VIPER HEAD

TAKING MY VIPERS OUT FOR A WALK IN SHEUNG WAN.

MY VIPERS AND I EN ROUTE TO BANGKOK.
MY VIPERS BEHAVE WELL IN FLIGHTS.

(NOTE TO SELF: TRIM EYEBROWS. GETTING GRUNGY.)

 IF YOU DON'T MIND, HYPERACTIVE, I'D LIKE TO HAVE MY LOOK BACK, PLEASE!

I recently received a set of Viper Head in-ear noise-isolating headphones from the folks at Quarkie. Thank you. 

When I first laid my eyes on my twin yellow vipers, I feared they might uncoil and attack. The cold reptilian eyes, the kinetic tongue, the textured skin... The level of detail is impressive. Other noise-isolating headphones look just like generic earphones - so where's the fun in that? Noise-canceling headphones, on the other hand, tend to be (1) huge, heavy, unattractive cans in standard black or silver; (2) need batteries (!) and; (3) expensive. So my vipers indeed made a very good first impression on me. I was excited to take them out for a whirl in busy Sheung Wan.

Before we proceed further, please note that neither noise-isolating nor noise-canceling headphones can really eliminate noise. Only the Miss Universe's legendary "sound-proof isolation booth" can do that, natch. OK, let's keep going.

I tested several different kinds of noise-canceling headphones at Siam Paragon in Bangkok a few weeks ago. I could still hear what was happening around me, although conversations sounded like they were happening in the next room. In your room, here and now, the noise is simply reduced enough so you're lulled into some illusion of personal space. You'll feel magically alone, even if you were indeed stuck in Saladaeng rush hour during Songkran. In which case, you'd have to be crazy to have an expensive piece of equipment on your person. It will get wet and will immediately become useless. You will cry. You should have just thrown your baht away on "body-to-body massage," every day, twice a day, for the whole fucking holiday. Regardless, if you're in perpetually noisy environments where you need to tune the rest of heaving humanity out in order to function, buy a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

But if - like me - you're more concerned about crytal-clear music enjoyment so you can nurture your growing lesbian relationship with Jennifer Lopez, get yourself a pair of noise-isolating headphones instead. They reduce noise, too, without having a misleading term like "canceling." I particularly like how the viper head's custom eartips (comes in 4 sizes) pop easily into my ears for a perfect seal. Getting into my ear canals also means that the sound quality is richer, better, with very little to no distortion.

Let's do girl talk, J.Lo - just you and I.

// NO HISSING, PLEASE. //