A while back I bought a Meizu EP51 Bluetooth earphone, and a few days ago it broke. It broke out of nowhere. I got home from a run and the right earbud just kept hissing noise, the thing stopped responding, then it got hot, then it was dead. I’m guessing some part of the waterproofing wasn’t done right. But I bought the mainland China version, so I figured I’d take it to the local Meizu place for repair. Their attitude was actually fine, it’s just that you have to wait in line.

A while back there was a JD sale, and the Edifier S1000 had a pretty good price. I’d been wanting to replace my old Edifier R1600TIII anyway, so I just went ahead and bought it. At the same time, to make swapping in headphones easier, I picked up the Aune X1S, this DAC/amp combo unit. So just getting these two things set up took a hell of a lot of effort.

So, I broke my sleep earphones again. My sleep earphones basically serve two purposes: plugging into the Surface Pro, and plugging into other tablets to listen to voice tracks. At first I used Earpods, then Princess talked me into buying an Audio-Technica CX550. Then I lost that pair, and after some searching I found out the strongest sleep earphones are the K314p. A year after I got them I learned they’d actually gone up in price, which scared me into putting them up on a shelf. To have a replacement I bought a bunch of Diving Expert models, but the quality was honestly terrible, so I had to pick up Beyerdynamic’s new DP100, which broke soon after too. Then I bought M&G’s K314P reissue, and as you’d expect, the cable snapped before long. So out of sheer desperation I bought this Edifier H293P Killer Earphone, 99 yuan. You can probably understand my helplessness by now. My requirements for sleep earphones are simple: Nothing with heavy bass. I use them for Galgame and voice tracks, I don’t want boom-boom-thump. Comfortable to wear. This should be the basic requirement for sleep earphones. Durable. This one matters a lot, since I’ve broken every pair before. So how does the Edifier H293P Killer Earphone perform?

These days there’s a standard term for the bag you carry around every day — EDC, short for Every Day Carry or whatever. Point is, it’s the stuff you haul around daily. By that definition I’ve got an EDC bag too, usually with a work ThinkPad and some accessories inside, plus a portable pair of headphones so I can plug into the laptop. The first pick was the AKG K420, until a family member took it. Then I switched to the JVC SR500. Honestly the JVC isn’t as good as the K420 — portability alone is a problem. Folded up it feels loose and floppy, and the sound has no real highlight; the highs aren’t transparent enough. So after a year and a half of service, the JVC SR500 finally broke! (Why do I say “finally”?) Thus the hunt for a successor began. Requirements: 1) portable; 2) decent sound; 3) comfortable; 4) under 200 yuan; 5) closed-back. So I bought the Edifier H690.