The experiment fails

Oh dear. I've fallen out of love with my new Bluetooth earbuds, and in fact I've just put them up for sale on eBay. The auction will end in a week's time.

What happened? It's two things mainly.

First, I found that I preferred using the JBL speaker, my other recently-acquired Bluetooth listening device. Neither needed much effort to switch on, but the speaker was certainly the quicker to make the Bluetooth connection, had simpler controls, and gave me as good a sound experience as the buds did. And for some reason, using it was more fun.

Second, with the earbuds it was all too easy to turn the volume up to ear-damaging levels. After a couple of sessions I was left with singing ears - an indication of mild (and I hope temporary) tinnitus. Looking into this, I was very concerned to learn just how easy it was to harm one's ears, and soon decided that my high-volume earbud sessions when doing things at home would have to end. In fact, whether listening with the new Bluetooth earbuds or my old wired buds, it would be better if I put them aside for a while and listened instead to a safer sound source, several feet away - my speaker or DAB radio - and at a lower volume. The singing in my ears was bad enough; I didn't want permanent hearing loss as well.

The issue now was this: I'd just spent £150 on the RHA earbuds, and that would be wasted expenditure if I didn't use them a lot. What to do? I decided to sell them - hence today's eBay listing.

The RHA buds are a desirable, quality audio product, and mine are almost new. I'm asking £40 to start with, but expect to get bids higher than that. I don't expect to recover more than half my original outlay, but you never know. I'd be very happy indeed to clear £85 after postage and eBay's fees - this being the net amount I actually paid for my earbuds (£150, less £65 to spend on a BT Reward Card). If I did that, it would seem like breaking even.

In retrospect, I wonder that I was so eager to buy wireless earbuds in the first place. They sounded good, but really no better than the wired ones I already had (of 2014 vintage). I had let myself get over-enthusiastic about having some stylish, up-to-date tech, and the prospect of being free from dangling wires. Occasional impetuosity has always been a failing of mine. About time I cured myself of it!

As for the danger of hearing damage, I should have been more aware. Definitely my own fault for not knowing.

Well, more lessons learned.