Mini-Review: Sennheiser MX 365 Earphones

No, you're not misreading that title. This is not gaming related. I've been shopping for replacement earbuds for my SanDisk Clip Sport Plus. It came with earbuds that fit inside your ear canal, which I can't stand. I spent some time poking around Amazon and discovered there are approximately 8 billion headsets for mobile devices and cell phones available. However, most of these have the same design and features I don't want (namely, microphones). I went looking for what I guess I'd call classic earbuds and ended up with the Sennheiser MX 365, which currently lists for $13-15 US on Amazon. I've been using them for the last couple days and here are the highlights:

• Extra-long, symmetrical cord. I measured it at a hair under 50 inches from the top of the earbud to the audio jack. As a really tall dude, I appreciate being able to stick my music player in my pants pocket without stooping to accommodate a short cord.
• Right-angle 1/8"/3.5mm audio jack. This is personal preference, but I always find straight jacks catch on clothing.
•  Foam earbud covers. These fit over the speaker side of each earbud and provide a little cushioning and a better grip than the smooth plastic shell. They were a tight fit and a little hard to get on, so I don't think they'll be coming off.
• Minor concern: the cord is pretty thin so durability may be an issue. For a product costing about $15, I can live with that.

The earbuds themselves are a bit larger than original Apple earbuds. They fit my ears well snugly but might be a little big for some people. I measured one of mine with the foam pad on and it is approximately 11/16"/17.5mm. Note that these headphones do not have a mic or integrated volume control. They are just earbuds.

For lightweight earbuds, the sound quality pretty darn good. I listen to classic rock, metal, folk, electronica, and ambient music. This headset delivers plenty of volume and solid bass without losing the details of the music. I'd call the overall sound warm, accurate, and well-rounded. Available tech specs are limited:

• 20-20,000 Hz frequency response
• 110 dB sound pressure level (1 kHz/1 Vrms)
• 32 ohm impedance

Bottom line: Thumbs up. I'm pleased with this purchase and, barring sudden failures, would buy Sennheiser's MX 365 earphones again. I chose the white option (easy to spot in a bag), but there are other color options available (the manufacturer's page says six colors, but I've only seen blue, red, and white). These earphones have a 2-year manufacturer's warranty.

Full disclosure: This post uses Amazon affiliate links.

A (Late) 2015 Recap

Looking back over the blog's post history, I see there's been well over a month of silence here. Even though the end of 2015 was quiet, I think a (belated) year-end wrap won't be a bad thing. Three major blog topics all came to an end within a few weeks of each other in November:

• My Labyrinth Lord play-by-email game, the Wilds came to a bloody end when the party found themselves caught in a complex ambush in Blackpool Maze.
• I finished the 100th Dungeons in Blue geomorph in my Tile of the Week series and decided that was a good ending point, at least for the moment.
• My Minecraft city building project died a slow death, the victim of the ennui that I often feel after playing vanilla Minecraft for a couple of months.

Of course, there were a few side posts here and there in 2015 too. I did a first look at the PC video games Skyforge and GRAV and did a write up of the deadly Cold Shades that killed off several of party followers in the Wilds. I also wrote a short piece on using the Mythic GM Emulator for NPC decisions, and posted regular updates on new PBE Games products -- more on that in a minute.

One of the good things about having a couple big, focused series to write about is you always know what you're going to have on the slate. The bad thing is, when they end, it leaves a hole. In this case, it left three big holes. I don't think I'm done with the blog, but I find myself struggling to write. At the very least I should cull through some of the magic items that are now in the hands of the Necromancer in Blackpool and post them up here. Beyond that, we'll see. RPGs are in a holding pattern at the moment, and my list of current video games, Diablo III, Mechwarrior Online and Minecraft with the FTB/Direwolf20 mod pack are all fairly well-trod ground. I guess we'll see what the next month brings.

As for PBE Games, well, the end of the year was quite busy. I've published 17 new titles since the last update. I'm not going to do an item-by-item list, it'd be embarrassingly long, but here are the highlights:

• Five new Dungeons in Blue Mega Tiles, available as a discount five pack
• Three new Dungeons in Blue Expansion Sets and the associated triple pack
• Three new Small Dungeons maps, also available as a discount bundle
• Two new One Page tables, Dungeon Architecture and Fantasy Fungi, along with a discount five pack that contains these and three older products

As you can see, I wasn't a total slacker in December. I'm sure something new will come along, or I'll start a new game that will spark the desire to write about RPGs. Until then, not dead, just resting.

New Year's Eve

Yes, I am a sad excuse for a human being. I'm celebrating New Years Eve with a boat cruise in Minecraft.

I'm in a boat!

Happy New Year to all my readers and all the folks that have supported PBE Games over the last (almost) two years. Many thanks.

Oh 2014, You Joker!

I was planning to publish two products today, but 2014 had other plans, gifting me with a crashed hard drive in my main machine. Luckily I'm an anal-retentive IT guy, so I have backups and the drive is part of a RAID1 array. No data lost, just time and patience. If all goes well, tomorrow I'll have a chance to do something productive. Between the usual holiday stuff and playing a bit too much Don't Starve (an indie survival adventure PC game which is surprisingly addictive), my completed projects queue is getting short! Right now I have two more complete One Pages, and two more Dungeons in Blue Small Dungeons ready to roll, plus two more Dungeons in Blue geomorph packs mostly done. I'm also working on a couple new things, a series of mapping-oriented texture packs, and an in-depth reworking of Ground Rules, the hex-terrain generator I built a while back.

For now, I'm off to do some frog-hunting. So hungry...

Halloween Demons Already

Bogleech breaks the ice with their Top Ten "Dictionnaire Infernal" Demons. As always Bogleech is a great source for random weird stuff, be it the hell of nature's own creations or the site's own bizarre finds and creations, it's always worth a read.

Paper Grid Things

I've been messing around with some terrain generation tables lately. Mostly aimed at building quasi-random hex maps. They're coming together into something kind of interesting, but they're not quite ready for prime time yet.

In the process of building these, I needed a few sheets of hex paper with over-sized hexes, so I could scribble some notes in each as I went about how I was using the terrain tables. I couldn't find any in my paper stash that was appropriate, so I went back to an old friend, Incompetech graph paper!

If you've never used this site, you should. The owner has a bunch of different options for building custom paper and spits out a PDF sheet according to your specifications. Grids, triangles, hexes, axonometric, polar, spider, brick, and more, plus a bunch of specialty stuff like note pads, musical scores, and storyboards.

It rocks. Bookmark it!

Natural Beauty... OF DEATH

Saw this posted up on G+, figured I would share. Five awesome, deadly sites that you can visit in person, and die.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html

Time to build a nice set of outdoor scenarios for these.

Who Needs a Monster Manual...

When Japanese corporations provide you with all the monsters you need?

http://pinktentacle.com/2011/02/pachimon-playing-cards/