Archives for March 22, 2020

RadSone Earstudio ES100 Mark II for $85 [MD]

IF you are looking for a DAC/amp that resembles a Sandisk Clip rather than the traditional powerbank-thick portable DAC/amps, Massdrop is running an offering on the new condition RadSone EarStudio ES100 Mark II for $85 with free US shipping. This will ship in late April 2020. There’s no mention of warranty in the listing.

Optionally, you can buy it together (via their shopping cart) with the HE100 in-ears for $40 more, making it a $125 total. The HE100 are NOT included standard. Their specs are at the bottom of the Massdrop product page for reference only. You have to buy them for +$40 if you want them.

On the other hand, if you don’t want to wait until the end of April 2020, there are many options available at Amazon as follows:

  • new condition Mark II for $100, USED for $87
  • “Amazon Renewed” Mark II for $80
  • new condition Mark I for $90
  • “Amazon Renewed” Mark I for $70

What is Amazon Renewed?
It’s an Amazon program that encourages sellers to offer high(er) quality and tested non-new products with a minimum 90-day warranty. These can be refurbished, open box or used. What matters is their quality and warranty. To get a better feel for it, these are the requirements for sellers wanting to offer “Amazon Renewed” products…

March 22, 2020 Filed Under: amps and dacs Tagged With: ,

FREE NuForce Stride bluetooth earphones with Sennheiser HD6XX purchase for $195

For a limited time only (expiration date is not mention), you will automatically [no coupon needed, no additional action on your behalf] receive a FREE NuForce Stride bluetooth earphone with the purchase of the new condition open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones for $195 with free US shipping and free US returns from the Massdrop website. This is an “in-stock drop” so it will ship in one business day after purchase, it won’t take weeks and weeks like the traditional Massdrop offerings…

To ensure the offer is running, use your browser’s in-page search feature (eg CTRL F in Chrome) looking for “NuForce” or “Stride”. You will see this promotion mentioned multiple times in the listing. Even though it does not appear “above the fold” (on the part of the page that fills up some screens, eg laptops).

The HD 6XX come with a 2-year manufacturer warranty since they are produced in co-operation with Hennheiser 🙂 The NuForce kit includes a hard case and six sets of eartips and a microUSB cable. No mention of warranty on the NuForce.

When you click the “BUY” button that takes you to the shopping cart, you will not see the NuForce mentioned there. The options you see in the shopping cart are for additional optional purchases (extra earpads, cables, DAC/amp, warranty) and a shipping upgrade option. Most of the optional items are offered with an additional combined purchase discount, eg the Drop+ THX AAA 789 linear amplifier is +$300 instead of $400 which sells on its own.

NOTE that this is the recently revised HD 6XX. Check the Massdrop and the interwebs for more details if you are not already familiar with the revisions…

March 22, 2020 Filed Under: headphones Tagged With: , , ,

Westone WX earphone w/BT cable for $50 [ends Mon 8am ET]

The Musician’s Friend deal of the day ending by Monday 3/23/20 at 8am eastern time is the new condition Westone WX single driver earphone with a bluetooth cable going for $50 with free US shipping. Offer ends earlier if sold out. 8% membership rewards (free to join if you are not already a member)…

March 22, 2020 Filed Under: in-ears Tagged With:

Now shipping: Pixel 3a Smartphone with 3.5mm headphone jack ($299 to $379)

The time has come 3.5mm headphone jack fans! It’s a brand new Google Pixel smartphone with a 3.5mm headphone jack. But it’s not the flagship. It’s the “a” model, the affordable model, with the Pixel 3a going for $299 right now with free US shipping at B&H Photo, while the larger Pixel 3a XL goes for $379. There are no other storage options. Only the color scheme of the phone.

They have 4GB of RAM, the modern 18.5 : 9 aspect ratio, the SnapDragon 670 processor, 64GB of on-board storage but sadly no memory card slot, Bluetooth 5.0 for those who have newer bluetooth headphones, Wifi Direct (not to be confused with the totally different protocol “Wifey Direct”), NFC [when there are connection dogfights in the air between multiple devices in your household/office], Android 9, 3-years of updates, unlimited Google Photos storage, factory unlocked with USA warranty and so forth…

Mayhaps this is the closest Google has come to making a Nexus phone in the Pixel era. If I was buying a phone right now I would consider it in this price range ~ assuming you can live with just 64GB of storage that is. Because even with streaming (eg Spotify) you have the option of downloading (frequently played) music because 5G is coming but the carriers are still hoarding data like giant corporate dragons in their lairs 😉

UPDATE: speaking of daily deals, one of the 100 Kindle e-books offered for this day is Leonard Cohen’s “The Flame: Poems Notebooks Lyrics Drawings” (288 pages) going for $4.

March 22, 2020 Filed Under: digital audio players Tagged With: , ,