Random thoughts

So much has happened since the last time I’ve blogged, but I’m not in the mood to go into details.

I will mention though that one of the more notable events was a series of concerts we had in the AFP theater, after each we would setup camp at Jeline’s till the weekend was over.

It was a fun concert because we would call it the “Soulsearch get-together” since apparently our group found its way to so many different groups and suddenly merged into one event. Jeline, Chris, Jonel from the Ateneo Chamber Singers, Elaine from Hangad (and ACS), me from BukasPalad, and GP as the arranger of a bunch of songs, and pianist of the orchestra (and ACS member too)

It’s like every “group” you’d check out, there was at least one Soulsearch member in there. What a waste that Chrise and Joy (Hangad) weren’t there. If the Madrigal Singers were there, then Soulsearch would still have been represented by Papo hahahha. We’re like insects infesting the music world hehehehe.

Now to change the subject…

Amber

Still cute as ever, but not nearly as smart as the other dogs (who are askals ¹ For the benefit of the non-Filipino readers (if any), it stands for “ASong KALye” (street-dog) – a mongrel to be precise. ) We’ve been trying to train her exactly the way we’ve trained the others, and for some reason, she’s kinda slow on the pickup (unlike the others). Plus she’s heavy and smelly! Makes me wish we had a mini-Dachshund like Nono

She also has this knack of pissing the moment anyone tries to carry her; no matter what her mood, and no matter who is picking her up, it never fails. So it’s frustrating that you really can’t pick her up without preparing for that little detail.

ER4-Ps

Now remember those canalphones in my previous posts? I had them replaced under warranty (very long story), and the replacement unit has been delivered a while ago via DHL – I’m back in business.

I also thought I’d try to do some justice to them by taking a picture using my 20D instead of those LUMIX shots which I used in the past post. I might as well explain some other details while I’m at it.

I included the audio jack to give an idea of the size of the drivers. Again, “drivers” are what literally drive the sound – which are obviously located in the earpieces themselves, but even these earpieces as referred as drivers too – since the actual “earpieces” in the case of canalphones are the foam (or silicon flanges) which go directly in the ear.

Anyways, enough of the technicalities, lets just call them drivers to keep things simple. And yes; that is a mini-jack in case you were wondering.

The pics I took in the past had the foam sleeves attached, so I thought I’d take a macro-ish shot showing the drivers without the sleeves. The drivers themselves (talking about the actual circuitry now) are in the “big” barrels – right after the red/blue joints – and have faint markings of the serial numbers ² It’s cool trivia to mention that each driver has its own serial number, and when I registered the product, it asks for these two numbers.. The red and blue joints are exactly that (joints), and are color coded for the right (red) and left (blue) channel to avoid confusion.

The little protruding tube is where the sound will come out. Incidentally, this is the part of the driver which you will stick into your foam sleeves or tri-flanges, So you don’t really see them when in use. What’s noticeable is that the soundholes (the holes at the end of the tube) are covered with those green-ish “caps” – those are the filters. Their primary purpose is to keep foreign particles from entering the drivers… which is a smart thing to do, since you can’t “open,” much less clean the driver innards, short of destroying them.

The filters are also replaceable EQ devices according to the white sheets, which were designed to cut some high frequencies along the way to maintain the response curve the canalphones have been calibrated to deliver. They say that if you take out the filters, listening directly into an “unprotected” driver will hurt your ears as the sound will be too bright.

Wether or not this is true doesn’t matter to me, I already appreciate them as filters which protect a 300+ dollar investment, better safe than sorry right? I remember asking that question about the EM3 ³ My first set of canalphones from FutureSonics even before I got the ER4-P “what if something gets in the tube? How are you supposed to get it out/clean it?” Apparently I’ll just have to make sure I don’t misplace or drop the EM3s in places that invite such “hassles.” But the ER4-Ps are safe from that… unless they fall into water that is… then dirt would be the least of my concerns.