HARDWARE
2ner and 2nerxmitter
The Gist: Wireless World Of Sound
$49.95, $39.95
Most portable audio players with headphones fulfill the escapist desire for private enjoyment in public places: Crank the volume to 11, and you can tune in, turn on, and drop out completely. The wireless, water-resistant 2ners radio headset takes the opposite approach.
The unit’s “pods” sit near your ears and use free-air acoustics and bone-conductance technology to deliver surprisingly clear sound, while still letting in the ambient noise of the outside world. Avoiding the block-out effect means you can carry on a conversation while listening to inflammatory talk radio, or bicycle safely as you hum along with the latest Christina Aguilera Coke commercial. Advanced digital-scanning and phase lock loop (PLL) provide automatic fine-tuning and station-seeking with minimum static.
If FM radio isn’t your thing, the 2nerxmitter accessory will transmit sound from your Walkman or MP3 player to the 2ner pods - without wires, of course. The unit runs on a couple of small, rechargeable battery packs, which play for up to 10 hours. Two pairs are graciously provided along with each purchase.
But this post-iMac-looking gizmo has its drawbacks. The visible transistors and circuit boards make it none too sturdy. Molded plastic joints can catch strands of your hair, and it comes in only one size. On my head, positioning the ear pods properly meant that the band drooped in back and would fall off if I biked without a helmet or skied without a hat. And the small plastic hooks hanging from my ears and clasping my head were a tad uncomfortable.
Still, the pods’ combination of light weight and clean sound quality - a mere 1.5 ounces and a range of 40 to 20,000 Hz - made up for these defects. Revolutionary? Not quite. But 2ners provide an inexpensive wireless alternative to the usual earbuds and clamshells.
- Tiffany Lee Brown