antipopper

If you’re really going to use the puny earbuds that come with the iPod, Griffin trumpets that you can “enhance” their sound with their EarJams, which convert the plain-vanilla earbuds into in-ear headphones that boost bass/volume and block ambient noise. I’ve always used a pair of huge Sony clams, but they don’t really fit well under my bear-hood when I’m out and about, and they make me look like a fucking Cyberman. So instead of paying for another pair of headphones, I bought the EarJams on impulse. (I wasn’t able to test them instore.)

Unfortunately, the EarJams radically reverse the problem with the iPod’s earbuds: while the bass is boosted about 300%, all mid-to-high frequencies sound like they’re coming from the bottom of a well. Fuck. I’m bloody sick of buying shit that doesn’t work. So I made them work.

• Choosing the smallest of the three sets of rubber ear-pads reduces the mid-frequency distortion, even though this leads to sound-leakage.

• The plastic, funnel-like base that clips around each earbud seems to selectively leak only high frequencies from its loose seal, so I dipped their edges in molten wax before fitting them, thus compensating for the leakage from the loose fitting pads.

• Finally, I modified the EQ profile of every song on my iPod in Tunes, because none of the default iPod EQ settings was adequate. I never knew that iTunes could apply custom EQ settings to particular songs, and that these settings override any iPod EQ setting (except “Flat”) by default. The bass didn’t need that much boosting, but I pumped the treble up way high. I was under the impression that my custom iTunes EQ settings were transferring to my iPod, but I must have been just been hearing the “Treble Booster” iPod EQ setting, which does pretty good job of compensating for the lost treble.

The result has just about the same fidelity as the original iPod earbuds, but with much more presence and a fuckload more bass. I just can’t believe I’m consciously inserting wax in my ears.

[ tags: earjams, griffin, headphones, ipod, itunes, mod, wax ]