Friday, March 24, 2006


don't forget the coffee meetup

yuppers, nyc coffee lovers, the next meetup is at juan valdez on e. 57th st. on mar. 29. that's next wednesday.

we'll be discussing brewing temperatures. run on over to r.s.v.p. and be sure to download the reading materials i've posted in the files section, unless you own the books already.

which you probably do, or you wouldn't be a meetup member.

lemme also offer a quick description of andrew b's ecco sao benedito from yesterday. i want to brew this in the chemex too before i talk a lot about it.

got your scaa flavor wheel? i found this 3-day-old, full-city coffee to hover between a sweet and soft taste; the rich bouquet offered spicy flowers, roasted almonds, vanilla, and a caramel aftertaste.

it had a pleasing, medium-weight body. but i want to experiment more with the grind before i start my full rhapsody. . .

in response to email requests, i'll digress more on yesterday's shuffle headphones. when he saw them, my husband remarked that they actually aren't wireless shuffle headphones in the normal sense; for example, the don't use bluetooth or anything.

they are actually fancy shuffle holders. but hey that works for me.

another point i want to address: sure, these brookstone babies aren't anywhere in the bose league. not even near.

but they also cost only 1/3 of what the bose 'phones do. so what would you expect?

as everyone who works with me can tell you -- they are constantly jumping up and down and waving at me to get my attention -- the bose set absolutely creates a near "cone of silence."

with the noise cancelling on, you hear zip. zilch. nothing. people can stand right next to you, talk in a normal office tone of voice and you won't hear 'em.

in my loud, open bull-pen office where the sales guys are always shouting at each other, this is a good thing. ymmv, of course.

the brookstone noise-cancelling isn't nearly as good. it seems to work at different levels. for example, normal voices at 20 ft. will vanish, while those next to you are only slightly dimmed.

traffic noise is somewhat dimmed, the subway is barely is at all dimmed and certainly not conquered, while keyboard clacking comes thru loud and clear.

this leads me to think the brookstone noise cancelling is aimed more at low-frequency, rumbling sounds. male voices are cancelled better than female ones.

another problem is that many noise-cancelling 'phones boost the volume of the music you're listening to when the cancelling is on. the brookstone don't do this.

so you have to turn the shuffle up, or just use the noise-cancelling by itself.

my husband has the sennheiser noise-cancelling 'phones, which he think has above average noise-cancelling, but they're still not quite as good as the bose. i've also tried the maxell noise-cancelling headphones, but i didn't think the earpieces were large enough to help the effect.

both my husband and i find the brookstone set comfy. if you have "prince charles" ears, you might differ, however. . .

posted by fortune | 8:07 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 1 comments