Music on the run (or walk)

If you’re like me, there is nothing better than getting out first thing in the morning for a refreshing walk.

Whilst there is usually enough noise going on around, it’s always nice to use earphones to enjoy the music of your choice, on the player of your choice.

Last month my walking experience received a much needed boost. I was given a set of Powerbeats3 wireless earphones for Christmas. A most unexpected gift.

On Christmas day, most of the attention went on watching the family open and enjoy their presents. It wasn’t until 2 days later that I pulled out my special gift.

The box the earphones came in was, to put it mildly, very classy. It seemed a crime to open it.

On opening up the front it revealed, again well packaged and laid out, the earphones, a portable carry bag, 3 extra sets of buds to ensure a comfortable fit and a charging cable. No power plug as I already have enough of those.

There was a foldout sheet of easy to understand instructions in 8 languages. Thankfully English was the first language shown. It is obvious these earphones are aimed at Apple devices although they work perfectly OK with Android, the setup is just a little different for the latter.

The first job was to pair the earphones to the iPhone.

Simple.

Turn on Bluetooth on the iPhone, press the ‘ON’ button on the earphones for 1 second and “Voila!” we are GO! My iPhone is called ‘Alex’s iPhone’ so the name allocated in the Bluetooth library for the earphones became ‘Alex’s Powerbeats3”.

It automatically showed me on my iPhone the battery level was at 85% so that translated to over 10 hours of listening pleasure. The literature tells me on a full charge I can expect up to 12 hours. An enormous improvement on my current (or should I now say EX) ear buds that last 75 minutes.

Now to test them. I put the earphones on, ensuring the earbuds were a suitable size, the hooks over the ear moulded to the shape of my ears and adjusted the connecting wire around the back of my neck for a comfortable fit.

I opened up my music application and selected one of my favourite classical pieces, hit play and……..immediately went into raptures. It was a WOW Experience. That WOW feeling continued when I switched to modern rock, popular pieces and talk back radio including Radio Sport.

Do you remember when you listened with your first set of headphones? It was probably back in the 70’s and the headphones available then were, by comparison to today, not too sophisticated BUT they were far superior to the average speaker. Being so close to your eardrum they gave you pure sound that wasn’t affected by the surroundings most speakers are. You probably remember it was a magnificent experience BUT after 10 minutes the ears began to heat up. Of course there were the open ear type which, although as good, also had ambient sound leaking in around the edges.

Well, for me, listening to the earphones was even more rewarding than the experience in the 70’s. The frequency range was better, channel separation immersed me in the music, wonderful clarity and most importantly, no overheated ears.

Again, I’m hooked on these earphones.

Oops!

There is a downside I need to mention here. I could become quite anti-social listening to the enormous range of content available via the web. So much to hear – so little time [unless you’re on a walk!!]

by Alex Sharp, Age Hacker