I am more inclined to keep music player separate from other functions. I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of getting either a Creative Zen X-Fi or an iRiver Clix (anything but ipod!). But things turned out differently, and for one thing and another, I got landed with a brand new Nokia 5730 XpressMusic.

n5730xm-h1
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic

Not that I mind. It wasn’t a bad bargain. It came with a music voucher to free-download 100 songs, which was useless as I found no tracks appealed to me. Its quasi-business functions (email, nokia messaging, quickoffice, pdf-reader, plus additional applications running on S60v3.2) and the sliding QWERTY-keyboard are satisfying. And, I have a music player in Nokia 5730 XM with acceptable sound quality yet, as I’d expected………. sadly disappointing earphones.

In general, earphones and I don’t go well together. I have a box almost full of broken and wasted earphones. Once, I cared enough to get high quality ones. They lasted longer but still ended up in the pile. They did improve the sound quality, but were unable to endure my demands of mobility, the down-pouring rain, humidity, and my curiosity (as I tend to unscrew anything screwed), and the most importunate, the constant friction with the ears hurt. I wondered once just how the industry came up with such earphone designs because they just felt alien to me. Whose ears are these earphones based on? Is it simply because my ears are misshaped and anomalies? I sure do hope not.

Now, trying not to waste the 5730’s potential, I decided to get decent and durable earphones, a Sennheiser OMX80 Sport Series II Stereo Clip-On Earphones.

omx80sportii
Sennheiser OMX 80 Sport II

So, the 5730 and OMX 80 Sport II together went trough my standard test: whether they deliver satisfactory sound reproduction of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. The following bit of interview might explain better why I pick Michelangeli’s Ravel piano concerto to test music players and earphones.

[…]

Keith Jarrett (KJ): Classical players never pound, but they also never actually get soft, soft, soft, soft, to the point of risking that the note won’t play. Benedetti Michelangeli is an exception.

Ethan Iverson (IE): He’s so marvellous.

KJ: Yeah. He could do that in the middle of a Ravel concerto. “He almost didn’t get that one!”

EI: I read somewhere that Miles Davis and Bill Evans were listening to Benedetti Michelangeli’s Ravel concerto in advance of “Kind of Blue”.

KJ: That makes sense.

EI: That record coupled with Rachmaninoff fourth concerto.

KJ: Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about.

[…]

From An Interview with Keith Jarrett

And I am now content.