Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm
A place to write about things I enjoy, for my own edification. Headphones, audio gear, albums, whiskey, wine, golden retrievers etc.
recent posts
- From the FAQ: Will you get better sound quality using a Noise Canceling headphone via the 3.5 mm analog cable?
- Dan Clark Audio Aeon x Closed (Drop collaboration)
- Hifiman HE400se: A Worthy Entry-Level Planar Headphone
- Phil’s Top Ten Albums of 2025
- The Sennheiser HD 490 Pro: my new reference open back? A warning shot at Sonova? Both?
Lawyer, unabashed nerd and geek. Purveyor and pusher of excellent sci-fi/fantasy, good food, and repartee. He/him. Dog dad/servant to @Goldendenali.
I’m experimenting with Amazon Affiliate status in an attempt to defray some of the costs of headphone reviews; Amazon links may be affiliate links (depending on whether or not I’ve figured out how to use them correctly). Please feel free to buy elsewhere; this is just one way to recoup the costs of this hobby.
Category: Uncategorized
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It’s that time of year again, so here’s my top ten albums of 2022. As always, curious to hear where you agree or disagree, or what I’ve missed this year. Rating everything on a scale of 10 possible Denalis this time. Phil’s 2022 Top 10 albums 1) “angel in realtime.” – Gang of Youths. This…
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After more than a decade of losing a couple of days a year to fighting with and backing up crappy (but cheap) external hard drives, I have caved and purchased a good, redundant network-attached storage device. This is a Synology DS920+ (Amazon) with four hard drive bays that accept both 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives, as…
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[MSRP $350, $150 on Amazon as of 11/13/22, paid $180 in August 2022] [Tl;dr: These headphones are weak in their MSRP range, but if you get them on a substantial sale, they’re great for use cases where you want some noise cancelation and a more durable headset that won’t break your heart if you lose or…
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Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time or energy, but want to get a quick, tasty dinner ready. If you’re like me, your go-to quick dinner at home might well be breakfast for dinner. When I was in my early twenties, I discovered the joy of a good, quick scrambled egg (bonus points if…
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For posterity (and so I can remember in six months), here’s my current favorites in a number of categories: Favorite Dogs: Denali Bodhi Nika All other dogs. Favorite Audio Stuff Overall headphone: Meze 109 Pro Noise-canceling headphones: Apple AirPods Max (for airplanes), Apple AirPodsPro Gen2 (for everything else) [and that irritates me to say] Closed-backed…
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The 2010 Chateau Pre La Lande Bordeaux (originally $13, I believe?). Opened and decanted immediately before dinner. Nose: Red fruits, a little pencil eraser, and acetone on the nose (but not in an unpleasant way). If I hadn’t looked at the bottle, I’d probably have assumed this was 2018 or 2019. Still very dark purple…
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My dad died in December of 2019. Way to start on a down note, amiright? December of 2019 and January of 2020 were a crazy time in the world. We were just starting to hear about this thing called COVID-19, and trying to figure out how it was going to impact our world and…
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[Tl;dr: I really like the AirPodsPro Gen 2. I didn’t want to. But damn, Apple figured some things out.] Scores: Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 DenalisCost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis. [Update 1/20/24: after more than a year, I thought it was worth briefly revisiting the AirPods Pro 2. They’re … still great. They…
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[Tl;dr: The Apple AirPods Max are a really good set of headphones with a rich feature set, broad utility, and all-around good sound. They do have a few flaws, and they’re REALLY expensive. I probably wouldn’t pay MSRP for them right now given the other options out there, but they’re still a really well-designed and…
Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm 