When I'm at work I like to listen to music on my mp3 player or through internet radio. In order to remain aware of my surroundings I only use one earphone.
However, because I'm such a conscientious kinda guy, I worry that my coworkers are getting hacked off at the noise form the other ear phone. Paranoia whispers in my vacant ear that, unmuffled, the spare earphone's tinniness can be heard by everyone in my vicinity. They despise me - the iPod guy - insolent little brat that he is.
I need a third ear, one that can be affixed to, say, my monitor, into which I can plug the spare earphone and potentially crank it up a bit.-- theleopard, Apr 16 2009 tinny? did anyone say tinny? http://www.youtube....watch?v=-gwXJsWHupg [zeno, Apr 18 2009] Third Ear http://www.guardian...e-artist-ear-impantJust get this done and plug it in here. [xenzag, Apr 19 2009] What's more disturbing?... http://www.cliparto...s/clipart/9098.html...this clip-art image of a massive ear in a computer screen or the fact that it costs between $30 and $70 to download? [theleopard, Apr 20 2009] I know I could change the balance of the sound to one earphone, but isn't that a bit fiddly considering the purpose?-- theleopard, Apr 16 2009 All headphones should come along with sound-absorbing prosthetic ears in which they can be housed during non-utilisation.-- zen_tom, Apr 16 2009 Q Tri-tips?-- blissmiss, Apr 16 2009 Is there any reason you need to hear noises outside of the headphones?-- Zimmy, Apr 16 2009 How about a jam jar with a grommet protected hole in the lid, through which the spare connection lead is fed, leaving the redundant earpiece dangling inside? You could also keep a fly in there as a pet, being entertained by the mono music.-- xenzag, Apr 16 2009 //Is there any reason //
In case people are trying to get my attention. I work on a magazine and often people need to ask me quick questions. I don't want to look like a div as they call my name 15 times, getting everybody else's attention before they get mine. That will make everyone even more cross with me than they are now, what with the tinniness an' all.-- theleopard, Apr 16 2009 I voted for this. I think there should be a way to add a microphone input into you headphone's sound.
(I actually liked it being difficult to get my attention back when I had all my tunes on my work computer. I got more done that way).-- Zimmy, Apr 16 2009 Only if I were [Van Gogh]. Such a comment would remind me of that no-good-nik Gauguin and the terrible faux pas of mine when I cut off my lobe and gave it to that 'nice lady'... All she could say was "What's this 'ere!?"-- Jinbish, Apr 16 2009 //would it be insensitive to lend this ear?//hmm...-- FlyingToaster, Apr 16 2009 That requires [theleopard] to own such a device and swap between it and his regular (no doubt quintaphonic, stereoscopic, telescopic, melodic buds of sound) earphones.
The third ear allows one to wear regular plugs on the way to work and then simply take out a single ear and stick it in the plug.-- Jinbish, Apr 16 2009 Happy New Ear!-- csea, Apr 16 2009 Friends, Romans, countrymen...-- normzone, Apr 16 2009 [21], I live in London and get the tube to work. Or, if I stay at my girlfriend's, the bus.
An ear muffler seems to me an easier option than to have two sets of earphones that I have to swap over. As [jinbish] says, it's a matter of convenience.
Thanks for the link though. I wasn't aware of those. In this unbaked world, that's the best our civilisation has to offer, and I may just utilise one, until some billionaire megalomaniac buys the rights to the halfbakery and produces all of its ideas on an industrial scale.
We can only live in hope.-- theleopard, Apr 16 2009 Well, if you'd like to become a billionaire megalomaniac, let me tell you about a multilevel marketing piracy scheme that you can get in on the ground floor of ;-)-- normzone, Apr 16 2009 Isn't it a case of mixing audio channels on the computer. Have the computer microphone on as well.
For a mp3 player a reverse splitter could give you a jack to pipe the computers output(mic signals) into.-- wjt, Apr 19 2009 Baked!! - see link.-- xenzag, Apr 19 2009 Would this be the legendary Star Trek "Final Front Ear"?-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Apr 19 2009 Surely you can just stick the unused earphone up your nose? Then your coworkers won't be disturbed, you'll be able to hear with one ear, and the sound from the nasally-inserted earphone will travel through your sinuses and eustachian tubes, adding an ambient, 'surround-sound' layer to the auditory experience.-- hippo, Apr 20 2009 Honorary croissant for hippo, the Man With An iPod Up His Nose.
Don't you worry that you're only hearing half the music? It depends what you're listening to, maybe. In the Sixties when stereo had only just been invented, there were some very peculiar ways of laying out the stereo picture - using only a single earbud, without some sort of channel mixing, might give you either no drums or no vocal depending which one you choose. And Hendrix's guitar would fade in and out due to the actions of the loony who was controlling the panpot.-- English Bob, Apr 20 2009 //the sound from the nasally-inserted earphone//
Will sound just like Colonel Bogey.-- Jinbish, Apr 20 2009 //Surely you can just stick the unused earphone up your nose//....and with a bit of surgical excavation your head could double up as a bass bin.-- xenzag, Apr 20 2009 [englishbob] I find that a subtle boon to using one earphone. The vast majority of my music appears to be balanced but every now and then a tune that you previously hadn't noticed was split over the stereo suddenly becomes an entirely new tune.
Sometimes it's better to be on the left channel, sometimes the right, depending of course on whether you'd like to hear a rhythm-less Hendrix solo, or the otherwise obscured rhythm section behind it. What I'm saying is, it's a new way of exploring your music all over again - but by accident.-- theleopard, Apr 21 2009 Just thinking of syphoning off that Hendrix solo... How about introducing some kind of reaction by the third ear to the incoming music? Make it vibrate, or wiggle, or change colour in a psychedelic fashion?It could sit on your desk and go apeshit to Voodoo Child.-- Jinbish, Apr 21 2009 But only when it hears Hendrix?-- theleopard, Apr 21 2009 Not just Hendrix. Iggy Pop, Eurythmics, f***ing Beethoven.(Geez, what is it with you and Hendrix! ;-)-- Jinbish, Apr 21 2009 Eh yo, obviously you can't "hear" Jimmy.
Y'all just "listen".-- theleopard, Apr 21 2009 Me and Jimi, we're just fine, so let's not get distracted from the reason we're all Ear.-- Jinbish, Apr 21 2009 random, halfbakery