We had an important boule match in the inter-office tournament on Thursday, and I was shocked to see my trusty Wayfarers in two pieces in my bag. The earpiece had separated from the frames.
Playing in the strong (for Sweden) sun on our terrace without shades was a recipe for disaster. Luckily I could find the tiny screw connecting the earpiece to the frame in the bag pocket, and felt the quiet satisfaction of fixing a problem on my own by attaching them together.
This didn’t help us though, the opposing team played cannily and won handily, beating us to the semi-finals on Wednesday.
Another small and niggling issue are the new headphones I bought for my iPod mini. I had a pair of Koss Porta-Pros that I was really happy with until they developed some serious distortion when there was more than moderate bass in a song. It only affected one earpad, and I suggest I may have damaged them by careless handling. I felt it was time for a pair of new headphones. I bought a pair of AKG K24P to replace them.
Unfortunately, the slightest jiggle of the connector against the iPod will trigger a pause in playback. This seems related to the iPod auto-pause feature that will pause playback if the headphone plug is removed during play. It seems that this feature is triggered by some 3rd-party headphones, and it cannot be turned off. A quick google shows that the issue is quite widespread, and that the solutions range from giving up and using the original iPod earbuds, to ordering a new iPod, to bending the connectors to ensure better contact.
I’ve never had this problem before, using the Koss phones, a pair of cheap Sennheisers, and 2 Sony variants. I like the feel and sound of the AKG phones, but unless I can solve this issue I will have to use the fiddly earbuds instead and look like a fashion victim.
Update 2006-06-21: I tried bending the offending contacts with a pin, but it was very hard to get a grip. Lars Bengtsson took the headphones back, so at least I’m not out of any money. I tried a pair of Sennheiser PX100s while in the store, and they exhibited the same behaviour.
It could be that the Mini I own is simply too old, or that it, too, was damaged with the Koss ‘phones. In any case, I’d like the “pause playback if the headphones are removed” to be a configurable option, so that you could work around this sort of thing.