Category — Review

Brought to you by Amazon and Guinness.

What you are about to read is a real time review of the HD555 Open-Aire Professional Headphones with Sound Channeling from Sennheiser. I’m writing this in real time, because I thought it would be more entertaining. I mean, when it comes to headphones, its such a objective review from the get go, why not make it more fun. So here we go.

8:21PM – Just poured myself a Guinness, have to get those creative juices flowing. God damn, Guinness is so good.

8:23 – Just took the 555′s out of the shipping box. Looks like normal Sennheiser packaging, except for the little rip tag that says “Pull up to unlock” What? This is cool.

8:24 – I pulled up the tag, it the box folds open like a french door refrigerator. It looks like overly complicated packaging at first glance, but it really isn’t. I like it. You just pull the plastic “shell” off the headphones and you have got access to the goods.

8:27 – The headphones are pretty badass. They have a large plastic headband that almost looks like it should be soft plastic, but it isn’t. It reads SENNHEISER in large print. The ear cushions are velour. Very soft. Sennheiser says you can wear glasses with them on. I don’t have glasses, but I’m sure these countless hours of staring at LCD’s will soon do them in.

8:30 – I just inspected the cord. Looks like it is not removable like it is in other models. I’m not a fan of this. Damage the cord and you’re done. Boo.

8:31 – Ok enough of this, time to put these badboys on.

8:32 – Ok a little tight, but not uncomfortable.

8:33 – Plugging them in to my Yamaha receiver.

8:34 – Time to find some tunes. I’m drawn to the album, Black Light by Groove Armada – but I don’t know it all that well. Going to seek out something as sonically delightful, but more well known to me.

8:38 – Just pressed play on a track called “Shakedown” by Maximum Balloon. This is Andrew Sitek’s new band/side project. This is the guy from TV on the Radio. This album is solid. Check it out.

8:42 – My ears are being showered by the multilayered, synth-laden, R&B infused, downtempo beats of Sitek. This guy is great.

8:44 – The track is nearing its end. There is a sonic brilliance and fullness that is just unmatched by lesser cans. I’m about done with my Guinness.

8:45 – Intermission. Filling my glass. Be back soon.

8:52 – That took longer than expected. 555′s are back on.

8:54 – Time for a little Cee Lo Green. I think “Fuck You,” is in order. This song is hilarious. Although it is getting a little old now.

8:55 – Now, I should have technically zeroed out my EQ. Let me do that.

8:56 – So my EQ is now set to 0 dB for both bass and treble. Yamaha has done away with the “Loudness” setting, because lets be honest, that’s a bit lowbrow.

8:57 – Actually, I don’t know why they did away with it, but I have been a strictly Yamaha shop for some time now. And believe it or not (You’re not going to believe this) It was a fellow co-worker at Best Buy, back in 2003 who swayed me away from a Sony A/V receiver to Yamaha – and boy am I glad he did. I was such a noob when it came to home audio.

8:59 – So Fuck You ended. The next song that came on was Always Loved A Film, by Underworld. This is off their new CD entitled “Barking.” It’s pretty great. The headphones are still tight. I’m taking them off right now and going to see if I can stretch them or something.

9:03 – These things are really all plastic. There is no metal in their construction, except for the screws. An overnight stretching session will be in order if I really want to change their shape.

9:05 – I just started a track by the Radio Dept. called “Heaven’s on Fire.” You can instantly hear so much more of the song than when listening with lesser equipment. It’s just a beautiful thing to be able to treat your ears to such sonic bliss. This is how recorded music was meant to be heard.

9:08 – “Conversation 16″ by The National. Seems a little muffled. I don’t remember it sounding like this. By the way, the National are awesome. If you can see them live, do it. So I’m a bit disappointed by this track. It sounds better in my car. There is this massively low bass line that just sends chills down my spine… but I can’t hear it now.

9:10 – Brought the EQ back up to +4 Bass and +4 Treble. Much better. These things need some help to really shine.

9:11 – Time for some hypnotizing soft guitar sounds of Erlend Oye. “I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From.” Actually this is Kings of Convenience. The sound is warm and fills my head. Nice.

9:14 – For this last track, I think a little Brubeck is in order. Take Five? Why not.
Volume Up: -64dB
Oh, this is nice.
This album was recorded at a much lower record level than all the newer stuff. Turning the volume up even more.
The cymbals crashing over to the left and the subtle piano riff over to the right. The delicate balance of high versus low – the snare drum. Oh. This is great.

9:16 – I was just staring blankly at my display, just taking it all in. I love it when you can visualize music in your head. Like it is a painting in motion. I wish you could hear this.

9:17 – The sax just came in again. It sounds like its track is slightly off center, to the left. I wonder why they did that? Was it intentional?

9:18 – Take Five just ended. My god, that is music.

9:20 – Second Guinness is done. And so this is pseudo live-blog. Overall, I’m pleased with the Sennheiser 555′s. The highs are crisp, the lows are accurate – although a bit understated without the artificial enhancement brought on by the EQ.  A “real” audiophile may snub their nose at a sub-$100 set of cans… but For the price, you’re not going to find much better. They are definitely tight around my head though. I’m going to have to stretch them out over night on a stack of CDs or what not. And with that… happy listening.

Testing environment:
Yamaha HTR5640
MacBook Pro, optical output
320K MP3 encodes from CD, converted using iTunes

I’ve recently been given the opportunity to review one of Drobo’s latest creations: the Drobo FS. The FS, which stands for file sharing, is a 5-bay NAS that plugs into your local network via gigabit ethernet. In plain english, you plug the Drobo FS into your wireless router and all the computers in your home (or small office) instantly have access to a huge hard drive. From a technical standpoint, there is a lot more to it than that, but the beauty of this device is you don’t need to know what is going on behind the scenes in order to reap the benefits.

I will be conducting a more detailed review which will be posted over at my Boston Tech Gear column, but I wanted to share some initial thoughts after a week with the device. From unboxing to set-up, getting hands-on with the Drobo has been a wonderful experience. Maybe it was the little black pouch it came in, or the fact that within 15 minutes I was able to add 4TB of protected storage to my network – whatever it was, I liked it.

Setup on my Mac was as easy as it gets. Insert the installer disc, click install and restart. As soon as my machine had come back to life I was greeted by the Drobo Dashboard (more on this in the full review) and a public share with full read/write access for all the computers on my home network. That’s it.

Transfer speeds over my gigabit ethernet connection were good, but definitely not as fast as a locally attached firewire/USB hard drive. This is for a few reasons, which I will get into in the full review, but for the vast majority of users, speeds will be more than sufficient. Case and point, I asked a non-techie person in my house to copy some files to the public share and then asked them what they thought about the transfer speed – to which they replied something along the lines of “it takes as long as it normally does.”

Once you start digging into the advanced options, which there are plenty of, you can really start having some fun with the device. One can set up additional users and shares, control the time it takes before the hard drives spin down – even dim the LEDs. This Drobo also gives you the option to set up Time Machine backup shares. Have three Macs in your house all using Time Machine? Not a problem, each one can have its own backup.

So far, I have been very happy with the design, ease of setup, and simplicity of the device. There are some weaknesses, but you will have to read my full review to hear about those. Stay tuned.

Antennagate, death grip, faulty proximity sensors, black labs, and free cases – boy this is an iPhone release for the history books. Last month I wrote my initial thoughts on the infamous iPhone 4. It has been nearly a month and I wanted to do a follow-up post and share my experience with the phone the world cannot stop talking about.

So are the rumors true? Does the prized iPhone 4 suffer from the death grip and proximity sensor issues – absolutely. “Death grip” can be easily replicated (but it’s effects often exaggerated) and if you hold your phone to your head while talking, the proximity sensor faux pas will surely hang up a phone call or two. At first I had thought these issues were being blown out of proportion. Maybe it was because I was still blinded by the reflection off that 960×640 pixel screen, but more realistically it was because I had had not ample time to test it out in the wild (similar to the Apple engineers?).

However, when all is said and done, these flaws are not tragic – or maybe they are – but they don’t push me into a corner of worry and frustration. First of all, 95 percent of the time I am talking on my phone, which isn’t all that often to begin with, I am using some sort of hands free device. And when I am, the signal is better than it ever was on my 3GS. I have yet to drop a call while driving, or with the phone shoved in my pocket. The rest of the time I am using the device (email, browsing, games, etc.), all is well. I don’t have any connectivity issues while using the data connection and up/down speeds are spectacular.

I read one reviewer who equated these flaws to a small scar on a beautiful woman – I would have to agree. The screen, the camera, the video calling, the processor, the drop dead gorgeous form factor – It is just too impressive a phone to call it a failure.

So I’ll get my free bumper, wait for the proximity sensor issue to be resolved in a software update, and deal with the minor “death grip” issue for the next year. Come on folks, June 2011 is only 11 months away. Kidding- well, not really.