YGingras^.net

There is a lot of noise in my life. There is the fact that I live in a lively city with busy streets and a lot of night life. Thats the kind of noise that I like. Then there is the noise that is killing me: office noise.

I work in a cube farm of the wost kind. Not only are partitions low enough to make it practical to shout over instead of moving your ass, partitions are made of painted gypsum instead of cloth. As a result, noise is reflected all over the place instead of being absorbed. Not all noise is created equal: it was shown that conversation is the thing that kills the concentration of office workers the most. At work, we are packed tight and I can hear at least 10 persons when they are talking, which certainly can't help my productivity.

A few weeks a ago, I asked experts for advice. They praised the quality, isolation, and comfort of several pair of head phones. Thanks to their recommendations, I'm now the proud owner a pair of Beyer DT770 Pro and I finally can enjoy tranquillity at work.

Before the DT770s, my only options were to offset my schedule so I would be alone for a few hours or to bang loud music all day long which made me feel great for the first few minutes but miserable the rest of the day.

I ordered mines on ebay: delivery took forever but I paid a lot less than I would have on Amazon or at a local store. I was I home when I first tried them; how did I manage to listen to music through speakers all these years? I'm the kind of geeks with a few computers always running under his desk. I was aware of the constant humming noise from the fans but it never occurred to me that it was that bad. When I slept the DT770s on, I was suddenly bathed in crystal clear melodies. No need to crank up the volume, it was all there without being overwhelming. I slept really well that night, with my headphones on.

The DT770s have a really present bass. I was warned that it could be a bit too much but I actually find it rather pleasurable while listening to relaxing down-tempo groovy music. Some headphones achieve isolation with strong clamping force; the DT770s do it with a copious amount of padding instead. That makes them big but I can wear them for several hours without any discomfort, even with my glasses on.

But its not at home that I planned to use my new headphones. The real test was the first day at the office. There was a lot of action going on that day and I was not able to sit at my desk for more than five minutes until I came back from lunch. Over-fed once again, exhausted by yet another crazy week, I was really feeling for a nap. I unpacked my DT770s and slept them on, then I was all alone with the music.

Conversations, rattling keyboards, footsteps on the hardwood floors: they were all gone. It was so good to see someone come by, see his lips move then see him go away, all of this without hearing anything but the music. He could not guess that I was not in the hellhole with him anymore. Where I was, it was no use shouting over a cube division to get someone's attention. I was transported to a peaceful work environment, a place were you can concentrate on a task for hours at a time, a place where work in is a pleasure once again.

I love those headphones; I passionately recommend them to anyone who needs a portable tranquility generator.