In LA

“Shure I2C-MP Stereo Earphones / Headset (iPhone Compatible)” $39.69 at Amazon.com

I previously owned a pair of Shure e2c earphones, which were very nice. When used with the foam earpieces, they isolate from ambient noise and produce a very detailed sound with a decent amount of bass. I ended up listening through them at a much lower volume than I would have with less isolating headphones.

Shure makes a set of earbuds called the i2c, which are simply their e2c earbuds with the addition of thicker cables, an inline microphone, and an iPod connector (looks like a standard 3.5″ stereo jack except it has one extra conductor for the mic). As an iPhone headset, the i2c has faced some criticism due to the fact that it lacks an inline answer/hangup button. Perhaps because of this minor inconvenience, Amazon.com has recently dropped the price of the i2c headsets from $119 to about $39.

I don’t care about the button, or the mic, since I don’t have an iPhone. For a nice pair of earbuds, that price happens to be a great deal. I placed my order last week thinking that if the iphone plug wasn’t compatible with my ipods that I’d cut it off and solder a standard miniplug in its place (ignoring the mic wire). It turns out that the iPhone connector works fine in both my 1st-gen iPod Nano and 1st-gen iPod Touch. Right and left channels nicely separate, and the sound is good. The mic connector on the plug doesn’t seem to short or otherwise interfere with the contacts for the audio outputs –your mileage may vary. It’s working for me (I suspect the connector was designed to work in both iPhone and standard mini-stereo jacks, but don’t quote me on that).

If you buy a pair of i2c’s (or any in-ear monitors really) I’d recommend tossing the silicone sleeves they ship with (with extreme prejudice) and instead using compressible foam tips so that the earbuds really make a nice seal in your ear. The sound quality will be much improved, and the bass presence and detail will increase. Shure sells orange foams that works well, many on the net tout Shure’s tapered black “olive” foam sleeves for greater comfort and cleanability, and I’ve heard good things about the Comply viscoelastic polyurethane memory foam tips.

I ‘m happy to now have a nice pair of earbuds to use for running (My Future Sonics FS1’s finally died, and I don’t want to subject my FS Atrios to the same abuse). Yay. If you’ve been thinking of replacing your iPod earbuds with something better, this here’s a very good deal (on something much much better).

Tokyo Police Club played The Music Box last night, and I and a friend who likes to go nameless attended. I thought the show was great, and found the band’s amped-up shoegazer style refreshing, he had the opposite reaction, and left early. I think it helps to hear their music and know some lyrics beforehand –it’s deceptively non-accessible stuff despite the driving beat. The acoustics in the club were such that it was difficult to pick out the different layers of sound.

I shot a few photos with my digital point-and-shoot, they can be accessed by clicking the photos in this post.