Finally, the headphone arrives!

Way back in early January at the Calgary Motorcycle Show, I ordered a custom headphone system and some custom ear plugs. Dylan also picked up some custom plugs as well. He seems to be content letting me be the equipment testing guinea pig. Fair enough.

The challenge for me was that I am deaf in one ear so listening to music on headphones -until the MP3 format came to be and I could convert my music properly - has been a complete waste of my time. For those of you "full hearers", just try listening to some good 'ol Led Zepplin or something with only one headphone in. You'll soon get my point after listening to Robert Plant whailing for a couple of minutes with only a set of drums behind him. Listen to the other headphone and that's where Jimmy Page is hanging out. Short story long, stereo sound sucks.

Back to the story, E.A.R. Inc sells a dual-driver, sound blocking (earplug) custom headphone system where the headphone is made of a mold of your ear canal. It blocks most ambient sound, thereby allowing one to listen to music at reduced volumes and protecting ones hearing at the same time. After talking to the Canadian distributor, she agreed to sell me a custom, custom set for half price. The headphone would go only to my good ear and would be wired for both the left and right channels. It would be ready in 10 business days; the end of January. Wooo!

After a dozen phone calls and lots of talk, the headphone arrived just this week - the 16th of March.

Now, I don't mind for a second that they took this long to come in - it's one of the reasons Dylan and I are planning way ahead for the trip. However, the greatest customer service lesson I learned back when I sold high-end menswear in university is to under promise, over deliver. E.A.R. Inc. needs to learn this.

Now having vented about the delay, I have to say that I think this headphone system has got to be one of the greatest equipment buys for the trip. The sound quality is unlike anything I have ever imagined and I can listen to my music comfortably with my MP3 player on its minimum volume!

Now all I need is to learn to play pinball. I have the deaf and blind part down pat already.