April 07, 2012 (tech,gadgets)
Etymotic hf3
I previously had Etymotic ER4 microPro headphones, and had custom molds made by ACS Custom.  Unfortunately, I left them on a plane once and lost them.  Since then I had to live with a few mediocre headphones (my punishment).  But I decided that I waited long enough and bought a new pair of Etymotic hf3 headphones.  They have a microphone and controls, so they are perfect for use with my iPhone.
I also ordered another set of molds from ACS Custom (cheaper, since they already had my ear imprints).
I found a really cool app from Etymotic, the Awareness app.  Since the Ety’s completely block out the sounds from the outside world, you can run this app while listening to your music, and it would monitor the sounds through the microphone, and when the sound level ‘outside’ reaches a user-defined threshold, it would actually pause the music and pass through the sound from the microphone to the headphones.  It works surprisingly well!