Through some curse I always manage to destroy a set of headphones.  Maybe destroy isn’t accurate, but they always seem to stop working through what I consider no real fault of my own.  I didn’t want to use the white iPod earbuds and advertise “Hey, I’m like everyone else with an iPod!!” So for a while I used these headphones that came with my laptop.  The coolest part of those headphones was inline volume control.  However, one day they just stopped producing sound unless the cord was in just the right position.  I had to go back to the iPod earbuds.  I was ok with this for a while until I noticed one day I’m having to keep the iPod cranked to full blast just to hear at a reasonable level.  I almost thought I was going deaf until I realized that I can still hear everyday things just fine.  I looked at the earphones and the connection at the iPod was looking like it was being ripped right out of the sleeve.

So it turns out there are 2 types of headphone connections, you have the straight in type, and the L shaped connection.  The way I wrap up my headphones when not in use really stresses out the straight in connection and I think that’s basically what happened with the first two headphones.  Now this wasn’t really my focus for my new set of headphones.  I was looking for a good set of noise reducing headphones which means that unless I want to have this battery pod on my cord, I have to go with canalbuds.  I wasn’t a big fan intially because the idea of jamming something so deep in your ear just seemed gross.  But I didn’t want to go to over the ear or clip ons.  So I settled in on these Sony Behind the Neck Ear Bud Headphones.

Overall, they’ve been pretty good.  I had to turn on the equalizer to treble boost and they sounded terrific.  I swapped to the large fitting and they do a really great job of muffling exterior sounds.  The reviews speak for themselves and I agree with most of the things they say.  They have a really short 1 foot cord with a 1 foot extension so if I ever got an armband the cord length would be awesome.  Otherwise 2 feet is plenty long enough.  The only downside is now I can’t pocket the headphones, I just have to take them off and put them around my neck.  On the plus side, it has the L shape connector so wrapping it around the iPod should hopefully not kill them.  That’s only on the extension though, the short cord has a straight connection.

Some other things I need to pick up for my iPod are a waterproof kit so I can listen in the shower and a car connection kit.  I think a waterproof speaker was only around $20 but the car kit is around $120.