Archives for September 2022

Monoprice overstock sale includes 8323, Amplifiers, IEMs

Monoprice is back with another overstock sale and in the “Personal Audio” segment it includes a number of headphone-related products including:

+ the good old 8323 closed over-ears for $15
+ they now come with two cables, one with mic/remote
+ I had this a few years ago when it was riding the hype train, you certainly can’t go wrong for $15, considering you get two audio cables and a 1/4″ adapter
+ I haven’t posted an unboxing/review of this, but note that it expands a lot on your head (meaning that when you wear it you look like an android/robot from the 50s scifi movies), but it’s also not as big as it looks – of interest to those with big heads

+ THX AAA Monolith balanced headphone amp for $300

+ Quartet IEMs for $25
+ two balanced, two dynamic drivers
+ also for $25 is the Trio (1BA, 2DD)

+ there’s a few more headphone/audio related products as well as many tech things (cables, guitars, chargers, etc)

V-Moda HexaMove PRO truly-wireless for $70

Musician’s Friend is also headphone’s friend until Friday 9/30/22 at 8am ET (or earlier if sold out) because their current deal of the day is the new condition V-Moda HeXaMoVe PRO truly-wireless offered for $70…

Bose QuietComfort 45 ANC/BT Over-Ears for $249

For a limited time (I do not know when the offer expires), New York’s B&H Photo is offering the new condition BOSE QuietComfort 45 ANC/BT closed-back over-ears on sale for $249 in the two color schemes available. There is a limited supply at this price.

As of the time of writing these average 4.5 out of 5 based on 623 customer reviews at B&H. Needless to say, the market of ANC/BT over-ears is hot with all kinds of known, unknown and semi-known brands competing aggressively.

Lately I’ve moved away from over-ear bluetooth headphones (last one I had in rotation was the Sony WH-CH700N (now a previous generation model)) and shifted towards the more utilitarian (and audiophile triggering) truly wireless 🙂

Tuesday: Mpow M12 truly-wireless for $10

Truly-wireless no longer break the bank if you want to get one of them Amazon-popular type of brands instead of the name-brand audio and consumer electronics companies.

Case in point, one of the NewEGG daily deals for Tuesday 9/27/22 is the new condition Mpow M12 truly-wireless for $10, sold by the MPOW official store at NewEGG, and shipped by NewEGG itself. No promo code needed.

These charge via USB-C (a must nowadays if you are part of the USB-C charging ecosystem; I still have micro-USB devices in circulation but still, USB-C is the future for now), promise up to 25 hours of playback with the charging case, bluetooth 5.0 (a must if you want to limit bluetooth connectivity hassles), IPX8 and such. Of utilitarian interest, you can use one earpiece at a time if you want, it effectively doubles playback time! As I previously mentioned, I do this with the Tribit and charge them once a month (!!!) even though I use them daily for YouTube video/live-stream viewing…

Speaking of daily deals, Amazon is offering this Echo Studio with Echo Sub bundle for the very specific price of $247.49. This is currently restricted to Prime members. But if you must have it, you can start a 30-day FREE Prime trial and get it.

FOCAL Elegia Closed Over-Ears for $329

For a limited time, in the world of audiophile closed-back wired over-ears, Adorama is offering the new condition FOCAL ELEGIA headphones for $329! With a 1-year FOCAL warranty. The price you see is the price you pay. No coupons, no rebates!

At Adorama, this averages 4.7 out of 5 based on 101 customer reviews. They also have 299 answers on the question “Why Did You Chose This” 🙂

I do not know when the sale ends…

Orders placed will ship on Wednesday September 28 in 2022 because Adorama is currently observing the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

Go FOCAL Go? 🙂

Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Wireless ANC/BT Over-Ears for $230

Good until 9/25/22 at 11:59pm central time, or earlier if sold out, Woot is offering the new condition Bowers & Wilkins PX7 Wireless ANC/BT Over-Ears for $230 plus shipping with a 2-year B&W warranty. Up to three pairs per customer at the sale price. This is in the “Carbon” color scheme.

On-topic action at the Sunday Meh daily deal as well, they offer 2-packs of Aukey Hybrid Active Noise Canceling Truly Wireless Earbuds for $25 plus shipping. LOL, the wires you see in the picture are from the background, not from the earphones. If you mouse-over or click the picture of the earphones, you see there are no wires. File that as a Meh self-own 🙂

And if you are into all things Elvis, one of the Sunday Kindle ebook daily deals at Amazon is the “Careless Love (Enhanced Edition): The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Elvis series Book 2) Kindle Edition with Audio/Video” for $3. By Peter Guralnick. December 2014 from Little Brown and Company. Nearly 800 pages. Averages 4.7 out of 5 with nearly 1000 customer ratings.

BUT WAIT, there’s another Kindle ebook daily deal, it’s the “Tim – The Official Biography of Avicii” for $2 by MÃ¥ns Mosesson. 4.8 out of 5 with nearly 600 customer ratings, 423 pages, November 2021 from Sphere.

Etymotic ER3 SE In-Ears for $80 (ends Sun 10am ET)

Good until Sunday 9/25/22 at 10am eastern (or earlier if sold out), Adorama is offering the new condition Etymotic ER3 SE in-ears for $80 as one of their deals of the day!

Etymotic is of course synonymous with the deep-insertion flange in-ears but they also include in the package the more conventional foam eartips. You also get filters (with removal tool included), and a storage pouch. The cable is removaable. They come standard with a 2-year Etymotic warranty…

Tin Audio T2 IEMs for $45 AC

To the IEMs we geaux, Amazon has the new condition Tin Audio T2 IEMs on sale for $50 BUT in parallel they also have a $5 off clip-on coupon, dropping the price to $45.

The coupon can be stored to your Amazon account, you don’t have to use it right away, but it will eventually expire…

Pengo 4.7-inch USB-C to 3.5mm Dongle for $10

Forced by the smartphone manufacturer to join “The Dongle Lifestyle”? Good until 9/21/22 at 10am ET (or earlier if sold out) Adorama is offering, as part of their daily deals, the new condition Pengo 4.7″ USB Type-C to 3.5mm 192KHz Audio Adapter Cable for $10, with a 18-month Pengo limited warranty. This goes up to 192/24.

Note this is 4.7 inches long, not 4.7 feet!

Refurbished Massdrop x FOCAL Elex for $499 [CAUTION]

This is a deal but with a caution alert as well!

Massdrop is offering refurbished B-stock Massdrop x FOCAL ELEX wired open-back over-ears for $499 with free US shipping. You get a 30-day return window but NO warranty. This is an in-stock drop, so it will ship quickly.

CAUTION however, three of the four published customer reviews over there are complaining of “Ear Cup Death”. Two of the three within 2 days, one on day #28.

So if the price tempts you, research it further in the massdrop forums and other audiophile places. If you hate having to return a product because of problems (and return it in a timely manner because of the 30-day return window), or having to argue with customer service in case they stonewall, you may want to AVOID it!

Refurbished Drop + NuForce MOVE truly-wireless for $20

And another refurbished B-stock option, this time it is the Drop + NuForce Move truly-wireless offered for $20 plus shipping. Or free US shipping for $125+ as we mentioned in our earlier update post

This has a 30-day return window, but no warranty. They have a giant paragraph explaining their refurbished products…

Massdrop updates: 10% Rewards on select Audiophile products [also: raises free US shipping threshold to $125+]

We have a couple of updates from the world of Massdrop!

First up, for a limited time, select Audiophile products earn 10% back in Massdrop Rewards/Points instead of their usual amount. You will see this on this individual product page of a participating products, it shows how many rewards you earn with it.

If you are not familiar with their rewards program, your purchases earn anywhere from 1% to 5% [Keyboard Club members] in rewards depending on the product type. Massdrop’s own “Studio” products earn 3%, while most others earn 1%. Exceptions and limited time promotions (like the one mentioned in the paragraph above apply).

You also earn 100 points for every product review you submit. You get 100 when you submit your own picture(s) on a product page. The 100 points is per product page, not per individual picture. Otherwise their product listings would become a stock photo website 😉

What you get for the rewards? Every 500 points get you $5 to spend at Massdrop as a discount.

The second item in this update is that free standard US shipping is now $125+, up from $100+. Another sign of the times and the rising costs and things like that.

PS: since I mentioned it above, what is the Drop Keyboard Club (DKC)? It’s a paid annual membership discount program for keyboard lunatics fanatics. You pay $49 per year for the first two years (use coupon code JOINTHECLUB), and then it rises to $69 per year. This gets you monthly discounts (between $30 to $100) to spend on “mech keys gear”. They have a few other benefits as well.

So it looks like Keyboards have defeated Headphones at Massdrop, otherwise they’d have a “Drop Headphones Club” instead of a keyboards club 😉

Monday: Tribit truly-wireless sale

For Monday September 19 in 2022, the headliner deal of the day at Amazon USA is a Tribit truly wireless sale featuring a total of 14 products. Not all of them are truly wireless earphones though.

Of particular interest is the Tribit Fly Buds 3 (100H) going for around $31 in the black color scheme.

I have this particular model and I’m planning an unboxing post and review in the future. Of potential playback time interest, in addition to the long charge held in the charging case (thus the 100H in the name), you can optionally wear one earbud at a time instead of two (either the left or the right, whichever one you take out of the case), essentially doubling playback time! I use these for YouTube viewing daily and charge the USB-C charging case just once a month! That’s insane!

The charging case also works as a powerbank (!!!) for other devices via USB Type A! Don’t get too excited though, today’s phones need a whole lot more than this for a full charge. But in case of emergency,and/or if you want to charge small DAPs (eg Sandisk Clips) this is a great.

A bit confusing, but in the same listing they have a newer 2022 model, in the white color scheme going for $33. This is marked as a “150H” product, promising even crazier battery life. This goes by the “normal” name of “Flybuds 3S”. This also goes to bluetooth 5.2, up from bluetooth 5.0 of the OG Flybuds 3. I don’t have the 3S model, so I can’t comment on how it works.

All the models are on the same listing, and all together, at Amazon they average 4.3 out of 5 based on 22652 customer ratings. Unfortunately Amazon does not provide review score averages per individual color/option. You can filter the reviews by color/option but you have to calculate the averages on your own. With thousands of reviews, that’s impossible 🙂

Tascam TH-300X studio headphones for $40

It’s raining headphones daily deals! Now it’s the turn of the Musician’s Friend, their offer is a recurring one, it is the closed-back wired over-ear Tascam TH-300X studio headphones going for $40 with free US shipping. Offer ends by Monday 9/19/22 at 8am eastern time…

Sunday: Random Audio sale with Monolith Liquid, Etymotic ER4SR, Etc

Surprise-surprise, it’s the return of the Random Audio sale at the Woot website, this is edition #26 and runs until 9/18/22 at 11:59pm central time (or earlier for anything that may sell out beforehand):

+ Etymotic ER4SR in-ears for $140 with the 2-year Etymotic warranty

+ Monoprice’s Monolith Liquid Platinum Balanced DAC for $500

+ Master & Dynamic MW50+ bluetooth over-ears for $150

+ Lenovo $12 truly wireless

+ speakers from KEF, Jamo and Klipsch
+ various other audio gear things

BUT WAIT, there’s more! The main Woot deal of the day for Sunday is a Tech Stuff sale and it includes some headphones:

+ Skullcandy Crusher bluetooth over-ears for $60

+ Xbox X Razen X headset bundle for $270

+ Bose Soundlink Around Ear (over-ears, because BOSE has to be different) bluetooth headphones for $130

+ JBL truly wireless

+ refurbished Apple Airpods 2 with wired charging case for $90 with a 90-day Woot warranty

Sunday: Onikuma Gaming Headset with Mic for $10

If you have a thing for checking out unknown-brand gaming headsets, well, you are in luck, good for Sunday 9/18/22, one of the Newegg deals of their day is the wired new condition ONIKUMA Gaming Headset with Microphone (7.1 Surround Sound 50mm Drivers, 3.5mm Audio Jack, etc) going for $10. This is sold by the “Onikuma Official” store at the Newegg website, and the orders are shipped by Newegg itself (meaning they have them at a Newegg warehouse facility somewhere – or something like that).

H&A Versa Professional Studio Headphones for $60

Good until Friday September 16 in 2022 at 10am eastern time [or before that if sold out], Adorama of House New York is offering the wire new condition closed-back over-ear H&A Versa ProfessionalStudio Headphones for $60. This is their house competitor to the good old Sony MDR-V6 / MDR-7506 type of headphone.

They come with two cables (coiled, straight) and a 1/4″ adapter along with a 1-year warranty.

Thursday: BeyerDynamic DT990 PRO X for $249

The new Beyerdynamics are shyly making their way to the NewEGG daily deals! Good until 9/15/22 at 11:59pm pacific time, or earlier if sold out, you can have the new condition wired open-back over-ear Beyerdynamic DT900 PRO X headphones for $249 with free US shipping. This is sold and shipped by NewEGG actual…

Thursday: Kenwood WS-A1 ANC truly-wireless for $39 + S&H

It’s a Kenwood but not for your kitchen! Running until 9/15/22 at 11:59pm (or earlier if sold out) the current Meh daily deal is the new condition Kenwood WS-A1 Active Noise Canceling Smart True Wireless Earbuds going for $39 plus shipping. Shipping is free for paying members of the Meh website (kinda like their version of Prime).

Per the listings there, they have a 1-year manufacturer warranty, eartips, charging cable, and such…

Apple AirPods (2019) with Wireless Charging Case for $120

Good until Thursday 9/15/22 at 10am eastern time [or before that if it sells out], Adorama of New York is offering the new condition Apple AirPods (2019) with Wireless Charging Case for $120. They are authorized Apple sellers.

Ultrasone 840 Closed Over-Ears + Joby Tripod for $129

If you are interested in unusual headphone bundles or mayhaps your interests of headphones and photography/videography intersect ,good until Saturday September 10 in 2022 at 11:59pm eastern time (or before that if it sells out), B&H Photo is offering this Ultrasone x Joby bundle for $129. For that you get:

+ Ultrasone Performance Series 840 wired closed-back over-ears
+ with two cables and case

+ JOBY RangePod Smart Tripod (Black)

Refurbished Sony LinkBuds TW (WF900/H) for $61 AC

If you are fond of refurbished truly-wireless, Secondipity through the NewEgg website the refurbished Sony LinkBuds (WF900/H) for $66.

And good until 9/7/22 at 11:59pm pacific time, coupon code SSBW732 drops it by $5, down to $61.

Sunday: Random Audio sale returns with 10 headphone options

“Random Audio” sale is back at the Woot daily deals running until 9/4/22 at 11:59pm central [or earlier if sold out] and at this incarnation of the sale they have ten headphone-related products including:

+ Panasonic RB-M300B “Deep Bass” bluetooth over-ears for $60

+ EPOS Audio GSP 601 Closed Acoustic Gaming Headset for $70
+ with 2-year EPOS/Sennheiser warranty

+ truly-wireless from Jabra, Skullcandy, Kliscph, Master and Dynamic and Audio Technica Quietpoint

+ Wage gaming headset for $7.50

+ Skullcandy Set, wired earphones for $10

+ other audio gear as well, including various speaker type things from KEF, Samsung, Pyle, JBL, Klipsch, Polk, and Monster
+ trigger warning for audiophile fans who hate “mainstream” brands 🙂