/portable music scene, I am now thoroughly infected with the bug.