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Another bundle now, this time it is the open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 650 bundled with the Blue Microphones Yeti Pro USB Condenser Microphone, together going for $500 with free shipping at authorized dealer Adorama.com. The offer ends 5/6/16.
Elsewhere in HD 6xx bundles, the $150 Gift Card promotion with the HD 600 for $400 continues to run at Amazon.
The number of dedicated digital audio players continues to increase, but most of them are not able to play music from streaming services. If you want to off-load your main smartphone from some of its music playback duty, one thrifty way is to get a former flagship smartphone and use it as a music streamer. Which brings us to the HTC One M8 (two flagships ago), available in certified pre-owned condition (aka used) for $110 from T-Mobile directly (no contract). If you are not an existing T-Mobile customer, the shopping cart may force upon you a $20 SIM set. I don’t know if you can waive the charge if you call or live-chat with them.
This is a three item bundle, an if the stars align type of an offer if you happen to need all three of these items, the Sennheiser HD7 PRO DJ headphones, along with the Yamaha P-45 88-Key Digital Piano, and the On-Stage KPK6520 Keyboard Stand/Bench Pack with Sustain Pedal, all together for $460 with free shipping at Adorama.com. Offer ends 5/5/16 or earlier if sold out.
As of 4/18/16 price recheck, this got scooped up at this price…
Fiio has a new line of products, but if you are interested in the square little Fiio E6 portable headphone amp, it is available in “Used – Very Good” condition (cosmetic imperfections, damaged packaging) for $19~ by Amazon Warehouse Deals. Free shipping for Prime members or with a $49+ order.
This is a Request For Comments. What do you think of this experimental format for Useful Unboxing posts with pictures and text, but without audio and video? By “this”, I mean this headphone unboxing post for a *gasp* Skullcandy *double gasp* bluetooth headphone. Bluetooth has more parts (more buttons and ports and such) which makes it a versatile guinea pig for this experiment.
The idea behind the format is to give someone who hasn’t seen the headphone an overall idea of what to expect when they open the box, what’s included inside, and pictures of the relevant body parts (headband, slider, inputs, earcups, buttons, accessories, etc).
As far as the audio/sound part of reviews, I am still soul-searching on how to best do it. I really don’t want to be saying things like “creamy treble” or use inside baseball terms that mean different things to different people and such. More on that later, I may experiment with different formats before I settle on one.
Staples stores, starting on Sunday 4/17/16 and ending on Saturday 4/23/16 PM at the close of business will be having a 50% off sale on the Audio Technica earbuds they carry. Clearance items are excluded from the sale. There is no coupon; the price will be changed in their own computer systems.
Staples only carries a small subset of the AT line-up and they typically carry consumer entry-level-ish items. If you are in the area, you can “scout” your local stores ahead to time to see if there’s anything of potential interest.
And now we head to the other end of the price spectrum, the good old lightweight Panasonic RP-HT21 on-ears are on sale at Jet.com for $5 with free shipping. Their shopping cart has a built-in volume discount, if you are increase the quantity, the price drops by about a quarter for each additional unit.
Not much info is available at Jet, but these have over 3200 customer reviews at amazon.com with an average of 4.3 out of 5. Note that these are open-back headphones, so there is leakage in both directions.
Note also that Jet fulfills orders of their own and also farm them out to various other sellers throughout the country. Unlike Amazon that shows upfront who the actual seller is, you won’t see it on the Jet website unless you are about ready to place the order. It may not be an issue for a $5 pair of headphones but if you are buying something expensive or something that you want to have warranty from an authorized dealer, this is something to pay attention to.
It’s bundle time again, in these two back to back posts. We start with the Audeze EL-8 closed-back planar magnetic headphone bundled with the portable Apogee Groove USB DAC/amp, together going for $799 with free shipping at Adorama.com. The offer expires 4/21/16.
While there, they have another bundle, this time it is the red-black Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2-Input/2-Output USB Audio Interface bundled with the Samson MTR101 1″ Diaphragm Condenser Microphone for $150 with free shipping. This offer expires 4/22/16.
The Apogee Groove portable USB DAC/amp is also bundled with another Audeze headphone, their new SINE On-Ears, together the two go for $549 with free shipping at Adorama.com. The offer expires 4/21/16.
Logitech, which recently renamed some of its product lines to the more goofy “Logi” has scooped up another earphone company, Jaybird, paying $50 million in cold hard cash. Probably not in unmarked envelopes. Not sure how this will impact prices of existing Logitech and Jaybird products. More via Techmeme.
It’s back at Massdrop, the CEntrance DACport Slim is available for $100 with free shipping BUT a June 2016 shipping estimate. This is available exclusively to them, an the offer has seven days to go (from today). The drop is limited to 180 units.
If you don’t want to deal with Massdrop’s long wait, a seller at Amazon (“HJR HEADPHONE SHOP”) is offering it for $110 with free shipping. It ships directly from them, so it is not eligible for Prime shipping.
The white-red color-scheme of the Beats Studio Wireless (bluetooth) over-ears with ANC (active noise cancelling) is available in certified refurbished condition by Best Buy’s Geek Squad for $170 with free shipping or free store pick-up as one of the Best Buy daily deals for Thursday 4/14/16.
The Star Wars fever continues and if you caught the bug, there is a Sports bundle version of the second generation of the officially licensed Star Wars headphones made by 50 Cent’s SMS Audio. This particular sports bundle is the Chewbacca edition, and it includes the standard items (Chewbaccaized (verb) headphones, case, poster, sticker, cable, cleaning cloth) along with two extra items that define the Sports bundle: a Nike Dri-Fit t-shirt and two pairs of Star Wars socks. This goes for $90 with free shipping, sold by a marketplace seller with the order fulfilled by Amazon. Limit three sets per customer.
I’m not sure any of the included items would fit the actual Chewbacca, but then again, he’s not the one who’s going to be buying them 🙂
Even though they are officially licensed, they are not tuned for listening to the John Williams soundtracks. They are a licensed version of 50 Cent’s SMS Audio on-ears which are closed-backs tuned for today’s popular and bass-flavored music. Think “Animal Ambition” 🙂
The semi-open AKG K99 studio headphones (one of seemingly dozens of studio-ish models in the AKG line-up) is on sale for a limited time for $30 at B&H Photo. Shipping is free if your order totals $49 or higher. For orders under $49, shipping is additional. There’s always cables and bags and adapters and other accessories and such to help you get over $49 for the free shipping.
Another Massdrop exclusive, currently fully unlocked (lowest price during a particular offer promotion) is teh Grace Design x Massdrop m9XX DAC/Amp going for $500 with free shipping. It will ship in mid-May 2016. Specs, close-up of the inputs/outputs, and a link to the user manual are all available at the product page over there. The offer ends in about 7 days from today (with “today” being the posting date here, not the day you are reading this).
They are back and with a Red color scheme running throughout them (but the main color remains black), it is the AKG K7XX Red Edition, a Massdrop x (exclusive) sold over there for $200 with free shipping. Shipment estimate is early May 2016. This ends in about six days from today or if the available quantity is sold out (nearly 300 available as of blog-post time).
You can’t get this at Amazon through other sellers (the ones who have it charge 1.5x more than Massdrop), but you can get the AKG M220 (think K240 reborn) for around $70.
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.
The Teac HA-P50 portable headphone amp is available for $152 in “Used – Like New” condition (original packaging, may be damaged) by Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD) actual. There’s only one used listing of this at the moment.
These are theoretically lower risk AWD transactions since: 1) item is in original packaging, 2) fulfilled by Amazon so you get free Prime shipping, 3) fulfilled by Amazon means you deal with Amazon Customer Support, not the seller directly. But there’s always a risk with AWD, so if you are totally risk averse, keep that in mind. I haven’t had any issues with AWD orders so far, but I’ve only done under a dozen, so statistically that’s just a tiny grain of sand in the Sahara 🙂
The Razordog Audio eBay store currently has three listings for the AKG K3003i reference class in-ears. The new condition goes for $1000 which is the price at other authorized dealers. But they also have two open-box listings that carry the 2-year warranty as well.
Per the listing over there, one has seen less than one hour of use and goes for $750, while the other is a store demo and goes for $650. Best Offer is enabled on the $1000 and $750 listings but not the $650. “Best Offer”, that blue “Make Offer” button allows you to quasi-haggle with the seller with eBay’s blessings using the eBay “Best Offer” system. The seller is in Minnessssooooottttttaaaa (that’s where they will ship from).
If you can’t resist the lime-ish green color scheme or you are a fan of the Quincy Jones line of headphones, the official Harman Audio store is offering the new condition AKG Q460 Closed On-Ears for $30 with free shipping and free returns. Only the post apocalyptic green color scheme is available at their store.
The sale is back for this semi-open over-ear AKG-homaging (it’s a verb!) headphone, the Samson SR-850 goes for $30 with free shipping at Adorama.com with the offer good until 4/14/16.
The slow resurgence of digital audio players is also bringing back to the surface some older models such as 16GB Zune HD, available in manufacturer refurbished condition for $60 with free shipping by the Digital Outlet eBay store. Over 760 units got sold so far from this particular eBay offer. The description says this is in “like new” condition, has a 60 day warranty (does not say from whom), and a headset is NOT included.
Back in the day when this was a “current product”, I was close to getting a Zune HD, but Microsoft pulled the plug on the whole Zune project just as I was deliberating which one to get. They also had a fun Zune-themed music podcast that also got lost in the Zune shuffle 🙁 At that time I was so frustrated with Rhapsody’s Windows desktop client, syncing subscription music to the Sandisk devices (Clips and Fuze) was an exercise in frustration (to put it very politely), so I was looking for alternatives.
The new condition AKG K495-NC (active noise cancelling) on-ear headphones are currently the Woot Electronics daily deal, offered for $100 per pair, with a limit of three per customer. They get a 90-day warranty from Woot, not AKG.
Shipping is $5 flat, but you only pay it once during April. If you already purchased something from Woot in April or if you make future purchases, you will only pay $5 for shipping (unless you select faster shipping methods). This is a special promotion, they don’t normally run this offer. Maybe they are testing it to offer it as a monthly subscription like Meh.com?
One of the daily deals at Amazon is the Bohm Over-Ear headphone with Bluetooth and Active Noise Cancelling, on sale for $68 with free shipping in either the brown or black color schemes with a limit of 30 per customer. The headphones average 4.3 out of 5 based on nearly 2000 customer reviews. The sale ends by 3am eastern on Wednesday or earlier if they happen to sell out.
These daily deals expired…
This sale ended but some items cycle through Amazon and Woot until they run out of supplies, so this may return in the future either as a lightning deal or as a Woot daily deal (or Woot-off deal or Moofi)…
The Sennheiser HDVD 800 Headphone Amplifier with DAC has multiple used listings at Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD), so this maybe something to keep an eye out for in case prices dropped further. The lowest option as of the time of writing is “Used – Acceptable” condition for $1540, with the price increasing by about $100 as you go from that to “Used – Good” and “Used – Very Good”. All these are by AWD actual, so you get Prime shipping if a member.
If you are comfortable with dealer-refurbished gear, the Marantz HD-DAC1 USB DAC and amp is available in refurbished condition, refurbished by OneCall/Huppin’s and with a 1-year warranty from OneCall, going for $639 with free shipping by OneCall thru Amazon. It ships from OneCall, so no Prime shipping benefits. This goes for $800 in new condition and averages 4.7 out of 5 based on 16 customer reviews.
They are back on sale again, the AKG K77, another pair of headphones using their signature headband style, going for $25 with a limit of three per customer at Amazon by Amazon actual. These are semi-closed over-ears and they average 4.2 out of 5 based on 99 customer reviews.
We take a break from used items, with a new condition bundle. Two different Fuji Labs earphones are bundled together, one is an in-ear, the other more of an earbud, sold together for $15 with free shipping by the maker (Fuji Labs) through NewEgg’s website. The sale is good until 4/13/16.
The listing is rather spartan, you have to “decode” the model names to find more details. The more in-ears model is the SQWMS203, while the more “earbudy” model is the SQWMS101.
The FiiO E10K USB DAC and Amp goes for $76 by various sellers in new condition but if you are comfortable with used items, there is a “Used – Like New” (package has signs of wear) option for $62 with free shipping by “PRO Studio” (100%, 7K+ ratings) through Amazon Warehouse Deals. This ships directly from “PRO Studio”, so it is not eligible for Prime shipping. This Fiio averages 4.5 out of 5 based on 360+ customer reviews.
Please note that Fiio is rebooting their naming scheme with some of their newer products, so check their website to untangle the naming spaghetti.
These daily deals for Tuesday 4/12/16 expired…
As of a 4/12/16 PM re-check, the lowest used price available is $130… The lower priced options sold out…
Another dive into the used pool at Amazon Warehouse Deals, where a marketplace seller with the shipment Prime-eligible is offering the HRT Microstreamer for $100 with free shipping in “Used – Very Good” condition through Amazon Warehouse Deals.
This critter averages 4.3 out of 5 based on 50+ customer reviews. A big plus for sampling rate/frequency fans, it has lights for five options (96k, 88k2, 48k, 44k1, 32k). This is in Hz, they just didn’t print it because it’s a tiny device. More on those via Wikipedia.
The black-red color-scheme of the Sennheiser Momentum in-ear headphones is on sale, you can get it for just under $65 in the iOS version. This ships in “1 to 3 weeks” by Amazon actual. If you can’t wait, check the detailed listings where World Wide has it for $69 shipping right away and fulfilled by Amazon (aka Prime eligible).
For Android users, the lowest price is $69 in the black-red color-scheme. Look at the Sidebar to find Amazon’s own listing and Huppin’s or click through to the detailed listings to see all options.
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