What's a safe volume level for someone who flies a lot?

Q: Hi , I wish to know what's the safe level volume to be used with In ear monitoring headphones , I'm a young commercial pilot who recently got selected with an airline n so I was wondering the music I hear from day to day life , does it damage my hearing capabilities?

A: Safe volume = lowest volume that you can listen comfortably

Keep in mind that counting the number of bars on a phone's scale may not objectively reflect the intensity or loudness of sound exposure. Measuring decibels is the only objective way of quantifying sound levels, but that's often difficult to do ith IEMs. The good news is that typically folks listen to music at lower dB levels with IEMs than full size headphones because IEMs are in your ear canal and seal better.

If you are flying a lot, probably tthe most important thing is to resist the temptation to increase the volume of the music as external ambient noise increases. Drowning noise with more noise is never a good idea.

Wax on, wax off

Q: How do you clean IEM sound tunnel/canal? My IEMs always end up with a lot of wax deposited inside the little tube.

A: Many IEMs come with their own cleaning tool. Alternatively, you can DIY your own with some thin wire (make a loop) or use something like a toothpick or safety pin (carefully!). Avoid using chemicals or dipping the IEM in solvents. Debrox (hydrogen peroxide) may be a good choice to clean ear canals, but it's a terrible choice to clean IEM canals, b ecause the peroxide fizzes and gets everywhere.

Family Feud - the Onkyo DP-X1 versus the Pioneer XDP-100

The Onkyo DP-X1 and Pioneer XDP-100 are very similar  digital audio players (DAPs). Both have similar designs (the big difference is that the DP-X1 has a dual DAC/amp configuration that allows balanced output) and both are marketed to audiophiles.

I did a side-by-side of the Onkyo DP-X1 and the Pioneer XDP-100 before going with the Pioneer over the Onkyo primarily because I didn't want a dual DAC or balanced configuration. I'll explain why.

First, I primarily use my DAP when I am traveling, and I don't take super expensive IEMs on the road with me, mainly because I have lost quite a few. My usual "travel kit" now-a-days is a Shure SE535 and usually a second IEM with an inline mic/remote in case I'm taking calls. I try hard not to take anything more expensive than the SE535 with me on my travels because I'm convinced I'll lose them. To prove my point, I'm now on my third pair of 535s having lost the previous two when traveling, which tells you how absent minded I am...

And second, apart from the inevitable unbridled depression that will set in if I lose the more expensive DP-X1, the primary reason I chose the XDP-100 is because I don't think you need a balanced setup when on the road. Airports and airplanes (and trains and buses and cars) aren't really ideal listening environments, and I'm not really in the mood for critical listening on a long flight as much as I want to drown out most of the ambient noise and catch up on my Spotify playlists while I get some work done.

Plus, the best thing about wearing IEMs on long flights isn't the fact that you can engage in a critical listening session, but that you can always use them as an excuse not talk to the person sitting next to you.

Do not underestimate the power of the DAC side of the Force - Pioneer XDP-100 portable digital audio player mini review

Pioneer Home Electronics was bought by Onkyo last year, and in the process of aligning their brands, two very similar portable digital audio players (DAPs) released - the Pioneer XDP-100 and the Onkyo DP-X1. They are very similar, the primary difference being extra circuitry on the Onkyo DP-X1 that allows it to run headphones in a balanced configuration. And as a consequence, the Onkyo costs more.

The Pioneer XDP-100 runs Android Lollipop (5.1.1) with some modest tweaks. This means that in addition to playing files you have stored on the device,  you can use wifi to stream music using apps you download from the Google Play store, like Spotify or Tidal.

So without further ado, let's examine the Pioneer XDP-100.

First the looks. The XDP-100 looks like a premium DAP, and feels like a premium DAP with its expensive-looking aluminum case. Build quality is impeccable. The interface is quick and responsive. Screen glare is prominent in sunlight. The 4.7 inch screen  with its 1280 x 720 resolution isn't HD enough for decent video playback compared to most modern high-end smartphones.

But then the XDP-100 isn't intended to be your video consumption device, it's primarily an mp3 player and a device that streams audio from online services. To achieve this, it has an ESS Sabre ES90182KM DAC, which sounds like, well, pretty much every other delta sigma DAC, and supports up to 24 bit /192 kHz audio. Solid state amplification is acheieved by a Sabre 9601A chip. The DAC and amp chips are separated from the rest of the components on the circuit board in an attempt to minimize noise, which is a clever design decision. The XDP-100 supports pretty much every file format you can throw at it, including WAV, FLAC/ ALAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC and of course MP3. It also supports DSD (DSF/DSDIFF) and MQA. There's a 3.5mm headphone jack for output, and it can also output via the micro USB port and an OTG cable.

There are three gain settings to optimize listening levels with your headphones. Battery life is advertised at 16 hours with 24 bit/ 96 kHZ FLAC files, I get 14-15 hours in real life, which isn't bad, especially given how much juice the screen sucks up.

In addition to wifi it supports bluetooth. Power output is 75 mW per channel at 32 ohms, which isn't much but then this is a device intended for portable use (although the headphone jack supports line out, so in a pinch you could connect it to active speakers or even into an amp). Pioneer rates the XDP-100 for headphones up to 300 ohms but it struggled with my Beyerdymanic DT990 Pro (250 ohms). And it simply does not deliver enough current to bring the best out of planar headphones. What it is best paired with are a pair of sensitive IEMs.

Now if you plan to play exclusively WAV or DSD files on any DAP, you need either lots of storage or *very short* playlists. Even though internal storage is 32 GB which is anemic by today's standards, two microSD slots allow you to add an extra 400GB, which makes running the XDP-100 with an all-DSD playlist a viable option. And if you (like most folks in the universe today) have a collection of predominantly MP3 or even FLAC files, you can stuff a *lot* of songs into the XDP-100 if you so desire.

And now on to the sound. The best feature of the XDP-100 is its lack of floor noise, even with finicky IEMs like the Shure SE846. Tonally the XDP-100 sounds relatively neutral, with clean highs and distortion-free bass, my only gripe is that there is a very modest granularity to the mids (which is most obvious with classical music). With that said, it does a good job of "getting out of the way" of the signal, and doesn't appreciably color the sound in any way.

With respect to the user interface, if you are comfortable with Android you will be comfortable with the XDP-100. Home screen scrolling is fast and smooth, apps start up just like my phone.

I like Pioneer's music player app, I use it for onboard files - I load up songs on the dual microSDs using Pioneer's XDAP for Windows to manage my transfers from PC to XDP-100.

It came with Tidal and Spotify apps preinstalled, if memory serves me right. Google Play store is on the device, but I don't remember downloading the apps when I unboxed the XDP-100. I subscribe to both, but then I pretty much only use Spotify on the go because I have a bunch of playlists lined up for offline use: it just takes a few minutes to go "out with the old, in with the new" when I have access to wifi and in just a few minutes hey presto I have a whole new set of songs I wanted to listen to and I'm good to go.

It did come preloaded with other bloatware apps that I got rid of (OnkyoMusic, for example). I only have a few apps on the XDP100 apart from streaming services + music player (like Audible, Flightaware, the New York Times) so I havent really stressed it to see if it becomes sluggish with multiple apps running at once. I don't play games on it, mainly because the screen isn't as good as my phone.

In sum, the UI is like any typical android phone. Pioneer music player is great. Compared to the crappy DAP interfaces in many other products (Fiio I'm looking at you) this is 2 to the power 64 times better (sorry, I'm playing No Mans Sky right now and couldn't help myself).