[GTALUG] ot: perhaps, headphones?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Karen Lewellen via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| To be sure, the idea of noise cancellation, or any variation's is a no,

I never suggested noise cancellation.  That's a whole other kettle of
fish.

I talked about "closed" vs "open".  Your existing headphones are
"closed", according to the specs I read.

That means that they block sound travelling through the outside of the
cup.  They block sound two ways: leaking from the headphone to the
room and from the room to the ear.

I thought that if you are using your reader, you might still want to
hear what's happening in the room, albeit in an attenuated way.  For
example, you might want to hear other people in the room.  Or you
might not.  That's why I mentioned closed vs. open as a choice.

Nicholas had other considerations for the open / closed choice.  They were 
beyond my experience or knowledge.

| not
| just because of the  sense of position, but because I have something talking
| in my ears when I use them in this particular setting..no phone ringing, door
| bells, or the all important music  playing  in the background.

I don't quite understand.  If you have someone talking in you ears, do
you want to hear them or block them out?

| As I have been a radio producer, and professional singer for many many years,
| over the ear headphones are the most comfortable, speaking personally.
| I  truly dislike earbuds, they tend not to stay in my ears, to put pressure on
| my ear canal etc...and the buttons are a no, mic interferes with  the machine.

The specs I saw said your existing headphones had buttons but did not
say what the buttons did.

<https://productz.com/en/jvc-ha-s44x/p/nQYn>

| The most important thing, for this particular set of headphones though is
| A combination of frequency range, sensitivity, impedance, and driver
| units...oh and input power.

I understood that these phones were for a reader.  I cannot imagine
that frequency range would be critical.  I would not imagine that
stereo mattered.

| a few settings in the wrong direction, and the headphones will make me
| dizzy..literary.

Very important point!  I imagine that's mostly about phase problems or
artifacts of noise cancellation.

If I understood correctly that this is for your Kurzweil reader, I suspect 
monophonic headphones would be fine.  If you used the headphones 
monophonically, would that prevent dizziness?

| And those numbers can be device specific, what I will use for my reading edge,
| differs for what I use for production, or music listening, or whatever.
| It is part of why once found I may buy more than one pair.
| Cannot fault you for using the same ones  since the 80's. Had a set once I got
| from radio shack that I used for  more than a decade as well.
| Goodness but I miss radio shack.

I just took a dead (but not leaky!) Radio Shack 9v battery out of nework 
tester that I hadn't used in some time.

The Source still exists (unlike US Radio Shack).  But it has devolved.  
They still have headphones.  And their page has filters -- I'm not sure 
that they'd work for you.

<https://www.thesource.ca/en-ca/audio-headphones/headphones/c/scc-6-1>