My Christmas Present to me. :)

This is going to be a relatively short post because I spent most of my half day off at the wedding and with friends after that so I didn't really get started on my planned Japan Day 1 / Kalafina Museum / Kalafina After Eden Live Part 2 post till about 1 1/2 hours ago.  Unfortunately, I'm very verbose and although I have written quite a bit already, it'll still take a little while more before I complete writing it and uploading the photos etc.

Meanwhile, I really want to make a little note in my blog about a purchase I didn't think I should make but ended up making in the end.  After thinking about it for months, I finally decided to plunk some money down to buy myself a new pair of in-ear noise isolation headphones.  The headphones of my choice is the Creative Aurvana In-Ear3.  I used to own the first Aurvana which was a decent entry level in-ear earphones aimed at audiophiles.  What I liked about the Aurvana line was that they have so far all been very balanced earphones.  I prefer clarity and I don't like an over powering bass.

I, however, can be rather rough with my earphones and after I destroyed my first Aurvana, I decided to see if I could find a more sturdy earphone that gave me a similar performance.  So I got one of the ceramic Nakamichi earphones which had a really study housing but the connections weren't quite as sturdy and the nozzle is rather large and the ear tips kept slipping off and before long I was trying to find replacement tips after losing all the ones that came with the earphones.  After a while, I just got a little annoyed with it since it wasn't fitting in my ear properly so I wasn't getting enough noise isolation on it and because of that I was losing clarity too.  And although these phones were the most expensive ones I had gotten to date, it didn't sound that much better than my first Aurvana to me, hence, it was back to the Auvana line again for me.

After reading many reviews, click me, me, me... and because I've had good experiences with most of the Creative products that I have purchased previously, I decided to go back to what I was familiar with especially since there was also a SGD20 holiday discount at the brick and mortar store in Marina Square.

After test driving the earphones with some Kalafina music (flac compression on a Creative Zen X-fi Style without any software/hardware enhancements), I decided to go for it.  And I must say that after a day of using it, I am very pleased with my purchase.  The A3s are my favourite in-ear headphones to date.... they really sound extremely good.  Kajiura Yuki's music, FictionJunction, Kalafina, Utada Hikaru all sound wonderful to me.  I can hear Keiko quite nicely even in a song like Stone Cold where she's mainly in harmony and it's harder to pick her voice out.  And for some reason, symphonia sounds really good to me on this earphone, even without the more powerful bass some other earphones may give you, Keiko still comes across sounding quite powerful and the overall song sounds really epicly beautiful to me.  That said, the bass isn't going to wow anyone who wants and likes lots of bass but since I prefer more balance and clarity, I'm not bothered about it at all.  The noise isolation on the phones is quite exceptional and blocks out a lot of unwanted sound.  And although it looks a little awkward it is actually very comfortable to wear.  The design is also way better than the earlier Auvanas because I'm not really bothered by the sound of my own breathing and rustling of my clothes when I walk... of course it could also be possible that I'm so used to in-ears that I've learned to tune those sounds out. :)

I'm super happy with my present to myself. :)  Now, I just have to make sure I take better care of it. :p

K... time for bed... I'll continue working on my Japan / Kalafina After Eden Special Live post in the next two days and will hopefully have that up by the end of the week before Christmas.  My Christmas present to some of my friends. :)

Okay, that's it from me for now... good night everyone. :)