Headphone amps are pretty much standard equipment in the setups of audiophiles everywhere. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of research on headphone amps and come across a number of different amps in all shapes and sizes but the one type of amp that piqued my interest was the “CMoy” amp. This type of amp, designed years ago by Chu Moy is an unconventional but powerful amp design that can be made by anyone with the right parts and a soldering iron. Well, I don’t consider myself one of the handiest of guys with a soldering iron at the moment so, instead of taking a chance and trying to build one myself, I decided to buy one that had been pre-made from a company called JDS Labs. After a few hours of listening, I’m impressed.

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Since I got my RE0s and I started going to Head-Fi, I’ve been…experimenting with a number of different headphones/earphones and listening to the various sound signatures these devices create. In the short time since I received my RE0s, I’ve heard (of course) the RE0s the V-Moda Vibes, MEElectronics M9Ps, Koss KSC75s (with some light modifications) and one of the only things I haven’t yet heard is an IEM with a balanced armature speaker. Well, a few nights ago, I happened to be browsing eBay for some reason and in that time, I came across the Altec Lansing Backbeat Pro IEMs.

The auction I happened upon was open-box and on sale for about $16. I did some research on them and saw that the MSRP was about $100 but they were retailing at most online retailers I saw for about $30. Apparently, Altec Lansing has a number of IEMs on the market and many of them are simply rebranded versions of IEMs from Ultimate Ears with the Backbeat Pros being Altec Lansing’s version of the Super.fi 4 IEMs from Ultimate Ears. After doing a little more research into the sound quality, I said “what the heck” and ordered them. Shipping was strangely fast for USPS and I received them early Saturday and went about putting them through their paces after watching a movie (The Hurt Locker, great film by the way).

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Early last week as I was browsing the forums at Head-Fi, I was alerted to a discount special by MEElectronics, a small California-based manufacturer of various gadgets such as DAPs and IEMs. Having read a few reviews on their more popular IEMs, the $40 M6 and the M9, which apparently uses the same dynamic driver and retails for about $20, I looked over their product lineup and settled on the slightly more expensive M9P, which comes with a built-in inline microphone which I figured I could use for making Skype calls with my iPod Touch. Yesterday (after a few shipping gaffes by USPS), I received my M9Ps and immediately gave them a listen straight out of the box.

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Over the last week or so of listening to the RE0s with a wide variety of music, I’ve grown accustomed to its unique sound signature because they are so unlike all of the various headphones/earbuds/IEMs I’ve listened to so far. Everything I’ve listened to prior to the RE0s has colored the music I’ve listened to with its own sound signature. From the cold, analytical presentation of my HD280 Pros to the deep, bloated bass of my V-Moda Bass-Freq earbuds, everything layers a bit of itself over the music. With the RE0s, there’s nothing there. The sound signature is entirely flat and while that may sound like a negative, trust me, it isn’t. This neutrality creates total transparency and allows the source to come through exactly as the artist intended it to. Because of this, the RE0s are unquestionably the best headphones I’ve ever heard.

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Earlier today, I received my Head-Direct RE0 In Ear Monitors (IEM) which I ordered early last week to replace my aging V-Moda Bass-Freq earbuds which decided to call it quits shortly before then. So, I recorded a short “unboxing” video which I’ve uploaded to YouTube and will be shared below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B43PlCcOhZ4]

After my Bass-Freq earbuds decided to call it quits, I did a bit of research into the world of portable headphones, coming up with a number of positive candidates in the process. My search turned up quality portable headphones from a number of manufacturers both familiar (Ultimate Ears, Klipsch and Shure) and not so familiar (YUIN and Fischer Audio) and after reading reviews on a multitude of portable headphones, I finally decided on the Head-Direct RE0 IEMs.

A few of you may know Head-Direct and they’re pretty famous in the audiophile community for being one of the leading importers of headphones and other audio accessories from a number of small overseas companies, some of which I’d never even heard of before venturing to Head-Direct’s site (YUIN being chief among those).  As it turns out, Head-Direct decided to venture into the highly populated IEM market themselves and begin selling their own RE line at varying levels of quality. Among the highest of these was the RE0s which, until the fairly recent release of the RE252s, were the company’s flagship IEMs. I checked out a number of reviews on the headphones before making my decision and saw that they were very close to the top of their class and could easily hang with some of the best on the market, even those which cost 2 – 3 times more than the RE0s themselves. After going to Head-Direct and seeing that they were on sale for $79 (down from $169), I was sold and placed my order.

So, I’m pretty sure you’re wondering if these things live up to the hype. So far, I have to say yes. I’ve listened to a number of songs on them already such as Wale’s Contemplate, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven and 2Pac’s Temptations and they all sound great. I instantly noticed that the sound is, above all, transparent. The clarity in the sound signature jumps to the forefront the instant music begins playing and is immensely satisfying. After listening to my V-Modas for as long as I have and comparing them to the RE0s, they’re far muddier and less…open. The low end on the V-Modas is satisfying, but it really can’t compare to the RE0s and honestly, I didn’t expect them to, given how inexpensive they are (about $20) in comparison.

Now, I haven’t heard a great number of the more expensive IEMs so I can’t vouch for the quality of the RE0s just yet in comparison but I can say that they have impressed me right out of the box and, considering that IEMs with dynamic drivers such as the RE0s sound better after they’ve been broken in for a number of hours (10 – 50 is usually enough but some audiophiles say they need upwards of 100 hours to sound their best), things can only get better from here. I haven’t even listened to them with my portable headphone amp yet so I can tell that I’m in for a treat when they’ve been broken in and I listen to them amped.

As of now, I’d give the RE0s a high recommendation. This should be taken with a grain of salt seeing as I’ve only had a few minutes’ worth of listening time with them thus far. At the price they’re currently available for ($79), I honestly can’t see how you can go wrong with these as they offer exceptional depth and clarity even now, before they’ve been broken in and settled into their final sound signature. So, if you’re interested, you can check them out here. Keep in mind, however, that this is marked as a “Christmas Sale” and Christmas has obviously been over for a long time now. It’s highly likely that this sale price isn’t going to last for much longer so get them while you can!

Two days ago, I picked up Race Pro, a game I’ve been highly anticipating since its announcement in the form of an Xbox 360 version of the PC racing sim, GTR 2. This title hails from Simbin, a developer that has been heralded as one of the best in the business of creating racing simulators. This is their very first console racing title and the racing simulation community has been abuzz, wondering if they can replicate the notoriously hardcore PC racing simulation experience on a console with little compromise. After investing a few hours in the game, I can say with ease, they’ve done a damn fine job.

As I popped the game into my Xbox 360, I decided to jump into the game by playing it for the very first time with Microsoft’s official wireless racing wheel, which I’d purchased a little over a year ago for Forza Motorsport 2. It seemed fitting to play this title with the wheel in hand. If you own Microsoft’s official Racing Wheel, you owe it to yourself to use it for this game. Racing with the wheel, coupled with the interior view, feels incredibly natural. It can be tough going from racing with the controller to the racing wheel but undoubtedly, it truly is the best and most immersive way to play.

Onto the driving physics, there’s no doubt in my mind that Simbin has created one of the most realistic racing simulators ever, thanks in large part to the physics engine. Even driving something as seemingly mundane as a Mini Cooper (a highly modified version of a Mini Cooper no less) can be very exciting and trust me when I say the Radical SR3 is not to be taken lightly. I have yet to get behind the wheel of the Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Audi R8 (two of my favorite supercars) as of yet, two of the unmodified cars included in the package, but I did get behind the wheel of the Dodge Charger Super Bee, an exclusive download included in copies of the game sold at GameStop (don’t think of that as an ad…). Race Pro does an excellent job of simulating the high weight and power this car possesses, which makes it characteristically difficult to stop at the end of a long straightaway.

Race Pro is one of the rare racers on the market today that is able to blend accessibility with, at times, crushingly realistic physics. The instant you enter the career mode, it defaults to the professional difficulty setting, in which all assists are turned off. For the sake of accessibility, it’s nice that these settings can be changed to your liking. They can all be adjusted in varying degrees, from low, medium to high.

So far, the AI drivers generally make for fairly competent opponents but, on occasion, they exhibit some…questionable behavior. For instance, as the Autodriver lead me out to the track in my Chevy Lacetti, a sequence that you can’t override as far as I can tell, it nicked a barrier while exiting the pits and compromised my aerodynamics. I was essentially forced to restart the session due to my bent front bumper. Hopefully, this isn’t a common occurrence.

I’ve played a couple of online races so far and they all have been free of any perceptible lag, even with as many as ten vehicles on the track at once (the game supports 12 online). Despite the fairly limited options compared to other racing titles on the 360 such as Forza Motorsport 2 and PGR 4, it is nice to have the ability to take to the track in a practice session to play around with vehicle setups before beginning the big race.

Perhaps the only thing I don’t like about Race Pro so far is its incredibly basic presentation. The menus aren’t presented with any sort of visual pizzazz or flair and hardly go beyond the call of duty.  This can be somewhat off-putting, even for me, a person who appreciates what lies under the hood far more than visual aesthetics (which is why the Corvette Z06 has captured my heart more so than the far more visually appealing Ferrari F430).

Overall, after investing just a few scant hours into the game so far, I’ve very much enjoyed Race Pro. It has delivered exactly what I expected to, an involving and incredibly realistic racing simulator. Race Pro may be a little rough around the edges especially concerning the interface and overall presentation but it delivers where it counts. Stay tuned for the full review, which should be posted very soon.

In the days, weeks and months since the announcement of Sony’s Xbox Live killer, Home, I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve gone from hotly anticipating this feature to almost completely uninterested after numerous delays. I began to think that this was one of many things that looks and sounds great on paper but ultimately fails in execution. And who could blame me for feeling this way? What was supposed to launch to all Playstation Network users as early as September 2007 is still only in the beta stages well over a year later.

Oh how quickly things change when you press the right buttons…

Yesterday afternoon, I opened my email account to see that I’d received a long awaited invitation to the pubic beta for Playstation Home. Naturally, I quickly rushed over to my Playstation 3 to turn it on, input my beta access code and start playing around with it. So, how do I feel about it? Well, in a word…conflicted.

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If any of you have been on Xbox Live recently and seen me online, you’ve probably been seeing me play Far Cry 2 almost non stop for the past week or so. Well, as I noted in my last blog post, this is the next title on my to-review list. I just finished spending some last minute reviewing time with it a few minutes ago and I think I’m finally ready to finish the review.

But first, some impressions…

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Yes, I’ve finally seen the proverbial light I mentioned in my recent MGS 4 related blog post. I’ve finally played Metal Gear Solid 4 and…let’s just say I am very, very pleased.

It all began last Sunday when I was at work and a customer walked to my register with a copy of the game in question in his hand to trade in. Once I completed his transaction, I promptly informed my co-workers that I’d be checking the game out when my shift ended and set the game aside. That night I took it home and…didn’t play it. That day at work had worn me down so I was in no mood to play any games. Of course, the very next day, I finally popped the game into my Playstation 3 and started to play.

Let’s get the wild praise out of the way first before getting into the meat of these impressions. The game is freaking great. It reached out and grabbed me from the first minute like no other Metal Gear Solid game has. The story is keeping me compelled to see it through to the end to the point where I had to force myself to stop playing the other day after having played for nearly 4 hours.

Now that the unmitigated praise is out of the way, I can start being a critic. Now, one of the reasons why the Metal Gear Solid series has never reached out and grabbed me before now is in part due to the clunky shooting and combat controls. I’ve never gotten the hang of the whole, press lightly on the button to raise the gun and hard to shoot thing that has been utilized in previous entries. While I realize that this is a stealth game and thus, shooting and hand to hand combat shouldn’t be your main priority but almost inevitably, the game would find a way to make you do so, which puts a bit of a damper on the experience if you’re a stealth purist.

In MGS 4, this isn’t a problem. The shooting controls have been completely revamped and vastly improved. The camera instantly jumps into an over-the-shoulder view, similar to Resident Evil 4 or Gears of War, once your weapon is drawn. From there, it plays sort of like a third person shooter, a very good third person shooter at that. It’s because of this new perspective on combat that it becomes significantly easier. The emphasis on stealth is unfortunately diminished and the consequences for alerts take a nosedive early on. It’s far too easy to take out the squad of soldiers closest to you and then duck into an out of the way corner for a little while until things calm down.

But despite the ease of combat, stealth is a very viable option, especially with Snake’s new Octocamo. This invaluable addition to Solid Snake’s equipment is one of your greatest allies in the field and perhaps the greatest sneaking tool ever utilized in any stealth game. What it does is automatically change its texture and appearance to blend in with whatever surface you’re pressed up against, be it a brick wall or grass covered dirt. Oftentimes, AI soldiers and NPC’s will walk right past you without noticing, should you p

Everything isn’t all rosy and wonderful though. One of Metal Gear Solid 4’s biggest strengths is also its biggest flaws. I’m referring to this series’ particular brand of storytelling in which impossibly long cutscenes tell its far-reaching, rich and sometimes utterly convoluted story. It doesn’t help that the ratio of cutscenes to actual playing time is damn near 1:1.These cutscenes are entertaining to sit through sure enough, but occasionally, I can’t help but wish the game would shut up and let me play.

In the end, the game is everything I expected it to be and more. I expected it to be great but the sheer magnitude of its quality and ability to make me hopelessly addicted (I’ve actually taken time off from playing it because I didn’t want to finish it too quickly). This truly is the best Metal Gear Solid game and one of the best reasons to own a Playstation 3. Looking back on my previous blog post once again, I see that my lack of excitement was unfounded and that playing truly is believing.

Against my better judgment, yesterday, I purchased a copy of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. Ever since I saw the limited amount of content to be included in this “game” for such a steep price ($40 USD), I couldn’t shake the feeling that Polyphony Digital was merely delivering a glorified demo to milk hardcore Gran Turismo fans out of a quick buck before the real thing comes out, which some speculate won’t be until some time after 2009. Well, having played it for a few days prior, I’ve changed my tune…for the most part.

I guess before I truly begin to discuss my impressions of the game, I should explain how I define a “lack of content”. First off, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue features around 70 cars, from over a dozen manufacturers, including series newcomer, Ferrari. What’s surprising about this is the fact that GT5: Prologue includes more cars out of the box than many full games, including the likes of the recently released Need for Speed: Pro Street. Clearly, the number of cars couldn’t be the issue, could it? No. While 70 cars is only one tenth of the 700 featured in Gran Turismo 4 and an even smaller fraction of the rumored 900 cars set to be included in the full release of Gran Turismo 5, there’s still a nice variety of cars to choose from.

So, what could be the thing that troubles me most? Well that’s simple. While there is an abundance of cars available to the player, the track selection is meager at best, limited to six tracks and twelve layouts. No, not twelve layouts per track, just twelve layouts in total. This is where GT5: Prologue stumbles and falls to the ground. Before long, the track selection can grow stale and repetitive, seeing the same environments over and over again as you race around the same track for the umpteenth time during the career mode. This is where the sting comes in and your wallet begins to curse you for making this purchase.

But…(There’s always a “but”)

For the most part, what GT5: Prologue lacks in content, it makes up for in presentation and gameplay. Polyphony Digital knows how to draw the player in with an attractive set of front end menus and, most importantly, how to make cars look sexy. As you navigate the elegantly presented menu screen, the car you’re currently “in” sits behind it, amidst one of several eye-catching and gorgeous backdrops relevant to the location you most recently drove in. The camera slowly pans around the car, allowing you to see the entirety of is svelte figure and wonderfully proportioned lines.

To merely say this game looks good would be the understatement of the year. Gran Turismo 5 truly puts other racers to shame with its incredibly detailed and well lit car models (it’s amazing what good lighting can do to make a car look stunning), and detailed environments. While I’ve been a staunch supporter of the impressive graphics delivered in Project Gotham Racing 4, I can’t say it looks better than GT5: Prologue in any way other than the convincing weather effects. The in car view is also mighty impressive and my current favorite way to view the race, despite the loss of visual real estate.

All the great looking cars and environments wouldn’t save the game if the gameplay was lacking and I can happily say GT5: Prologue isn’t lacking in that respect. The numerous cars in the game have their own sort of “feel” to them in their handling and overall performance and all drive with an impressive realism about them, which feels great. A new feature, borrowed from the Forza series is the dynamic racing line, which changes color from blue to red to indicate you’re going too fast. Of course, for a most realistic and suitably challenging experience, this, as well as the other driving aids (variable traction/stability control) can be turned off prior to a race.

Overall, GT5: Prologue isn’t a bad game. I’m almost willing to say I overreacted a tiny bit. Almost. Once I came to grips with the fact that my only real issue was with what I perceived to be a high price tag (if the game was $20, I’d have no problem at all buying it), I was mostly fine with the lack of content because the gameplay made up for it. For me, a new fan of Gran Turismo 4 as of late, this is a pretty fun stopgap between the two full games that should, alongside its PS2 brother and my reigning favorite racing game, Forza 2, keep my simulation racing needs satisfied until Gran Turismo 5 finally decides to come out.

That or Forza 3, of course.

It goes without saying that diehard fans of the Gran Turismo series are going to add this to their ever growing collection regardless of what I say about it. For the rest of you who happen to be on the fence, take these words with a grain of salt. If you can, like I have, get over the initial shock over the lack of content, there’s a good game to be had here.