Eversolo has been on a roll. The Chinese manufacturer spent years building credibility with value-oriented streamers and DACs before quietly becoming a name that serious audiophiles discuss in the same breath as more established Western brands. The DAC-Z10 is their most ambitious statement yet. It’s a $1,980 flagship that combines a DAC, balanced preamplifier, and headphone amplifier into a single chassis. The question worth asking isn’t whether it has impressive specs on paper (it absolutely does) but whether the engineering behind those specs translates into something you actually want to listen to.

Build and Design

The DAC-Z10 arrives in a full-width chassis dressed in machined aluminum that feels genuinely premium, not the “premium-for-the-price” qualifier you often hear at this tier, but premium without asterisks. The build is solid, with tight tolerances and no panel flex. Dominating the front panel is an 8.8-inch IPS touchscreen that is both responsive and sharp. It displays your choice of vintage-style or modern VU meters and dynamic spectrum analyzers, and it’s protected by electromagnetic shielding to prevent interference from the display affecting the analog circuitry behind it. A large rotary encoder handles volume, with a customizable LED ring around it, which is a small cosmetic flourish, but one that gives the unit a sense of character in a dimly lit listening room. A USB-C rechargeable remote is included, a thoughtful touch that puts many pricier competitors to shame.

Architecture and Technology

Where the DAC-Z10 earns serious attention is inside the box. Eversolo built the unit around what they call Fully Isolated Architecture (FIA), which physically and electrically separates the digital and analog domains. More notably, each stereo channel gets its own dedicated AK4191 + AK4499EX chipset, a genuine dual-mono implementation that eliminates channel crosstalk entirely, rather than the more common approach of running both channels through a single chip pair. Three independent linear power supplies (one per channel, one for system circuitry) further isolate noise sources from the signal path.

The volume control uses a precision R2R resistor ladder network rather than the digital attenuation that most DACs employ. This matters because digital volume control works by removing bits at lower levels, which in turn degrades resolution as you turn down the volume. The R2R approach preserves the full signal at every level. The preamplifier section is fully balanced, supports both XLR and RCA analog inputs with up to +10dB of gain, and is designed to drive power amplifiers or active speakers directly, making a separate preamp genuinely optional rather than just theoretically so.

The clock system is equally thorough. An OCXO (Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator) provides the timing reference, temperature-stabilized to prevent frequency drift. PLL technology handles secondary jitter suppression, and an onboard FPGA shapes the I2S data and refines the clock before it ever reaches the DAC chips. For those running outboard master clocks, the DAC-Z10 accepts 10MHz and 25MHz external references via BNC connectors with both 50Ω and 75Ω impedance options. Eversolo claims THD+N of 0.00008% and dynamic range of 130dB, numbers that, if they hold up under measurement, are genuinely impressive at this price.

Connectivity

Input options are unusually comprehensive. On the digital side: USB-B (up to PCM 768kHz/32-bit and native DSD512), I2S via HDMI (8 switchable mode configurations), dual coaxial, dual optical, AES/EBU, HDMI ARC/eARC, and Bluetooth 5.0 via a Qualcomm QCC5125 module supporting SBC and AAC. Analog inputs cover both balanced XLR and single-ended RCA.

The output side mirrors this with balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA analog outputs, plus the 6.35mm (1/4″) headphone output on the front panel. Trigger in/out connections allow integration into automated systems. The Eversolo Control app handles remote management of all settings from a smartphone.

Sound

In practice, the DAC-Z10 leans toward the detailed and analytical end of the tonal spectrum rather than the warm and euphonic. Other reviewers who compared it directly to competing units in similar price brackets found its presentation sharper and more resolved in the treble, with precise imaging and excellent channel separation, which is a likely byproduct of the genuine dual-mono topology. (stevehuffphoto.com) Midrange punch is present but not forwardly weighted. Those accustomed to R2R NOS DACs or more romantically voiced converters may find it reveals more than it flatters.

That said, “analytical” does not mean clinical to the point of fatigue. The DAC-Z10’s soundstage is wide and precisely organized, low-level detail retrieval is excellent, and the noise floor is genuinely black. The R2R volume control performs exactly as intended. There is no perceivable resolution loss at moderate listening levels, which is where most home listening actually happens.

The headphone amplifier is a legitimate feature rather than an afterthought. It auto-detects headphone impedance to adjust gain appropriately, covers three gain settings (low, medium, high), and delivers up to 1W into 16-32 ohm loads, enough to control demanding planar-magnetic headphones without strain. The notable omission is a balanced headphone output: there is no 4.4mm Pentaconn or 4-pin XLR, which may matter to listeners invested in balanced headphone cables.

Who Is It For?

The DAC-Z10 makes the most sense for someone building or upgrading a system where a separate preamp would otherwise be required. Used as a DAC/preamp feeding a power amplifier directly, it eliminates one component, one set of interconnects, and one power supply from the chain while adding a headphone amplifier. That combination of functions at $1,980 is genuinely competitive against offerings from well-known separates manufacturers.

It rewards clean upstream sources. A well-implemented streamer or transport will let the unit’s detail retrieval work in your favor. In systems that are already bright or forward-sounding, the DAC-Z10’s analytical character could tip the balance. In systems that are warmer or rolled-off, it will add welcome resolution and air.

Verdict

The Eversolo DAC-Z10 is a serious piece of equipment. The dual-mono AKM implementation, genuine R2R volume control, triple independent power supplies, and robust preamplifier section represent engineering choices that are hard to argue with at this price. Its sound is precise and revealing rather than colored or forgiving, and its feature set and connectivity are as thorough as anything in this price range. If you want a transparent, high-resolution hub for a modern stereo system, this is among the strongest options available under $2,000.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my vinyl record storage for a while now. I recently moved and decided to see what was available. I had been using cheap Ikea Kallax shelves for a while now and wanted to find something nicer.

The USM Haller shelves appealed to me in many ways except for one important one, price. They are asking $3500 for the one I was interested in. They tend to go way up from there as you add on more storage. That just wasn’t realistic for me.

I decided to look for alternatives to see if I could find the same look, at a comparable build quality, but at a much more attractive price.

My search turned up a number of options but many turned me off for various reasons. Mostly construction & build seemed off or cheap, or they were sold on suspect websites.

I then came upon this option on Amazon, which seemed to check all the boxes. It’s not cheap by any stretch, but compared to USM Haller, they are substantially more affordable.

While the price varies by size and style, the specific model I wanted was over 80% less expensive than a USM Haller.

I did some research before making the purchase. I did an image-match search and found what appears to be the same on eBay as well, such as here and here.

I felt better about my return options with Amazon if I ended up not being satisfied so I decided to take a chance with that one.

It arrived much sooner than the original expected delivery window. I received it 4 days after placing the order if my memory is correct. I caught the delivery driver laying putting it down rather hard. He didn’t know I was standing in the doorway. After it banged down a bit too hard for my comfort, he heard the front door open, glanced up and said, “my bad.” I took it inside and quickly dug into opening it up and seeing what I was about to get myself into.

Right from the start, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the parts. The poles are high quality, durable steel. Very attractive! Not cheap or remotely flimsy. The white panels were also on par with the original brand ones I’ve seen in my local DWR.

It came with decent instructions, albeit not perfect or overly explanatory, but they were adequate.

I was able to put it together without much frustration but there are times where you need to pay attention to photos and have an idea of the logic of how things need to assemble.

The only real confusion I had was with how the hinges attached. This is one area where the instructions lacked. It wasn’t hard or intricate but it wasn’t completely obvious. I was able to figure it out after a bit, and I’m sure I looked like a dog looking at its owner, with its head cocked at an angle, trying to understand the vague instructions. They simply slide into the appropriate side panel corner, with the screws loose, and then you tighten down the screws once they are fully seated as far as they’ll go into the corner. The metal rectangular piece serves as a little bracket that tightens down to hold the hinge in place. It’s a pretty simple in concept. The instructions say to loosen up the screws but they don’t really explain how much or what exactly that means. The screws were already loose and probably sufficiently so.

The one door wasn’t lining up as perfectly as the other so I reached out to customer support and they were very responsive, helpful, and genuinely concerned about my satisfaction. I realize this sounds exaggerated, or like a sales pitch, but it’s true. I felt like I was dealing with a local mom & pop shop who cared. They spoke decent English too, although I have no idea where they were located, but I assume not in the US.

The support rep also confirmed that each shelf can hold up to 66 pounds. Filling up each section with records would be heavier than that so I elected to not fill up the middle shelves all the way. I think having more weight on the bottom is pretty safe. The shelf construction feels strong enough to support it but I decided to not risk it on the middle shelves.

The naturally slick metal material makes the records want to slide around so I wanted to find a solution for that. I ended up buying large metal bookends and strong neodymium disc magnets to hold the bookends in place. I only used 2 bookends on each middle shelf but I put more on the lower ones to give all the records more support. I think I used 4 on each lower shelf, for 8 total on the entire bottom level.

Buying enough bookends and magnets wasn’t cheap, and added to the cost of the shelving solution, but I thought it was worth it. If you don’t have that many records then you may not need them.

One thing to note, and this wasn’t obvious from the description or photos, the locks do lock but they don’t give you a key. They told me that they are designed to be ‘locked’ by any thin metal item such as a coin. Their reasoning for this seemed like a cop out, “because customers easily lose keys”.

So they do lock if your only intention is to keep out toddlers or just someone being casually nosy, but if someone really wants to unlock it, it’s incredibly easy. You can buy locks that fit if you want to use a real key. There are sellers on eBay, such as this one, that sell locks and other parts, as well as nice quality felt that you can use.

In the end, I’m quite pleased with this purchase and will buy another piece from the same vendor again.

Here are some other cabinet styles from the same vendor I used. They come in other colors too.

Catherine Wheel guitarist Brian Futter has released a new song featuring Belly singer Tanya Donelly. It’s available on Soundcloud now. Brian was kind enough to answer some questions about this new work, and a bit about Catherine Wheel.

Look for the EP release on February 10, 2026 on various music services. (Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, etc)

How did Good Day Father come to fruition?

“Ever since Tanya sang on Judy Staring At The Sun, I’ve always wanted to work with her on something else. The last couple of years I’ve felt my musical imagination have a rebirth, song ideas everywhere. I needed a vehicle for it, so Good Day Father was born. The name comes from the phrase my son uses to get rid of me on the phone when he’s bored with me… Tanya was my first choice for singer. Very pleased she said yes!”

How many songs featuring Tanya are you planning to release?

“We’ve recorded a 3 track EP, which will be released through 2026, with plans for another EP in 2027.”

With modern home studio recording, cost and convenience are obvious advantages. But now that you’ve written, recorded, and released music in this era, have there been any unexpected benefits? Any unexpected drawbacks?

“The main benefit is for me is being able to create and build songs to completion, from garbled idea on a phone through to finished living song. That’s the personal joy of the whole thing and it’s how I got into being in a band in the first place. Now you don’t have to persuade a record company to loan you tens of thousands to get there. The downside is obviously everyone is doing it, the world is awash with new songs, human and AI derived, so in most cases music has no financial value to the songwriter anymore, other than performing live. I don’t think the present landscape for music is worse than it was, it’s just just different.”

How might having these tools have affected your past work with Catherine Wheel?

“Catherine Wheel always had its own little studio, we created demos/b-sides very quickly, I can’t see the benefits of today would have speeded anything up for us really, we were a lean machine!”

Alternapop related tangent – read my 2007 article here on what it was like to collect music in the 90s as a Catherine Wheel fan, trying to obtain the dozens of non-album b-sides

A related question for those interested in your past work, which is likely most everyone reading this, do you think some Catherine Wheel albums, such as Ferment or Chrome, would benefit from being remixed or remastered? If so, is there any chance that might happen? I know that Cherry Red supposedly “remastered” Ferment for the 2010 reissue but I’m not sure how that was done, or if the band had any say in it.

“Yeah, we gave Cherry Red permission for Ferment ‘remastered, but at that time none of us were interested in anything CW, we were all living other lives, so the whole thing went unpoliced by us. It would be different now. A proper remastered release would be closely governed.”

What else have you been working on, music-wise, over the last 25 years, and in what capacity? I think you did some composing for the British indie film ‘Home’ (2021).

“I’ve written the scores for a couple of films recently. Really interesting to start putting sounds over images and storylines, interpreting the film with sound sympathetically. An annoying aspect of that is you can’t help analysing and critiquing every sound or piece of music behind everything you see on tv or the big screen…hard to turn off.”

Home (2021) on IMDB

Good Day Father links:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Soundcloud
• Bandcamp

Facebook Marketplace has become one of the most popular platforms for buying and selling goods locally and nationally. While it offers convenience and a vast user base, it has also become a hotspot for scammers. Both buyers and sellers are at risk of fraud. Understanding the most common scams, and how difficult they are to spot, can help users protect themselves from financial loss, identity theft, and emotional stress.

Scams Targeting Buyers (from easiest to hardest to detect)

1. Counterfeit or Fake Products

Overview: Sellers list branded items like sneakers, designer bags, electronics, or collectibles at attractive prices. In reality, the items are counterfeit, damaged, or completely different from what’s shown.

Red Flags:

• Prices significantly lower than retail.
• Poor grammar or vague product descriptions.
• No returns or refunds.

Detection Difficulty: Easy. Buyers should compare pricing, check the seller’s profile, and look for official authentication if buying luxury or branded items.

2. Bait-and-Switch Listings

Overview: A seller advertises a popular item (e.g., PS5, iPhone, or used car) at an enticing price. When the buyer messages them, the seller says it’s “just sold” but offers a “similar” item at a higher price or with worse condition.

Red Flags:

• Item disappears quickly after listing.
• Immediate redirection to a different product.

Detection Difficulty: Moderate. This relies on psychological urgency. Reputable sellers rarely do bait-and-switch tactics.

3. Payment Outside of Facebook

Overview: Some sellers ask buyers to use platforms like Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, or direct bank transfers. Once payment is sent, the seller vanishes with no delivery of the product.

Red Flags:

• Refusal to use Facebook Checkout or PayPal Goods & Services.
• Urging you to “secure” the item quickly.

Detection Difficulty: Moderate. Legitimate sellers should accept secure payment options. Never pay before seeing or receiving the item.

4. “Not at home” Urgency

Overview: A seller responds that they aren’t at home, and says they’ve received a lot of responses and asks you to send them a deposit to hold or secure the item. They may even try to seduce you with responses like, “someone is already on the way but I like you. If you send a down payment now, I’ll save it for you.”

Red Flags:

• Buyer asks for payment to secure the item, especially if the payment is via a non-secure payment method, like Paypal Friends & Family.

Detection Difficulty: Moderate. While there certainly could be a time where this could genuinely happen, you are much more likely to get scammed.

5. Fake Shipping and Delivery Scams

Overview: The seller offers to ship the item after payment. They may even send fake tracking numbers or bogus shipping links. Eventually, nothing arrives.

Red Flags:

• Unusual courier services or untraceable tracking numbers.
• Pressure to pay upfront for shipping fees.

Detection Difficulty: Hard. Fake shipping confirmations can look professional. Always verify the courier and tracking URL independently.

5. Rental Property Scams

Overview: Scammers post fake rental listings using photos copied from Zillow, Craigslist, or other websites. They ask for deposits or application fees before the “tour” or “approval.”

Red Flags:

• Too-good-to-be-true rent prices.
• Refusal to show the property in person.
• Requests for wire transfers or gift cards.

Detection Difficulty: Very Hard. Scammers often mimic real landlords and may even provide fake lease agreements. Always verify ownership through public records and never pay before a physical walkthrough.

Try out the new Amazon Haul! Discover unbelievable finds from $2.99. Amazon Haul has everyday staples, trending faves, and more-all for way less.

Scams Targeting Sellers (from easiest to hardest to detect)

1. Overpayment Scam (Fake Check or Digital Payment Fraud)

Overview: A buyer offers to pay more than the asking price and sends a check or payment via Zelle/Venmo. They then ask you to refund the “extra” amount. Later, the check bounces or the payment is reversed.

Red Flags:

• Buyer insists on overpaying.
• Pressure to return excess funds quickly.

Detection Difficulty: Easy. No real buyer has a reason to overpay and demand a refund. Decline all such offers.

2. Phishing Links or “Verification” Requests, or fake payments

Overview: The scammer asks the seller to verify their identity or phone number using a code or link. These links may install malware or lead to phishing sites that steal login credentials.

Also, if you share your phone number or email address, they could send you a fake payment text or email. This fake “deposit” is by a fake “e-transfer” and they want you to log in to a site to receive it. The log in page is a scam.

Red Flags:

• Requests to “verify” your account via third-party links.
• Asking for confirmation codes sent to your phone.

Detection Difficulty: Moderate. Legitimate buyers won’t ask for verification codes. Do not click external links or share codes.

3. Fake Buyer “Out of Town” Offers

Overview: The buyer claims they’re out of town but will have a “mover” or “shipping agent” pick up the item. They ask the seller to pay for shipping upfront and promise reimbursement.

Red Flags:

• Offers to “handle” pickup and logistics.
• Requests for your email or personal information for “shipping arrangements.”

Detection Difficulty: Moderate. Shipping scams often come with real-looking emails. Never pay shipping costs on the buyer’s behalf.

4. Stolen Credit Card or Reversed Payment Scam

Overview: A buyer pays with a stolen credit card via PayPal or Facebook Pay. Days later, the payment is reversed, and the seller is left without the item or the funds.

Red Flags:

• Buyer insists on immediate shipping or delivery.
• Payment appears legitimate but account is new or unverified.

Detection Difficulty: Hard. The transaction may initially appear valid. Always wait for full payment clearance before handing over high-value goods.

5. Fake Escrow or Payment Protection Services

Overview: Scammers pose as buyers and suggest using a third-party “escrow” service to ensure trust. These services are often fake websites designed to look real. Once the item is sent, the seller never receives payment.

Red Flags:

• Buyer proposes their own “secure” escrow service.
• Website URL doesn’t match reputable payment processors.

Detection Difficulty: Very Hard. These scams often feature convincing branding and fake customer support. Always use official payment methods endorsed by Facebook or recognized services like PayPal Goods & Services.

Conclusion

Facebook Marketplace can be a valuable tool for both buyers and sellers, but it’s also a fertile ground for fraud. Scams targeting buyers tend to prey on desire for low prices and urgency, while scams aimed at sellers often exploit trust and eagerness to complete a sale. Knowing how to recognize these patterns is key.

For buyers, avoid deals that require upfront payment, you should always use secure platforms, and insist on meeting in public or using Facebook’s built-in checkout. Try a reverse-image search of the items you’re interested to see if the same photo shows up elsewhere.

For sellers, don’t ship before receiving cleared payment, avoid over-payment offers, and never click suspicious links or share verification codes. Better yet, only sell to local buyers when you can meet in person. Maybe even meet at a local police station.

Within the Facebook Marketplace messaging interface, click on the buyer’s profile icon to view their real Facebook profile to help determine if it could be a fake profile. Also, if the name sounds made up, exercise extreme caution. You may even begin to see a pattern of the types of names of the people who respond, especially if they respond very quickly after you posted the item for sale.

This is more advanced but if a seller shares an address with you, search the web for that address and the name of the buyer to see if any matching results are found. It could still be a fake profile from someone who did the leg work to set up a matching profile (at least by name) that matches an existing address but that takes a bit of effort on the scammers part.

Ultimately, the best defense is a healthy skepticism and due diligence. If a deal feels off, it probably is. And when in doubt, report the user to Facebook and walk away.

Try Amazon Second Chance – Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life. Also available are pre-owned items.

Slide Away 2025 will take place in New York City and Los Angeles this April and May.

Limited presale tickets are available for purchase now through the link below with the code SLIDE25

www.slideaway.co

A portion of proceeds from each event will be donated to The Trevor Project & Anti-Recidivism Coalition

New York City (4/24 at Brooklyn Paramount)

• Her New Knife
• Lucid Exprexx
• Nothing
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
• Swervedriver
• Whirr

Los Angeles (5/24 at Hollywood Palladium)

• Luster
• Nothing
• Swervedriver
• Swirlies
• Vyva Melinkolya
• Whirr

A genre that lends itself to loudness can still be overheard from its origins in the 1980s. Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Ambient, or whatever you may call it, has carried itself gracefully through decades while inspiring countless subgenres and infecting all walks of music along the way.

The audience reflects back the legacy and continued impact with a feeling of mutual admiration and respect is palpable across generations and identities – no matter the coast.

SLIDE AWAY is a celebration of the genre and all artists who shape sound in the most unique of ways, all the while bridging the gap between the diverse cast of boundary pushing mavericks of yesterday with the genre bending savants of now.

What the hell is shoegaze? A scene? A movement? A sound? Back in the Nineties, many would have said the so-called genre was entirely fabricated. The term itself, an offensive piss-take given by the notoriously catty and scene-obsessed British music press, was plainly rejected by the absurdly small collection of bands to which it supposedly applied.

Today Shoegaze is undeniable. As a descriptor and as a source of influence, it is used in more ways and by more bands than anyone could have dreamed of 30 years ago. Between those periods of invention and ubiquity, the term, along with the bands it first described, all but disappeared off the face of the earth.

In this ambitious oral history of a genre that has eluded definition for three decades, Ryan Pinkard, in his book Shoegaze, (Genre: A 33 1/3 Series) unearths the first wave of Shoegaze, following the core bands, their sounds, their influence, and their journeys in and out of obscurity. His analysis is woven through dozens of original interviews with artists, label heads, and critics. What he discovers is the unlikely odyssey of this esoteric, experimental music form, which nearly became a mainstream entity, only to be viciously killed off, forgotten, and rediscovered by a new generation that regards it as one of the most influential alternative music events since the Velvet Underground.

Buy on Amazon (kindle or paperback)

Ryan also wrote a book on The National’s great 2007 release, Boxer. (link)

If you’re looking for a Shoegaze playlist, here is one that has the majority of Shoegaze artists, both classics and newer ones. Over 175 songs, and primarily only one song per artist.

Apple has enabled a new feature that allows you to use your Airpods Pro 2, or later models, as hearing aids.

They’ve made some of the functions unnecessarily confusing. Below I’ve outlined steps for some various tasks that you may be struggling with.

Also, here are some Apple links that may help but I find that Apple instructions can be a little confusing at times.

If you don’t have Airpods Pro 2, they are cheaper from Amazon than from Apple direct. You can get them (currently for $189) here.

Links To Below Sections

• Update your Airpod firmware
• Take a hearing test
• Switch between test results
• Delete a test result
• Thoughts & feedback for Apple
• Alternatives to Airpods for hearing aids

Update Your AirPods Pro Firmware

You need to make sure your Airpods have the latest firmware to enable this feature.

1. Put your Airpods inside the case and close the lid.
2. Keep the lid closed for about 30 seconds, then take out the Airpods and insert them into your ears. Keep them in your ears for about 20 seconds.
3. Put the Airpods back in the case and close the lid.
4. Charge the case via cable or a MagSafe charger.
5. Keep your iPhone near the case for about 10-15 minutes.
6. After 10-15 minutes, open the Airpods case lid and on your iPhone, go to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the “i” to the right of your Airpods’ name. The Airpods should have been updated to the most recent version.

Take A Hearing Test With Your iPhone Or iPad

Before you begin, make sure you’re in a quiet room. One good place is in a bedroom closet. The clothes will provide some sound insulation and it’s probably the quietest place in the house. The test takes about 5 minutes.

Wear your AirPods Pro 2, and make sure they’re connected to your device.

Go to Settings on your iPhone or iPad, tap the name of your AirPods near the top of the screen, tap Take a Hearing Test, then follow the onscreen instructions.

Switch Between Hearing Test Results

If you have more than one test result saved in your phone, you can switch to a different one like this. It’s unnecessarily lengthy but pretty easy. Apple just makes you step through a bunch of pages that explains the feature as if you’re enabling it for the first time.

1. On you iPhone, open Settings
2. Toward the top, tap on your headphone name
3. Tap on Hearing Assistance
4. Tap on Update Hearing Test Results
5. You’ll see, “Chose a Hearing Test Result”. You’ll see your test results listed. Just tap on the test result that you’d like to apply.
6. Tap on Next
7. Tap on Set Up Hearing Aid
8. Tap on Get Started
9. Tap on Next
10. Tap Turn On Hearing Aid
11. Tap on Done

Delete An Audiogram / Test Result

1. Open Health App
2. tap Browse
3. tap Hearing
4. tap Hearing Test Results
5. Scroll to the bottom and tap Show All Data
6. tap Edit
7. Tap the delete icon for the Audiogram you want to delete.

Thoughts – Feedback For Apple

I would like a way to duplicate an existing hearing audiogram and then would like to easily make adjustments to it. The process to manually enter a new audiogram is quite time consuming, and I assume the logic is, “your hearing loss is your hearing loss”, and it’s not really subjective. I know that it’s not supposed to work like an stereo graphic equalizer but if I test for one tone at 38 db, I may want to tune it down a tad to 35, as an example.

Some higher tones can create some loud popping, for certain hearing abilities, and I may prefer to roll those off just a touch. There is a Tone slider to make the Airpods sound darker or brighter but I don’t know how this is changing the audiogram or equalization. More visuals explaining what this is doing would be nice too.

Alternatives to Airpods

Now that over-the-counter hearing aids are allowed, there are more coming out in the market. Dedicated hearing aids will work better than Airpods because they have dedicated circuitry, and have a much longer battery life.

Sony now makes hearing aids

• CRE-E10
• CRE-C10
• CRE-C20

Jabra also makes hearing aids

• 50R OTC
• 300 OTC
• 500 OTC

A conversation with Rob Dickinson – singer/songwriter with 90’s Brit Rock/Shoegaze band Catherine Wheel plus solo projects, and founder of Singer Vehicle Design a company that remodels and re-imagines Porsche 911’s.

Dickinson shares experiences on songwriting inspired by the ocean’s horizon to escape a small English town, literally walking away from a pop career at it’s peak, and creating act two of life turning the passion for cars from a hobby into a business on the boulevards of West Hollywood.

It’s a nice interview that’s worth a full listen but here are 2 interesting quotes:

“When the band split up in 2000, we owed Columbia Records $1.6 million.”

“I think I will come back to it eventually. I think we’ll make another record actually before we all die.”

• listen to the interview

Spotify recently announced that they are increasing the monthly price from $10.99 to $11.99, which equates to $143.88 per year. Because of this, many are considering changing plans or music streaming providers. But wait! You don’t have to do that though in order to save a substantial amount on your total annual subscription cost. How?

You can buy a Spotify Premium 12-month gift card for $99 which brings the price to $8.25 per month. You can buy this for yourself and use it if you already have a Spotify Premium subscription!

This will save you $44.88 for a 1-year subscription.

Follow this link to purchase a $99 Spotify Premium e-gift card from Amazon.

After purchasing and receiving the gift card, go to the Spotify redeem page to redeem the code. Make sure you cancel your current premium subscription before entering the code, or else you may get a “something went wrong” error. You won’t lose any playlists, settings, etc unless you close the account. Canceling, which is the same as reverting to a free account, will save your data.

Steps to get Spotify Premium for $8.25 per month.

1. Purchase $99 e-gift card from Amazon
2. Once you receive the card, go to Spotify’s “Manage Your Subscription” page and cancel your current subscription (Note that this requirement may change if Spotify makes changes)
3. Go to the Spotify Redeem page and enter in the code from your gift card

While it’s not ad-free Spotify Premium for free, saving nearly $45 is a pretty good deal.

If you really want a deal, get an Amazon Prime Visa credit card here. You’ll get a $50 Amazon gift card. Then use the Amazon Prime Visa to purchase the Spotify gift card, and select the Prime delivery day, and you’ll get an additional 6% back.

A year ago we posted a few lesser known shoegaze artists. It’s time for more.

 Salon Music – Who Just Can’t Be Happy? (1995)

Salon Music is a Japanese new wave/shoegaze/rock duo consisting of Hitomi Takenaka (竹中仁見) and Zin Yoshida (吉田仁). They have released twelve studio albums, between the years 1983 and 2011.

Two songs in particular stand out as being Shoegaze, Wanna Be Tied, and this one, Who Just Can’t Be Happy? Recommended if you like Panda Riot.

Majesty Crush – No. 1 Fan (1992)

Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Majesty Crush formed in 1990 and broke up in 1995. The band’s lineup consisted of lead singer David Stroughter, bassist Hobey Echlin, guitarist Michael Segal and drummer Odell Nails III.

Majesty Crush served as the opening act at shows in the early 1990s for such bands as Jesus Jones, Mazzy Star, and The Verve. The song No. 1 Fan picked up significant radio airplay on Windsor, Ontario’s 89X, and led to Majesty Crush signing with Dali Records, a Warner/Elektra subsidiary. They released Love 15, the band’s lone studio album, in 1993. AllMusic’s Joshua Glazer described the album as “a testament to what might have been, if only the band’s four members lived in Manchester instead of Detroit.”

majestycrush.bandcamp.com (digital)

Numero Group vinyl reissue (2024)

Sway – Fall (2003)

Formerly a four-piece noisepop outfit from Ventura, California, Sway is/was an on-going one man dreampop project and alias for songwriter/producer Andrew Saks.

sphere – Topography of the White Sea (2011)

Formed in 2007 by guitarist Makoto Gomi, the group took a break after releasing its third album in 2011, but resumed its activities in 2022 with the release of its fourth album after 11 years, featuring Shoko Inoue as a new vocalist.