Why Spend More?

Unbelievable prices at the moment on Amazon for two excellent items that I own:

Sony MDR-ZX110 Headphones w/mic and pause button: $15 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OUX6U6G/

Subynanal USB-C Dongle DAC/headphone amp: $3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08817XKSW

A dongle DAC is pretty much a requirement for those who prefer wired headphones for their phones. At only three measly bucks, the DAC’s specs aren’t state-of-the-art, but the sound is excellent, the noise floor is silent (no added hiss), and there’s plenty of volume with all of my headphones and IEMs I’ve tried.

According to Amir at Audio Science Review, equalizing the Sony headphones (for the Harman target frequency response curve) “produces reference quality sound!” You can do that automatically on an Android phone, using the free Wavelet app. (I sometimes prefer the un-equalized sound.)

The sky’s the limit on expensive audio equipment, but for most everybody there’s no need to spend more than $18. Don’t need the mic and pause button? Then the headphones are only ten bucks. I’m not limited to these two products, but if I were I’d be perfectly okay with that.

Hooked on Needles

Something I realized rather quickly with CD (and also DVD), is the players are commodities. I have never felt the same personal connection for a disc player the way I always have for my speakers, headphones, receivers, turntables, and phono cartridges. Yes, even phono cartridges.

These are a few of the pickups, as cartridges used to be known, that I remember fondly.

The Pickering V15 came installed on my Garrard 40B turntable, way back in early 1972. Five years later, the Stanton 500 was on the Micro-Trak tonearms of the Russco Cue-Master turntables at the radio station.

The Shure M91ED was purchased to replace the Pickering.

The Audio-Technica AT-13Ea lived on my JVC VL-5 turntable.

Skim-mer Milking

I very rarely use my Bank of America ATM card. Who uses cash anymore anyway? But every so often, there’s a reason to have some cash handy.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the new driveway sealed by the asphalt outfit that paved it a couple of years ago. The two guys the company sent did a perfect job, and when they were done I handed each of them a $20 bill. Good for beer, snacks, and lottery tickets.

To make cash withdrawals, I use the ATM inside the branch office of a local savings bank — with only one recent exception. Generic ATM’s are not to be trusted. Not ever. But what about an official Bank of America ATM? Like this one, in the corner of a Trader Joe’s parking lot. Shouldn’t it be a safe exception?

Despite not being in a branch office, there’s no way it could have a skimmer installed in it, is there? BoA’s technology must certainly be able to detect any tampering, right? You know what’s coming.

Of course it was hacked, and of course the card’s data was skimmed and stolen. Or, perhaps, a WiFi webcam had been planted in a strategic spot. Literally the only use of my debit card over the past year was one time at that ATM. Yesterday, my phone buzzed with this message.

Checking my e-mail, this was what I saw. There’s no reason to hide the last four digits of the card. It was deactivated within half an hour of my seeing the notices, and a new card is being sent to me by Bank of America.

The tiny amount of the withdrawal from my checking account was a typical tryout to see if the account could be exploited. The bank said it had been set up as a recurring payment, and I assume the next charge would have been for substantially more. The company name behind the crime is a legitimate business in England, and it’s undoubtedly also a victim of this fraud.

https://www.arrowsecurityshutters.co.uk/