Big sports day today what with the USC-Ohio State game in a few minutes but rather than write about that I figured I’d give a few quick words on this little contraption to the right. After surfing solo for most of the last summer I decided to hit the market for something that would let me rock some tunes while I’m waiting for some swell (which this summer has meant waiting a long, long time).
After looking online, Aquapac seemed to be the case of choice and at roughly $40 it seemed well worth the investment. I ended up ordering mine from these guys because they were running a sale that included ear phones, an arm-band-lanyard-thing and also some earphone attachment deals for about $45 total, which fit the budget nicely. My Aquapac arrived in only 3 days and I jammed my Creative Zen Stone in while I surveyed the knee-high surf at Hammonds and paddled out, Strung Out pounding in my ears. You can use the headphones just like you normally would but I opted to also use these screwey little silicon pieces that go around the speaker and then are inserted into the ear canal because if water gets between the amp and the ear drum it will sound…well, like the piano at the end of Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer” sounds. The silicone caps create an airpocket between the speaker and your ear drum and right away I noticed a decrease in fidelity, probably about an 80% loss, most noteable with the lower base notes, but since I don’t listen to rap it wasn’t too terrible. Underwater though the sound quality actually seemed to improve, so I might actually use this snorkleing as well.
I would have liked to have had a little more surf to test this guy out in; the paddle out was so easy my hair wasn’t even wet but the headphones stayed put and the sound quality was more than adquate and I felt like having the music actually kept me in the water longer and really, that’s what it’s all about, right? I did a quick check at the end of the session and the Zen player was bone dry so I would call this one a great success. My Zen player is pretty small (about the size of a tic-tac box–no software! No iTunes!) so really a smaller case would be even better and I’m interested to see how this will hold up in some bigger surf, but so far so good.
We actually sell these cases, and so far so good from our customers too. A trip to the local electronics store showed us that the Zen players are some of the smallest ones out there. We’d love to see something smaller too, but that headphone jack needs some room to move around. And by the time you add the armband, thats a whole lotta case. I’d love to see an update on these when you have them out in the surf.Thanks for the update. Oh and one tip for you. If you put your headphones in your ears before you put your head underwater, you get much better results. Sometimes just a drop of water in the ear blocks the sounds from the headphones. Thanks!
Thanks Michelle–just for the record I did buy my Aquapac from you guys (http://www.waterproofcases.net/) but I forgot to put the link in, I’ve just fixed that. Fastest shipping ever, by the way. Haven’t had any swell yet but I did take this out on a snorkel mission Sunday morning and thought it was a tremendous experience. No complaints whatsoever and I’ve actually just ordered a new Creative player so I’ll have a dedicated one strictly for the case. Thanks!