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If you like designer artisanal headphone stands, fully unlocked at Massdrop right now is the Sieveking Omega Headphone Stand going for $150 plus $8~ flat shipping. The offer is good for the next eight days and ships early July 2016.
On the other hand, if you like the style, but don’t need the polish/design, you can get a similarly shaped model for $20 by various sellers with the orders fulfilled by Amazon so it is eligible for free Prime shipping.
Accessory stock-up time, the Koss Portable Replacement Cushions (six pack) are on sale for $3 per six-pack at Amazon actual with a limit of five per customer. They average 4.5 out of 5 based on 444 customer reviews. There is only one catch however, it is an Add-On Item, so you must place an order of $25+. If not, the shopping cart will refuse to let you buy it. The restriction applies to Prime members as well. These fits a number of Koss headphones including the legendary PortaPro and KSC75.
Fully unlocked now, and with seven days to go (from posting date here), at members-only Massdrop you can get the Just Mobile HeadStand for $30 plus $8~ flat shipping. It is available in three different color options and ships early July 2016… In comparison, it goes for $50 and ships right now at amazon.com where it averages 4.5 out of 5 based on 100+ customer reviews…
Some prefer to listen to music using dedicated Digital Audio Players, others prefer to use their smartphones, while other-others a combination of both. If you are interested in “Phones as DAPs”, for a limited time only, the Best Buy eBay store is offering new condition unlocked with no contract requirements 64GB ZTE Axon PRO smartphones for $300 with free shipping. They are available in three different colors.
When price checking and reading reviews, make sure you are looking at the “Axon PRO”, not the “Axon” (not PRO) model. It does not take microSD cards, so keep that in mind. But with 4GB RAM and a Snapdragon 810 processor it should be able to handle even the most demanding Android music and music streaming apps. Another benefit over dedicated DAPs is Bluetooth and NFC. NFC can be very handy if you mix and match different music sources with different headphones/outputs and you don’t like to turn bluetooth on/off all the time to prevent devices for “fighting” over a previously paired connection.
Since it’s an unlocked GSM phone with no contract requirement, you don’t have to use any of the telephone aspects to it, but in the future in case you need a phone or you are in-between phones or providers, it can serve that purpose too.
Massdrop has a new offer, fully unlocked, on Comply foam tips that go for $13 plus $2.75 flat shipping. They offer a variety of models (see listing or add to shopping cart to see the options over there).
However, if you are a Prime member (or plan a $49+ Amazon order), some models individually can be had for less at Amazon, the ones shipped or fulfilled by Amazon. For example, the 3pk T500 Medium Black for $12~ [limit 5], or the 3pk S-400 Active charcoal for $11.53 [limit 12]. Charcoal is the color, they are NOT made of charcoal 🙂
Others have the same price, but if you can get free Prime shipping, you avoid the MD shipping fee, eg the 3pk T-400 Blue go for $13 at both places.
There are many model and color combinations, I can’t check them all here.
This daily deal expired…
The Etymotic Research ER20 Ety-Plug go for $13 shipped at Massdrop right now with a late June delivery estimate, but it looks like Amazon has them beat. Prices start at $10~ for the Red Sterm or clear soft and go to $13 for other color combinations including the ER20-SMC. The usual shipping terms apply, free 2-day for Prime members or with a $49+ order (or $25+ in physical books).
Free shipping without buying anything is the lure of this promotion, it is the Fiio L8 1/8″ Interconnect Audio Cable (both sides 3.5mm) going for $7 with free shipping to the 48 by Sonic Electronix as part of their latest clearance promotion… It’s “just a cable” but if you want to read reviews, it averages 4.2 out of 5 based on 80+ at amazon.com…
They may look like chocolate donuts in the gallery picture at Massdrop but they are not edible. They are however audible 😉 The ATH-M50x Velour Earpads are offered on Massdrop for $22 plus $3~ flat shipping. They have four different color options you can select during the checkout process. They fit the M50x but also the other three parallel models (M40x, M30x, M20x) along with the M50. These are from Sound Professionals. Shipment is late June 2016. The offer ends in about seven days from today (blog-posting date). MD does not show exact expiration dates and sometimes they may get extended.
Today’s block of updates in going all over the place, from the mundane to the audiophile bundles 🙂 This is a mundane but practical item if you are lost in a sea of cables. You can get a 100pk of Velcro One Wrap Self-Gripping Cable Ties for $6.32. These are reusable, you can use them many times. They are 8 inches long (fully unwrapped) and 1/2″ thick per the description.
The gallery pictures along with the demo video can give you a pretty good feel of what to expect. With a 100pk in this offer, you are essentially paying just over 6c per cable tie, probably beating even dollar stores?
The good news is that even though they have a low price, they are not an Add-On item, so if you are a Prime member, you get free 2-day shipping, even if you just buy one set of these. But if you need more, the limit is ten 100pks per customer.
The Westone Mini-Monitor Vault II Case, in the “smoke” color scheme is currently on sale for $19, in new condition, with a limit of five per customer at Amazon by Amazon actual. There are multiple models on the same Amazon product page, so make sure you are reading reviews and answered-questions about the correct model. I don’t know why Amazon does that, it creates more confusion than it does any good, but what do I know? I’m just a web monkey 🙂
The Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter, an unpowered unit with one input and five outputs is currently on sale in two of its seven color schemes (black-white or white-green) for $8.46 at Amazon by Amazon actual. It averages 4.7 out of 5 based on 500+ customer reviews. Keep in mind this is unpowered so what you connect affects sound properties per the laws of physics. The input cable is hard-wired. The outputs are up to you to fill up as you please. Free 2-day shipping for Prime members, otherwise it’s a $49+ order.
If you like V-Moda’s cables, their Extended Audio Cable (one straight, one 45-degree) is on sale for $12 each, available in three different color schemes. Limit five per customer per color at Amazon.com. They average 4.8 out of 5 based on 24 customer reviews.
The wooden Omega Headphones Stand is available for around $21, with a trio of marketplace sellers competing on price, with these three offers fulfilled by Amazon, so if you are a Prime member, you get 2-day shipping. The stand averages 4.2 out of 5 based on 120+ customer reviews. Check them and questions answered to see if they fit your needs.
Another item got fully unlocked at Massdrop, this time it is the Firestone Audio Headphone Stand going for $35 plus $8~ flat shipping. Offer ends in about two days from today (blog-posting date, not the date you are reading this). It comes pre-assembled and it is all metal construction. It ships in mid June 2016.
While we are at Monoprice, they are offering 5 Pairs of Banana Plugs for $6.41 and all importantly free shipping and handling. These are also eligible for volume discounts if you buy 20 or more sets. That’s 20 sets of five pairs, not 20 individual banana plugs.
If you are looking for a 10-inch 3.5mm audio cable from a budget but well-known maker, the official Monoprice eBay store is offering new condition 10ft 3.5mm Stereo Male to 3.5mm Stereo Male cables for $4 with free shipping. Even if you only get one, you still get free shipping. Limit 50 per customer during this particular sale. Over 1900 units got sold so far from this particular ebay promotion.
This is gold plated, and it is designed for mobile. If you want to look up reviews, this is model number 109766, with bar code 844660097662. It averages 86% with 33 reviews at Monoprice’s own website, and 4.2 out of 5 based on 600 customer reviews at amazon.com.
If you are also interested in the music industry way of things, O’Reilly Books have a free 36-page e-book. All you have to do is enter your name and email address to get it (this even if you are logged on to your O’Reilly account). The e-book is “Music Science” by Alistair Croll (September 2015) and is available DRM-free in ePUB, Mobi and PDF (you can download all of them). They even have direct buttons to save them to Google Drive. (this looks to be a chapter from an upcoming book?)
Here’s the table of contents:
Since we are talking O’Reilly, coupon code DRM2016 gets you 50% to 60% off e-books on their website until 5/4/16 at 8am Eastern time. Coupon only works for e-books.
This lightning deal expired…
On the utilitarian front, if you are looking for a small USB-powered bluetooth receiver, the Firefly by Tunai Creative is currently on sale for $35 with free shipping at Stacksocial.com. This is a USB-powered little thing (it does NOT have a built-in battery), one side is USB, the other a 3.5mm audio. It comes with two cables (3.5mm extension, 3.5mm to RCA). It can store up to eight paired devices, and in “Party Mode” two devices can connect at the same time.
If you are looking for hearing protection or “dummy” headphones (just so people won’t bother you), the red-black color scheme of the Howard Leight QM24 Multiple Positioning Headband Over-Ear Earmuffs is on sale for just over $7, in new condition, at Amazon by Amazon actual. There is one catch to this low price, they are an Add-On item, so you must place an order of $25 or more, otherwise their shopping cart will simply refuse to let you checkout. They average 4.3 out of 5 based on 100+ customer reviews.
PS: this could make a headphone gag gift as well, give them to someone (or take them to a meet) and watch them try to figure out how to listen music out of them 🙂
If you like the blending of digital with retro looks but don’t want to spend too much money for the fun of it, the 10pk of Verbatim CD-Rs with a color scheme that screams vinyl records is on sale for just $3 at Amazon.
There is a catch however, with a price like that, it is an Add-On item, so you have to place a $25+ order in order to buy it. These are 700MB optical CD-Rs that can record up to 80 minutes of audio (or a handful of mp3 albums). Each 10pk is color-coded, five colors, two units of each color. They average 4.8 out of 5 based on 75 customer reviews.
If you like to use classical music as part of your headphone/music testing or listening or *gasp* music appreciation, there is a very affordable way to load up your digital audio player with lots of classical music without breaking the bank. There are over 50 Big Box Classical MP3 Compilations going for $0.99 per compilation at Amazon MP3.
Each compilation has an insane amount of tracks included, for example the 99c Beethoven Big Box gets you 176 tracks with a total playtime of over 15 hours. That’s almost two tracks per penny 🙂
Of headphone testing interest, some of the many compilations are broken down by instrument (violin, piano, guitar, trumpet, winds, brass, oboe) or music style (baroque, hymns/choirs, orchestral, symphonies, flamenco, cantatas, overtures, etc).
On top of that, each purchase is automatically added to your Amazon Music streaming account, so you can stream them without taking any additional steps using the Amazon Music apps. You can also download them to your computer as mp3s and transfer them to your other devices as you please.
Almost all of these are doing well review-wise, you can use the review scores and the number of reviews as one way to help you filter them if you can’t decide which ones to get.
The Riot Headphone Bag Pro is currently on sale for $80 with free shipping at Amazon.com with sellers including Amazon actual, along with Turntable Lab (fulfilled by Amazon). There no reviews yet but it has seven pictures in the product gallery to give you a nice visual feel for it.
If you like under the desk headphone holders that hold on to the desk with adhesive, the GVDV Under Desk Headphone Holder goes for $8 (holds one headphone) or $10 (holds two ~ the Type B in the listing). This is sold by the maker (GVDV Direct) with the order fulfilled by Amazon, so a Prime membership gets it to your door for free even if you only buy one. Together these two holders average 4.9 out of 5 based on 43 customer reviews. Note however that a number of the reviews received the item for free in exchange for a review ~ per the review disclaimers over there. You can filter the reviews if you only want to see reviews for Type-A (holds one) or Type-B (holds two).
UPDATE: there are appear to be a couple of other similar looking holders under the Vogek brand – you can find them all in the New Releases list.
Musician’s Friend (MF) has a new rewards program called The Backstage Pass offering you 8% rewards on every $1 spent. The rewards can be redeem into promotional MF gift certificates that you can use in future purchases.
If you have a digital audio player or smartphone with good audio playback that take microSDXC cards and are compatible with 200GB storage capacity, the 200GB SanDisk Ultra Micro SDXC (model SDSDQUAN-200G-G4A) is on sale for $80 with free shipping at Amazon by Amazon actual. Limit one per customer at this price at this point in time. It also comes with a full size SD adapter, and it’s not as fragile, it is promoted as “Water proof, temperature proof, shock proof, X-ray proof and magnet proof”. This is not a lightning deal, so I have no idea when the sale ends.
This ended… Musician’s Friend is running a Deal of the Hour promotion with a new offer appearing at the top of the hour every hour until 9pm ET tonight (Fri 4/1/16). Some may be headphones, but I have no advance knowledge, so YMMV.
This is very nice, especially for the price, the Shure HPACP1 Headphone Carrying Pouch is going for $3.56, in new condition, at Amazon By Amazon actual. The only catch is that it is an Add-On Item, so you must place an order of $25+ otherwise the shopping cart won’t let you buy it. You can simply add it to a future order, unless you need 8+ of them (it’s $25+, seven of them is $24.92). If you are gifting someone headphones or sell/trade/exchange them online or in AV forums, adding a pouch to package is a nice touch (and doesn’t cost you much). These are made for the Shure over-ear studio headphones (840/440/240/550/750), so many headphones should fit in.
Speaking of add-on items, this tiny little AmazonBasics camera case goes for $2.45 and could protect earbuds or in-ears or accessories/adapters thanks to its extra padding.
If you are a Prime member (or planning to place a bigger order that would qualify you for free shipping), you can get the book “Introductory Guide to High-Performance Audio Systems” by Robert Harley (2007, paperback) in “Used – Acceptable” condition for just under $5 and eligible for 2-Day Prime shipping because it is fulfilled by Amazon. This is the shorter “Intro” book, not to be confused with the 500+ page book that is “Complete Guide…” by the same author. This particular “Intro” one averages 4.2 out of 5 based on 26 customer reviews.
It looks like Etymotic is price-matching a Massdrop offer, and without the hassle of dealing with Massdrop waiting and such, because the Etymotic store on Amazon, with the order fulfilled by Amazon (so Prime 2-day eligible) is offering their ER20 earplugs for $13 per set. These are available in different colors and configurations, so be sure to pay attention to the size and color options at Amazon, for example, this is the Standard Fit with Clear Stem and Blue Tip in clamshell and this is in polybag.
PS: if you are reading this at high speed, note that these are earplugs, not earbuds. They do not play music. They are intended for hearing protection, reducing outside noise before it gets to your ears.
If you are a fan of proper headphone stands, and do not object to shopping from members-only Massdrop, their offer for the Just Mobile Headstand (available in black or silver) has reached its lowest price, $30 plus $8 flat shipping. You can select the color of your choice during the checkout process. The offer ends in about six days from blog-posting date (they don’t post an expiration date there, only “x days left”, that’s why I am describing the expiration date in this fashion since I don’t know the exact expiration date).
This daily deal expired…
There are four different colors of the Geekria wool-yarn headband for headphones going for around $10 (prices varies slightly by color), sold by Geekria with the order fulfilled by Amazon. This is a universal-ish headband for mid-size headphones. It says that it just barely fits the AKG Q701, so check size and customer reviews to make sure if its on yours.
Caution: the main picture for the grey color scheme shows a headphone with the gray headband on a headphone stand. Only the headband is included. Not the headphone stand! Check the other gallery pictures over there to get more views of the headband.
Re-purposing is a great way to save if you don’t need or want to have branded accessories. Often earphone cases carry a premium, but if you don’t need one with a matching logo, a number of other things can also protect earphones, from Altoid tins to Travel Soap boxes. Or if you want more cushioning for your earphones, small camera bags can definitely do the trick, and they often have an extra pocket (eg for ear tips).
Which brings us to this small Amazon-Basics Camera Case currently selling ~ in new condition ~ for under $2 at Amazon.com. You can buy up to three at the sale price. There is only one catch, it’s an Add-On Item, so you have to place an order of over $25 if you want to buy this (or any other Add-On Item). You can reach the $25+ limit with any combination of items shipping from Amazon facitilties (by Amazon actual or fulfilled by Amazon) ~ even if it’s only Add-On items.
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