Top 5 Products for Listening to Your Music

Okay, so this is really limited to the top 5 products available in my house. I talk quite a bit about the albums and bands I’m listening to, but I rarely write anything about the products I buy to enhance the listening experience.

Full disclosure: My wife is an employee at Plantronics, which owns Altec Lansing, so some of these products came at a little discount.

Here’s a nice list of my products for the budget conscious, non-Bose buying crowd, listed in no particular order. I left off the iPod. I’m assuming you all know what that is.

#1 Plantronics - Pulsar 590 E (Great for music listening at work)

Do you ever plug your headphones into your computer or laptop? Before the Pulsar, I would plug ear-buds into my laptop and at times I’d need to move away from my computer and the buds would rip out of my ear holes. Plantronics solved my problem with the Pulsar, a headset that gives me wireless listening pleasure for about $185. They have a little device that plugs into your computer’s headphone jack and then the headset uses bluetooth technology so you can walk around the home or office untethered. It also syncs with your phone so that you can press a button to mute the music and take a call.

The Downsides: 1) Your ears can really heat up to an uncomfortable degree. 2) One ear blinks constantly, which could irritate the person sitting next to you.
#2 and #3 Altec Lansing AHP712i and Shure E2C (Great for Airplanes)
Noise canceling headphones are a must buy if you travel. I currently own the Altec Lansing AHP712i for long flights and the less conspicuous Shure e2C for shorter flights. Shure’s earbuds work great and you can find them on Amazon for as cheap as $75 (sometimes).

The Downsides: 1) If you keep them in for too long, they get really uncomfortable. 2) They have a little plastic, sticky covering that seals the chamber where sound comes in. If that piece comes off, your ear debris gets lodged in it. It’s a little nasty.

The Altec Lansing’s run about $150 (much cheaper than the $500 Bose headsets) and are much more comfortable than the Shure buds. Definitely preferable over the buds.

The Downsides: 1) Again with the overheating ears. I don’t think this can be avoided. 2) I’ve tried Bose headsets before and they seem to cancel the noise much better than these. I just couldn’t justify the price (and these were given to me as a gift).

#4 Roku 2000-B Network Music Player and Internet Radio (Great product in the home)

The Roku 2000-B is my favorite product on the list. I can open up iTunes and this bad boy grabs the library so I can just browse and play albums and playlists from my home stereo. It connects into your receiver like any other component and takes about 5 seconds to set up. If you have a subscription to Rhapsody, you can also play any music available in your subscription as well as thousands of internet radio stations.
This model costs $359, but there are smaller models for as low as $199. I know people that swear by Squeezebox and Sonos (especially for multiple rooms), but Roku has been serving me well for my needs.

The Downsides: 1) You are limited to one room. 2) You are at the mercy of your wireless Internet network.

#5 Altec Lansing - InMotion iM3 (Perfect for trips)

The Altec Lansing iM3 is perfect for trips. It’s about the size of a book when it’s folded up and extremely lightweight. The sound quality is also great, unless you turn the volume up really high. The iM3 also comes with a remote so you can skip songs from your ass position. It costs about $150.

The Downsides: Sound distorts at high volumes.