Category: Music

Posted in Music

A day in the life of Syp’s music listening

Posted on by Syp

It’s 6:30 am. Groggy and waking up, I head into the basement and put in the earbuds of my iPod Nano 7th gen before getting on my exercise bike for a half-hour spin. The random assortment of 4200+ songs keeps me company through the rest of the exercise and then through making breakfast for a half-hour past that.

8:30 am rolls around and it’s time to head to work. My car boots up the small flash drive I have with my custom mix — no algorithms for me, no sir. I bop to this (yes, sometimes I literally bop in my car and I’m unashamed if others see) until I roll into the office.

As I get settled for the work day, I’ll take a stack of about four CDs from my to-listen pile, which currently numbers around 200 or so. I never get tired of those extra steps of turning on the stereo, popping in a CD, putting the case on a stand so that I can look at the name of the tracks, and listening to it from start to finish. Any must-have tracks I’ll flag to put into my music mix folder later. If it’s an album that I’ll legitimately listen to again in the future, I’ll give it an honored spot on my shelves. If it doesn’t pass muster, I’ll put it into a bag to bring to the record store later that month to exchange for credit.

I try to get through four albums a day. Depends how busy I am, because some work — and visits with people — require no music to distract.

Over lunch, I’ll take a mile walk, grabbing my customized iPod Mini and Koss Porta Pros to keep me company. I keep telling myself that I need a second iPod Mini because I love this one so much and would be crushed if it failed.

When I get home and have some down time, I’ll check through a number of YouTube channels that I trust for curated songs — some EDM, some VGM, some just random cool songs. As I game that evening, I’ll sort through the new songs and see if there are any keepers that also should go into the music folder.

Perhaps I’ll sit on the couch and listen to some music on one of my other players or laptop as I read or write. Not always, but sometimes. If the weather’s fine, I might take a walk or sit on the back porch and enjoy some tunes that way as well.

And that’s about it for the day. I’ve experimented with listening to music as I fall asleep, but I’ve found that listening to a quiet sitcom on my phone tucked under my pillow works far better to put me right into a sleep state, so I go with that unless I’m on a trip or something and only have music on hand.

Posted in Music

New headphones, retro music tech

Posted on by Syp

Last Christmas, my father-in-law — a tech geek if there ever was one — absolutely surprised me with the gift of an Airpods Max. At first I was kind of lost for what to do with it, as I already had perfectly serviceable Sony bluetooth headphones and all of my wired headphones. Getting what I realized was a pretty expensive gift that I had no idea where to fit into my normal use was a little concerning.

However, over the past couple months, the Airpods Max has become my absolute favorite headphones I’ve ever had, hands down. First of all, they fit my head like a dream. I have a big head (insert joke here), so most headphones make me look even wider. But these are flat and slip over my ear well, keeping a trim form factor. And despite their metal build, the Airpods feel very comfortable wearing for extended periods of time.

Then there’s how the headphones automatically connect to my Macbook Air, phone, and iPad Mini (I have way too many Apple devices, I know) whenever I’m using them. That’s been extremely convenient.

And then my favorite feature, the noise canceling system, is absolutely amazing. I thought I’d hate this, but it’s just the opposite. I love using it in noisy public places (like supermarkets) to quiet everything so I can listen to music or a podcast, or while washing dishes, or even in our family room where there’s a lot of noise from the kids and TV and gaming systems. I don’t noise cancel all the time, but sometimes, yes, it’s great — and it’s easy to turn it off and on so I can hear external noises too.

The last piece of the “I’m falling in love with this device” puzzle came when I purchased a USB C to headphone jack adapter. With this, now I can plug the Airpods right into my older iPods and get incredible sound out of them. I rocked this setup at the store the other week and felt cooler than I ought to.

Posted in Music

Taking stock of my physical music collection in 2025

Posted on by Syp

It was the start of 2023 that I began doing something I hadn’t for 15 or so years — I began collecting physical music again in the form of compact discs. I chose this format for ownership because vinyl was too fussy and expensive, cassettes were too flimsy, and CDs were plentiful and cheap.

I don’t think I had any big goal in mind at the start of that other than perhaps snag some of my favorite ’90s artists. Soon enough, the collecting bug bit me, and I was regularly scouring thrift stores, library sales, record store, and the occasional garage sale for more finds. As I amass them, I’ve been listening through entire albums start to finish, discovering some really great new artists along the way.

So how’s this hobby gone in 2025? I’d say that it was a quieter year for collecting but not entirely dead. There were a couple months I stopped buying, mostly because we were on a budget lockdown, and that enabled me to catch up on my “to listen” pile (which never seems to go away). I estimate that I’m up to 2,500 CDs at present, which is a good deal more than I ever thought I’d own. Yeah, everyone teases me for my large collection (which I keep at work), but I’m happy with it and happy to share it to anyone who’s interested.

The only major purchase of hardware I made this year — including portable media — was a $6 boombox (see above) which I saw at Goodwill and had to own for its retro aesthetic. It turned out to be an incredibly good-sounding machine, and its purchase even prompted me to pick up a handful of cassettes just because.

A month ago, I spend a good amount of time fully sorting out my entire collection, which is something I’ve actually never done before. I found an embarrassing dozen or so duplicates — which I turned into the record store for credit — and found that I had more of certain artists than I previously thought.

Another thing I did this year was stock a small bookshelf with about 50 CDs that sits on my work desk. This bookshelf unit holds all my instrumental music that provides perfect background work flow tunes, such as new age, theme park soundtracks, and the like. I thank this hobby for getting me into Ray Lynch and David Arkenstone’s works!

So do I have any music collecting plans for 2026? Other than continuing to hunt for more albums at thrift stores, there are only a couple things on my mind. First, I’d like to pick up a second modded iPod Mini. The sound on those things is incredible and I’d really love a backup if and when I can afford one. Second, I’m keeping my eyes open for components to make a stereo stack. And third, I’d love to stumble across a Sony Walkman or Discman, but unless I see one at a garage sale, that’s not going to happen in the wild. Oh, and there are a few video game soundtrack albums I’d love to pick up whenever.