I've played around with waterproof headphones and have found the H2O Audio stuff to be reasonable quality. The trick is getting them to stick and stay in your ears so water doesn't get in a screw up the sound.
I'm a drummer and have custom ear molds for my monitor headphones. These require a trip to an audiologist where they squirt goo into your ear and make a mold for silicone plugs that fit your ears perfectly. It's a pretty bizarre experience...
These custom ear molds, in tandem with the H2O Audio headphones are what Nat from Edge Kiteboarding uses almost daily. He swears by the setup (with a waterproofed iPod Shuffle). Here's what his setup looks like:
Nats_Headphones.jpg (59.97 KiB) Viewed 962 times
It's important to get the custom ear molds made for the specific headphones you're using.
I don't remember who made Nat's ear molds for the H2O Audio headphones, but this company seems to be aware of the right fit:
Doesnt that pull all the hair out of your ear when the remove the plug? Ick! I dont need a Brazilian wax in my ear. but sounds comfy afterward!
By far the best sounding headphones I have are those Sony ear buds, they are $50 and sound almost as good as my studio sennheisers. But they are not waterproof. So I tried putting a thin layer of hot glue over the vent holes to seal them off. It worked great, only decreasing the bass a little. The problem is that they dont hold in my ear with the slightest tug on the wires. and getting them back in while riding is hard, especially if you need to keep them dry on the inside. but withy our idea of using the custom ear plug they might work great!
Doesnt that pull all the hair out of your ear when the remove the plug? Ick! I dont need a Brazilian wax in my ear.
I guess it depends on how 'guerilla' your ears are!
I don't remember it being uncomfortable - other than the fact that when they've got the goo in both ears, you hear absolutely nothing - except all the white noise you never knew was in your head all the time.
My cousin is a professional sound guy (he's the front of house engineer/mixer for bands like KISS, Linkin Park, Kid Rock). He hates that white noise (and he has plenty after being in LOUD environments night after night for 20+ years) so much that he now makes two appointments with the audiologist - one for each ear - so he doesn't have all his sound shut off at the same time. Says it drives him nuts to hear all the hissing in his head which you'd otherwise never know was there...
windhorny wrote:You are giving me an idea I might have to try. Make a mini water proof boom box that bolts to the board. that way there is nothing to worry about in terms of wires and headphones. Sound can easily travel through a waterproof bag. I used to do this at our swimming pool as a kid. I would take the mylar used for covering model airplane wings and shrink it over the speakers. The rest was a sealed box. I would put them under the ladder rungs in the pool and the buoyancy would hold them in place. Worked amazingly well. of course that is under water and sound does travel pretty well. especially the higher frequencies. bass, not so much. Then again whales communicate with low freq. for miles. Dolphins seem to use high pitch noises. Maybe it all travels well, who knows.
Maybe Jason Fass can donate a Jambox to try out?
I wonder how any sharks would respond to the all the bass thumping ?
"In this clip from Discovery Channel's, "Ultimate Guide to Sharks," find out how a shark's hearing makes it the ocean's top predator."
I'm gonna bump this subject back up. Any new inputs since last year? Since I started the whole process of unhook/load-and-pop/faceplant, wearing ears protections seems like a good idea. Listening too music while doing so seems even better (and will get me pumped up to stick this stupid ralley). I just don't wanna break the bank.
Kites: 2014 F-One Bandit VII: 12m, 10m and 8m. All pink/blue. All for sale Board: 2014 F-One Spicy & 5'6 Fish. Harness: Manera Exoharness. Wetsuit: Underwave Sultan shortleg 4/3.
I'm only very rarely using earphones these days. While I love having music on the water, I found the extra step of putting them on, dealing with the dangley/tangley wires too much of a hassle, 'specially when I'm chomping hard to get in the water. I've found it's the one extra, non-critical thing I seem to regularly blow off to get in the water that much sooner.
And, it bugs me not to be able to hear during launch and landing time. If the headphones are gonna sound good, they really need to be jammed/fit into your ear (so water doesn't get in a make it sound like the music is playing through applesauce). Having custom molded earphones makes it so you can't hear sh!t when you've got them in, which is think is NOT a good idea if you're kiting at a crowded launch/landing zone.
