I Respect Wood

Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lawley, and each week I am joined by two incredible co-hosts. As always, I am joined by Mr. Matt Bershler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing swell. I'm doing... I'm working through the summer, which apparently isn't a thing people do all around the world. But I will say my company adopted Summer Fridays where we only work half days. And that's kind of nice. A little treat.

A little treat for us. I don't know anything about this. I'm self-employed. I work seven days a week, like 10 to 12 hour days. I don't know anything about this. But we're also joined by the European Chancellor herself, Nileon. Nileon, how are you doing? We don't have chancellors in France. Oh, I don't know. You guys do things weird. Apparently, your whole continent shuts down for a couple of weeks. They have those over the border in Germany. Here, we have Macron. He will stay forever. And macaroons. But maybe not. Maybe next year, we'll get him out.

And I was telling you off the air that he's nowhere to be seen. He's on vacation as well, even though the country is literally burning. Your whole continent's on vacation right now. And the whole continent's burning. Coincidence? I don't think. Maybe it shouldn't have decided to light itself on fire right now. I don't know. I don't know. But we got some tiny topics. And Matt, I see you have a statement. I don't have a statement anymore. Oh, you don't have a statement anymore. No, no statements. We'll do a statement another week. You can't do that.

We'll move on. Matt, I demand you come up with a statement. He needs to say something. Come up with a different statement. I think that the AirPods, if I was to tier list the AirPods line, the AirPods 4 would b8 here, the AirPods Pro 2 would b8 here, and the AirPods Pro 3 would b8 here. This is my statement.

Okay. No one will disagree. I was going to save this for another section that we have coming up, but I've stopped wearing my in-ear AirPods, so the AirPods Pro, because lately I've been having issues with in-ear headphones, like actually causing me pain. And I've been one of those guys walking around outside, like walking his dog, wearing AirPods Max. As far as I'm concerned, that is everyone's final form. I'm honestly, they are so much more comfortable.

Anyways, okay, so that was Matt's statement. That was not his original prepared statement. You'll never know what that was. I'm disappointed you'll never know. You gotta pay Matt. I bet you if you give Matt a million dollars, he'll tell you what it is. Is that a true statement? I'll tell you pretty much whatever you want for a million dollars. Okay, cool. All right. There's another thing in here. Ooh, I don't know who this is. Oh, it's Mr. Matt Birch. You have a new keyboard. Oh, God, Matt. Is that what I think it is? I have a new keyboard.

it's the full magic keyboard in professional black and with the professional lightning port what are you doing are you insane did you go through a bag of trash and found did you get dropped on your head nilian literally yes okay this was gonna get disposed of uh and i was like I'll take that and uh it totally works it's totally functional and look at all that room for

key travel you get on this thing so I'm trying it out I'm trying out a full-size keyboard uh honestly the thing that disturbs me more is than anything else is how wide it is I'm used to like much smaller keyboards and so this this this guy's like it's breaking my brain I have to like I can't center my hand on the keyboard I have to like shift it all the way to the left it's very weird you gotta like cross the border to Canada to get to your mouth pretty much it's a lot but it's fun

and I haven't had any keeper in a while how far away is Canada from your place I could be there in I would guess 12 to 15 hours what okay that's pretty far it takes a long time to drive places far that's that's that's not for for america that's not that far that's like an entire france separating your phone yeah your guys countries are small you guys need to conquer other countries and make your country bigger we've been there done that or do a louisiana purchase like you know

yes well we did not i did it did not work i was wrong i could nine hours from now i could be across the border in canada okay easy do you hear that canada that was a threat where could i be nine

recording this, but it's not going to matter because you won't be able to hear this unless you're mad or kneeling on because they're the only ones hearing me say this. And actually, Daniel's cat can probably hear me say this, too. But I will have been on app stories by the time you've heard this. Federico is off doing his European... I don't get it. I don't understand how they shut down their whole continent for, like, the summer. For, like, a month, they shut down the whole... I don't understand how it works. We have workers' rights. I will never get it. I will never understand how it works. But he was off doing his European vacation thing,

so I filled in for him on AppStories. John and I had a great discussion about the folding iPhone, parchment, and our audio and video setups. We talked a lot about that stuff. So go check it out. You know where I could be in nine hours? My car. In Rome, Italy. There you go. You could see Federico in nine hours. Yeah. You could high five Federico and then drive back. Oh, Croatia. He's also nine hours away.

I think I'd rather go to Rome. I've never been to Rome. Me neither. And I like history. Like, I love history. So, Rome is, like, at the top of one of my places to travel to. Like, because I would very much like to go to, like, the Coliseum and stuff. Some good town to go to for the history is Berlin. And I've been there many times. I love Berlin. how do they feel about like the 30s and 40s do they just skip over that part of his no well that's interesting stuff there's so many it's so many things to see about that oh okay they don't just

say hey everyone was out of the office during the 30s and 40s we don't know what happened well no it doesn't die or out of office messages this is this is a thing i is actually i think pretty good about germany is they uh i think they explicitly do not try to wipe it under that's actually great Good on you all. Good on you all. Last time I went to the Stasi Museum. So that was fun. Yes, I've never been to Germany either. I've never been to Germany. I've never been to Italy. So it's on the list. All right. So we got some feedback.

But I'm not convinced this wasn't one of my co-hosts submitting this feedback. I'm really not convinced. Yes, I saw this feedback a few hours ago. It was like minutes. It was like an hour ago that I got submitted. Because I saw that and I was like, this is suspicious timing right before we sit down to record. It's from Matt Fentinell, who's been listening to the show for a while. They exist. Let's admit that our listeners exist. Fake news. Fake news. We don't have any listeners.

He wrote, I'd like to thank Nileanne, that's me, for exercising her right to veto and protecting the interests of us, European citizens, in having the best design for banknotes we'll never actually see. You're welcome, Matt. You're welcome. I'm not convinced this wasn't Neil. I'm a protector of our interests. Anyways, so this week on Cozy Zone, we talked about The Mandalorian and Grogu. Finally, I got my co-host to talk about it. And it went just about as well as you think it could go.

Correction, I got you too to talk about it. I have been asking you guys for weeks to watch this. That is true. That is true. But Neelian got us over the line. Yes. Neelian sniped my Cozy Zone topic by like minutes. Let's just say that it got released on digital download. So I was finally able to see it without having to go to a theater and pay too much for this ridiculous movie. Proper way to see a movie. Proper way to see a movie. Seen it at home. anyways for those that don't know

Cozzone is our members only show you get an extra episode of us every single week who doesn't want more of us I mean we're lovely people though my co-hosts have some really terrible opinions about Star Wars so yeah anyways I'm barely familiar yeah Matt is Matt just shows up and goes present alright we should get into the main show We've gone long on all this stuff. Matt, you got a topic for us this week?

I do. And I would like to once again talk about the keyboard. No. No, no, no. There's not that much to say. But I have brought a hardware thing to talk about, which is always fun. Which are some controllers for the Switch 2. Oh, yes. Okay. Which is a thing. Okay. Okay. Just some level setting. I am an adult. Famously, I'm older than some other people on

this podcast. And I have adult hands, and I don't like tiny itty bitty controllers that are so tiny and have these joysticks that are basically mobile, like little things. I hate them. Amen! Preach it! I truly, with the fire of a thousand suns, hated the Switch controllers. The Joy-Cons, very cool concept. So uncomfortable. Never comfortable to use. The Pro controller is very good. But the Joy-Cons, horrible.

The new Joy-Cons with the Switch 2, better. They're a little chunkier, a little bigger, a little bit more movement on the joysticks. But in the grand scheme of things, still awful. I would say I just cannot anything that requires any sort of remotely accurate joystick motion. I just do not enjoy using it. And so I, on the Switch 1, had third-party controllers that slid in, were really nice.

Actually, were not really nice, frankly. They were like the cheapest ones you could get on Amazon. They did not have any wireless connection. They had no battery. They had no rumble. They were ugly. but they worked very nicely and so that's what I used on my switch one but then the switch two came out and I was stuck with joy cons and it took forever for a long time there were like bluetooth controllers like like traditional controllers you could get to work with it but there were no like joy con replacements and finally finally there are joy con replacements and I got these seem to be as

far as I can tell like the only viable option right now for at least what I'm looking for I got the MOBA pad M12S. I have these bookmarks. Okay so I'm curious what you think. I am looking at their website right now and on their own reviews that they have four stars out of five and you know what I think that's reasonable I'd give them three and a half stars. These have made me use my Switch 2 more, which is good because I hated them so much I would

like basically never use them. If I wanted to play a mobile game, I'd play it on my ROG ally. ROG. And so it makes me actually play my Switch portably. And the joysticks are so nice. They feel really good. They feel like just joysticks on a normal controller, which is exactly what I wanted. There are some things that aren't perfect about them. Let me do more good stuff. Why go to the bad stuff right away?

So it is a little confusing when you go to order these because there's two variants. I got the M12S, but there's also the M12HD. Ooh, high definition. And high definition, obviously, my head's like, okay, that's where you go. They helpfully have a comparison here, And it is truly a very strange product line. Because typically, you get, there's like the basic one, and then there's an upgrade.

And the upgrade is better in every way, you would think. You pay more money, you get the better thing. This one, you have to choose. There is no way to get the best of everything. It is impossible. So on the M12S, which I got, there is a C button. So you know how you're using the Switch 2 and you're always hitting that C button? Always hitting the C button. Always doing the, I forgot what the C button does. It's for the chat features, right? Oh, yeah. I think so, yes.

I have never touched it on this one. It is collecting dust. And then the vibration. So in mine, you get just like a traditional rumble with the other one with the HD model. They have what they're they have HD rumble. So basically more like what the Switch controllers have. But if you want motion controls, which these do support motion controls with the Switch 2, this has a better gyro for that. So it'll work better with games that have motion controls.

The HD one has NFC support, so you can tap your Amiibos to it if you'd like. If you're that sort of player, you're playing those games. Mine does not. I've never done that once in my life, so I never will do it. And then there's different protocols. So these, again, the cheaper ones, show up as Switch 2 controllers, and the Switch just, they just look like controllers. You just snap them on, and they instantly pair. The HD ones show up as Switch 1 controllers. It is so, and you're probably listening to this, and you're like, I can't follow any of that. What are you saying? I don't know what I'm saying. It's very weird.

It is a very weird setup. But anyway, I got the cheaper one. This is $80 US. I think the more expensive one is $100. So it's not a huge difference. But I wanted to make sure it seemed good to have the Switch 2, have the Shopee Switch 2 controllers. And, you know, obviously I wanted that C button. So what's nice about them is that they are wireless, so you can detach them and use them just wirelessly. They automatically pair. You just snap them to the side,

and they just pair up, and they just work. And they feel nice. Like, when I have this on here, this is like Steam Deck, basically. It looks like a Steam Deck in every single way. And for me, that's a very good thing. So there are some bad things, though, about this. And on the back, you can kind of see them here. There are buttons on the back. And this is like a thing that like all third-party controllers have. They'll all have some sort of trigger on the back.

And these are macro buttons. And I hate macro buttons because on controllers like this, They're not built into the console. So like you have to like go into some sort of like macro mode. And then it's like records your actions, then you stop it somehow. And then when you press it, it'll redo those actions. For the life of me, I can never figure out how to get these to work. I can never figure out why I would want to use them. I hate them so much. And as far as I can

tell, there's no way to totally disable them. I just need to be very careful not to touch them, because I somehow set up some sort of thing that like moves the joystick around and makes me run. And so I was having like phantom movements when I was playing Xenoblade recently. And I was like, what is going on? And so I had to figure out how to turn that off. But you can turn them off? You can turn it off. But I don't know how to make it so that pressing it doesn't either trigger the macro you've saved or put you into macro mode where it starts recording everything you do. I don't understand them.

It feels like one of those, it feels like setting the time on like an old car where like the UI was like all based on a dial and you had to like perform specific actions at specific times and it was very complicated and people would not know how to change their time. It's a very weird interface. Programming a VCR, man. Yeah, kind of like that. The other thing I do not like, and this is going to be impossible to show, is the button feel and noise.

These are the cheapest feeling buttons. And it's not going to come across super well here. They're fine. They're fine. And it's really the noise. The noise is so unsatisfying. I really don't like the noise that they make. Is it like a hollow sound? It's not a hollow sound. It's more of just like a click, but it's the sort of, I'm a little rusty on all the mechanical key switches, but there's like a, with some mechanical keyboards, you can, switches you can press slowly and it won't make much noise.

But I guess just clicky keyboards. On the clicky key types, it doesn't matter how slowly you press it, it's always going to make that like click sound, which is super annoying because sometimes I'm playing like on the couch next to my wife and I don't want to annoy her with like and like it's just like all these clicks and so it's very annoying. So I don't like that. But other than that it's pretty good and it's got me to play my Switch more. So I think these are good but not perfect. So I will one day look for something else but

in the meantime it's pretty good. I have a question. I at some point many eons ago Chris you recommended me some grips that you like slot the switch into right for the switch to and those have been great and why would you not use something like that that doesn't have any tech inside it's just attachment that makes it more comfortable to hold and you can you just use the vanilla joy cons and they feel more comfortable I hate the Joy-Cons. It is not the size of,

it's not like these like chunks here are nice, but they're not important. It's exclusively the joysticks. So I need a better joystick than what the Joy-Cons have. Oh, okay. I hate them so much. Yeah, I get that. I'm very disappointed when they did the Switch 2 that they didn't make the Joy-Cons joysticks the Hall Effect sticks and make them a little bit bigger. Like, the Switch 2 is overall bigger, but they didn't, like, adjust the buttons or any of the controls or anything to take advantage of that more space.

What does the whole effect mean? Oh. So, Matt, you probably know this one better than me. Basically, the traditional joysticks, I don't know what they're called, actually, but it's basically they're on some sort of gimbal for lack of a better word um that as you move it it's like moving physical pieces and that as they go x and y coordinates they will like interpret that as analog input um with hall effect

it's a magnetic system so there are far fewer moving pieces in there and it's all based on when you move it magnetically where is the joystick in space um and so the advantage of them is they are much less likely to get things like controller drift, which was a huge problem with the Switch controllers. Literally every Joy-Con I own drifts at this point. I don't know how many pairs of original Joy-Cons I've gone through because of the drift. Yeah. Okay. It's a little crazy.

And I know you can send them in and have them repaired. I literally just couldn't be bothered to do that. Oh, I wonder if I should look into that. Yeah, I don't know if that repair program, it was like a limited, I don't know. I don't want to guess, but it was frustrating. Okay. So anyway. And I always wonder, does Nintendo approve of third-party Joy-Cons? How are those manufacturers doing this? Do they have access to a kit?

Do they have APIs or whatever that they can plug into? Or do they have to reverse engineer the whole thing? I get the impression a lot of reverse engineering happens here. Yeah. Because you definitely have controllers that will have, they'll say like made for PlayStation or whatever, And like, it's kind of like the made for iPhone program where like you can, if you go through official channels, you can get certification. But I think that just like all of these are, I feel like at the end of the day, maybe this is wrong.

It's kind of like how keyboards are just like HID interfaces. And you can just do that. I feel like there's a certain level of these controllers where some of the custom stuff is custom, but like a lot of it is just like standard. It's not locked out, but it's not not locked out. Okay. If that makes any sense. You can reverse engineer it, basically. I don't think there's a, like, made-for-Nintendo-Switch program. Yeah, well, because, like, Nintendo has, you see controllers sometimes that have, like, they look like Nintendo.

Like, they're sold, like, sometimes by Nintendo. Yes. In stores, and, like, there'll be a Target and Walmart and that sort of thing. But they're usually like standard controllers, not Joy-Con replacement. Yes. Hmm. But yeah, I mean, I don't know who MOBA pad is, but I do not get the vibe that they are working with Nintendo in any official capacity. But yeah, they show as Switch 2 controllers. Like in the Switch UI, like the Switch seems to have no issue with them at all. Okay, okay. Interesting.

Now I'm looking. According to my Switch, those are just two normal controllers. Also, this thing's almost dead. Maybe Nintendo at some point will wake up and Shh, don't tell them. And ban every Nintendo account that's been using those. If you work at Nintendo and are listening to this podcast, you need Forget everything you just heard. None of this exists. Also send us free shit. Okay. So anyway, that's it. It's a nice little piece of hardware.

Pretty nice. But not the goat. I believe there will one day be something better. So I'll be looking out. There will be goats. You know what? What's funny is there was a goat for the original Nintendo Switch, and it was made by Mobipad, And they literally released it like six months before the Switch 2 came out. John swears by them. And I was about ready to buy them.

But then it was like, oh, the Nintendo Switch 2 is due to be announced any day. And it's like, well, I'm not going to spend $100 on these things just to buy a Switch. I haven't touched my original Switch since I got the Switch 2. I should probably do something with that. It's just sitting in a closet right now. um but yeah yeah yeah so i i i'm i hope they kind of get their stuff together and they are able to make a version of this with all the nice bells and whistles and good buttons because i will buy that

yeah i'm looking i haven't i haven't heard john talk about this i guess i've missed that but um i'm looking at the marketing page for the switch one and it is ever it is looking very similar in terms of everything so maybe i just don't like these buttons as much as uh as much as he does well john's not a mechanical keyboard nerd so that wasn't meant to be mean oh it is but it is yeah john get on our both i also have something to talk about okay oh

It would have been awkward if we had to sit here in silence for 20 minutes. Yes. I have new headphones and you can ask me anything about them. How many headphones do you have right now? Right now, I have one, two, three, four, five. That's okay, right? It's less keyboards than I have. Nowhere near two digits. There you go. You have more keyboards. Yeah. Anyway, these. That would be a problem. If you ever have more headphones than I have keyboards, that's when you know you have a problem. Yeah.

I'll keep that in mind. Okay. I'm not going to say on this podcast. I believe the fifth. I'm an American. I can use my fifth amendment, right? Sure. Okay. It's in the 20s. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It was a problem. It was a problem. Okay. So I've got new headphones and they are these things. Let me take them off. I now have an Ikea pegboard dedicated to headphones to the side of my desk. As one does. Yeah.

Chris stares over at his pegboard for keyboards. Yes. I've actually taken that down and the keyboards are now in store. Most of the keyboards are in storage right now. I need to figure out what to do. Hey, if you'd like a mechanical keyboard, come over to my house and grab one. And so I will. Please. Chris's home address is on screen right now. Yes, it is. Niu Lian, if you want to come over to my house, you can have as many of those keyboards as you want. Headphones. Let's talk about headphones. Okay. All right.

These are the headphones. They are the FIO FT1. And I already mentioned this brand before, FIO. Do you remember when? When I talked about this tiny device called the FIO BTR-15. If you remember, that's a DAC, a portable DAC that has a battery inside. And so it's not only like a wired high-definition DAC, but it's also a Bluetooth DAC.

So you can use any pair of wired headphones wirelessly. So you can just clip this on your clothes. I can demo this. Clip this right here. No, as one does with an iPod, for example. And yeah, and it doesn't have to be connected to my phone or whatever. And it's wireless. So that's pretty cool. I use this with the Apple TV a lot, actually. So I can actually use any of my headphones with the Apple TV. Wait, how does that plug into the Apple TV? Via Bluetooth. It doesn't plug in. That's the thing. Oh, okay.

So the Apple TV connects via Bluetooth and you plug your head. Okay. Gotcha. I was thinking for some reason, I was thinking the other way. So I can just have wired headphones all the way back in my couch. No wire between me and the Apple TV. That's something. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Otherwise, I'd use the AirPods Max, but those things. Anyway, they drive me more and more nuts every day. You should get the AirPods Max too. They'll fix everything. Sure. Sure. so Fio FT1 they make headphones turns out and the FT1 they have been talked about at length for the

past year and a half or so when they they are pretty recent it's a pretty recent pair of headphones my other pairs of headphones so the AirPods Max obviously the first generation so it dates a little bit the ones I'm wearing right now the Beyerdynamic DT700 Pro X those are I don't I don't remember when they were released like 2010s somewhere around that but it's based off the DT700 series which is a way older line of headphones like Chris maybe you know maybe the 70s the 60s they date all the way back those headphones

why would I know Matt's the old one because you have them you have a DT700 something I got these because John told me to get up I do a lot of what John tells me to do Wow. You should probably talk about that in therapy. In case you didn't know, those headphones, they are famous because they are extremely reputable as a reliable line of headphones. And they've been that for decades and decades. Maybe it's the 70s, I don't remember.

But they're very old and they just keep selling them because they're very good. They just refresh lightly, the connectors maybe, but otherwise they are pretty much the same thing. they're comfortable they're lightweight and they sound good for what I need like your vocal tones sound very very warm right now yeah but yeah the few FT1s are pretty recent they came out two years ago I think so they look nice

and they have been very largely talked about because they are not expensive at all I got them for 150 euros and a pair of headphones that price, you raise your eyebrows and you wonder what's wrong with them, right? And in fact, there's not much wrong with them. And that's why they've been so famous lately because if you read any review of those headphones, the review are all like, how come this is only 150 euros?

This is weird. This should be so much more. This sounds... So the build quality is pretty good. The metal headband. This is a metal headband wrapped in pleather, right? But even on the sides, it's a metal build. Yeah. The wooden cups are real wood as well. You can knock on those. It's pretty... Oh, that's satisfying. Pretty real wood.

What wood is it made out of? I don't remember. Oak? Probably Oak? I was going to say a birch tree. But yeah, probably not something very fancy either, but probably would anyway. And the cups are pretty deep. And you can tell, those are pretty big cups. And they are deep inside, which is why I was interested, because I have a recurring issue with headphones. I love wearing headphones, but it's hard to get comfortable headphones that you can wear

like all day and all night, every day of the week, and without them starting to hurt. Because, yeah, it's hard to find a good matching headphones for your specific head, right? And this is why I'm also interested to try a bunch of them out to see how they differ in this sense. So, deep cups I'm interested in because it means my ear won't tend to touch the inside, right? They won't tend to touch the back, the grill in front of the driver

inside the cup. This happens with my Meze, right? The other wooden pair I already reviewed on this show. And these are different. That's not the same one? I mean she did take the other ones off screen They are very different Okay That's comfort wise That's an interesting thing because the maize They feel extremely lightweight

You can forget about them Because they have This thing where the headband is like Suspended on your head With springs It's Hard to describe but when you put it on your head auto-adjusts on your head and it just suspends itself on your ears. It's a pretty cool kind of design. This is not the case of the Fio. The Fio, it's a very like normal headband that's

padded and it's all right. It's all right. So to go, to keep going about the build, one interesting thing, tiny thing that maybe people would care about if you are considering buying these. So the cables, right? They come out of each cup. So there's a mono jack coming out of each cup, left and right. They come out from the bottom of each cup, like this, which is fine, but if you're used to, say, the Maze and others,

the cables, they come out slightly above the bottom, right? They come out from midway, which means they don't hang around, like they don't touch your shoulders when you move your head around. And that's the case with the FIO. The FIO, I can feel the thick cables on my shoulders when I move my head around. This is one thing to keep in mind, maybe in terms of comfort. But that's it. In terms of sound, it's interesting.

It's very interesting because, I don't know. Do you guys like bass? Do you guys like bass, maybe? I like some bass, but I don't like beats bass. I like old school beats bass. I want as much bass as possible. More bass equals better sound quality. And Matt's car, he's got four 15s. Okay. I love an equalizer because I just take everything on the bass side, which I don't know which side it is, left or right,

and I just bump it all the way. Okay. This is the way to do it. So if you are being genuine, you will extremely like those. Those are very fun headphones in terms of bass. They have a lot of bass. Some reviewers have described them with like in terms of the shape of the spectrograph. It's a U. So most fun headphones, we say they look like a V, right? Because the bass, you can hear a lot.

The highs, you can hear a lot. And the mids are a bit less loud, right? This is extremely that. Okay. So it's more of a U, which means it's more intense even than a typical V-shaped sound signature, right? You got a lot more bass. The vocals, they are toned down and the highs are loud. And it makes for a very sunfound, a fun sound. It actually feels boomy on your head. like when you listen to a song,

it feels like they are like really booming on your head. They are actually, there's air moving on your ears, which is a very fun feeling. In my opinion, I think I like that. I actually like that when the sound is warm like this and it's boomy. But I think maybe this is a bit too much. I think this is fun for like, if you listen to one album from start to finish, but when you're done with that album, you were like, okay, that was super fun, but now I'm going to take them off. Now I need a break from those headphones

because with the air moving that you feel, the bass, the heavy bass, and the intensity of the sound, even a lower volume, this is not a matter of volume. Even if you listen to a regular ass volume, it will still feel very intense and I can feel tiring after like a full album listening session, which is annoying for me because I tend to want to wear a headphone like for the entire day.

Well, this is the thing I'm perplexed by is, is the ideal state to have multiple headphones with different use cases for each or is it just to have one pair of headphones that does it all? I think it depends. Is that even possible? I think it depends on who you are and what your preferences are. I think I like being this person that has multiple headphones for multiple use cases.

I already have in mind some albums that I will want to grab those specifically for when I will listen to them. Whereas maybe the Meze or even the ones I'm wearing right now, which I've EQ'd for my music, I will tend to grab those by default more, right? Like if I don't want to think about which headphone, I'll pick those, either the Beyerdynamic or the Meze, and don't think about it, just listen and enjoy.

But I feel like this is kind of a headphone that will be specifically used for specific types of music genres. And yeah, and that's all right. Just a caution of warning for this. I'm not kidding when I say they are intense. If you're coming from another pair of headphones that are flatter, not flat, but flatter, less intense, listening to music with these, you will feel like the voices are drowning.

like voices in your music will feel muddy and you you you'll struggle to hear them and it's shocking at first and you're like this is a trash trash piece of audio gear but you get used to it and when you get used to it it's like with any pair of headphones you get used to the sound and then you you hear more of the things that you're supposed to hear instead of being shocked by what you can hear and what you can hear less. So, yeah. So, in short, I think they are really good.

Like, the fact that this is 150 euros, I, like, this is half the price of the meze. And I think in some matters, it is just as good, which is to say something. And obviously, there's like reasons for that. It's a Chinese company, Theo, right? It's not one of those European companies. Bayer Dynamics is German. Mese, they are from Romania. So obviously, you're not paying for the same labor, right? Probably.

I have no idea, but probably. So that comes to mind. But I don't think you should worry about the build quality that you're worrying about if you're seeing the price. One last thing I want to mention. the cushions the cushions have made a strange choice let me show you what they look like maybe you can see so on the outside they are pleather right that's regular material but the face that's touching your skin

is some kind of textile weird with poked holes and that feels a little scratchy I don't like this texture at all this feels scratchy and it feels too slidey as well the headphones they are pretty big especially for a tiny head like mine they will just shift around on your head if you do head movements if you just change position on your chair they will move around and just because it doesn't like it doesn't adhere to your skin it's not like brother right it just slides on your skin

um that's really annoying i think if i'm not going to return this i don't think i will But if I'm keeping these headphones, I will replace the cushions with cushions that are entirely pleather or leather. Because, yeah, this weird material. And more companies are doing this now where they're just trying to switch pleather with some of those textiles. I hate it. I hate it every time. Alcantara, as well you see often, has earpad materials. Those feel scratchy to me.

It feels Like I've got an animal just scratching on my head all the time. It's very strange. That's completely normal. Yeah. So, anyway, these are my new headphones. What do you think? I think they are pretty good. They look nice. That's one good thing about headphones. I want them to look nice. And these look nice. they do they do look really nice i'd be curious to hear how they sound but uh but they they do look nice i look i like wood i respect wood i'm somebody that really respects wood um so anytime

you can get like wood on a product i i will take that yeah that's that's a nice design oh would you get wooden airpods if this was an option oh yeah i think i would I think I would I think I would now are we talking in-ear AirPods or like AirPods Max? I'm talking in-ear AirPods not the Max I think I would I think I would depends on like how it affected like is it going to affect sound quality? No it sounds the same

yeah then I would do it what if it was plastic painted to look like wood? No see I respect wood not fake wood. I don't respect fake wood. I respect real wood. There's the reason why my furniture is real wood and not like particle board. Except I think that bookshelf might be particle board. Fancy lowey over here. Yeah. Okay. Well, are these your endgame headphones? Or have you achieved a good mix? She's honest. No, no, no.

But also, more and more, there's something that people keep saying on forums that I found very funny and that feels very true, is that a lot of us, they say that, maybe I'm not part of them, but they say a lot of us, audiophile, like headphones, people, we stumble by accident on one piece of gear that we really like, and that's the first thing we own, one of the first things we own.

And then we try many, many alternatives out of curiosity, out of trying to learn more and see what we like. And we always come back to that first thing that we found. So the Audio-Technica ATH-M50X. Well, you're kidding, but in terms of audio gear, good audio gear they're often the old ones right i'm kind of not kidding like those were great headphones and honestly i would still be using them to this day if they just didn't like disintegrate

on me because of how much i use them like i i use the like the headband like i think you can replace it but i just was like the headband the ear cups like they basically disintegrated on me but like they were still working fine and they still sounded good yeah and that's that's the thing and i think maybe I'm coming up to this idea where, yes, maybe my end games already have. I just don't feel like I just don't know it yet or rather I just don't, I'm just not sure yet. And that's the Meise,

the combination of the Meise and the Bail Dynamic. The Meise because out of pocket, just like this, without EQ, without a special DAC, without anything, just plug right into something and they sound really fun and a lot of clarity. It's awesome to listen to music with this. And they're very dynamic because they are studio headphones, so they have a flat signature, very detailed. This is made for critical listening and for monitoring and whatever. But as a music listener, you can love them as well because since they are made this way,

they're made to be very clear, very well made as well. and durable, you can get a lot out of them with EQ and with additional hardware, with a DAC, if you pick especially higher impedance ones, with some good amplifiers, you can have a lot of fun with them. So I think maybe this combo is already my endgame, but who knows? Maybe someday I will find something better.

I think maybe my next path of exploring will be open back headphones. Oh. Right now, I'm sticking to closed backs because I am a freak. I cannot stand a little bit of noise around me when I am on my chair or even in bed. So I don't think like right now, I think if I get open back headphones, probably I will

never use it just because I just want to filter out all the sound around me. But yeah. It is. I am not a headphones guy. I famously think the normal AirPods sound like the AirPods Pro. They sound exactly the same. Same audio quality. But it is interesting hearing you talk about it because I'm sure it is what it is like, it It is very similar to the keyboard fandom. It's like, yeah, there's like, you could just use like a magic keyboard and you're fine.

But there's all these little intricacies and there's all this like, this combination of keyboards will be everything I ever need. And then, yeah. And other people are like, dude, what are you doing? This makes no sense. Just use the normal thing. But it's cool. It's fun to have, you know, interests. I think it's very fun. I want to be the person who, when people come over, I can give them headphones to compare and try and tell them, hey, listen to this. Maybe you'll like this better. I can find out which people like which, you know.

All right, we should probably get to our challenge. Yes. And it was my challenge. And my challenge was to recommend a video game to each one of your co-hosts. And I can go first. Okay. So for Neelion, I have a game that I really wanted to. Neelion was the one I struggled with the most. So I wanted a cozy game. You seem like a cozy gamer. You aren't looking at 360 NoScope Bros. You're a more cozy gamer.

You want something. But you want something that you can build. Like you like the Minecrafts, the SimCities. So I found a game, or not found a game, I've heard of this game a lot, and I'm actually really interested, and I haven't even played it, but I've seen some videos of it, I've heard it, I've seen reviews, I've heard people talk about it, and it seems like right up your alley, and it's called Fields of Mystria. It's a little Animal Crossing, a little Stardew Valley, a little Minecraft, a little bit of Harvest Moon, all of that put together.

And it's on Steam, but as we talked about in the previous episode, you can now emulate Steam games on Mac. And this is not a heavy game, so you should have no problem emulating it on your Mac. Is this Pokemon, Chris? No, it is not Pokemon. It is not Pokemon. I was not going to recommend it. I thought about recommending a Pokemon game. I'm not recommending a Pokemon game. This actually looks extremely similar to Stardew Valley. It's similar-ish, but from what I understand, it's a little more it's a little less focused on like

you needing to have a plan like Stardew Valley does and for Matt I took a gamble for Matt I wasn't sure if he's played these games or not the Mass Effect trilogy oh have you played them I have played two of them oh which one have you not played the first oh interesting that's okay i came in with two and then played three and i i love two and i like

three a lot that's that's how most people feel two is two is one of these legendary games three is okay they've they fixed it up quite a bit post-launch so i'm recommending to you the legendary edition of mass effect so this has all three games that yes this has all three games it's been remastered, so it looks modern. It doesn't look like an Xbox 360 game anymore. It looks modern. It has all of the DLC in it. And both of your games are on sale currently right now.

So you can get them both very, very cheap right now. I know, Matt, I know you like some single-player games. I know you kind of like some story stuff. So I think you would like these. I think playing them from the beginning with all the DLC in a modern, and there's some quality of life improvements and stuff like that in here, I think you would quite enjoy these. Okay. I'll take a look at what that price is. And it would be fun to play them again. I played Mass Effect 2 in dual boot. I dual booted into Windows on my whatever Mac I had at the time.

And that's how I played it back then. Yeah. It was barely surviving. No, this is 4K 60 frames per second. Like, you can, and it looks really good. I think you would really enjoy these games, especially the fact that you loved the second one. The first one, mechanically, is the one that's the most different from the other two, but it's got a good story to it. And if you play through the first one, like, the nice thing is about these games

is your choices from each game pull over to the next game. So if you start from the beginning, the choices you make affect the next game and then the next game. I think these are pretty good. Okay, I'm buying it. You're buying Fields of Mystria? Yeah, I was reading the reviews there. Seems very nice. So far, I think I'm doing pretty good. All right. Neilian, what do you got for us? All right, Matt, for you, I have got Town to City.

it's a very cute city building game except like not the kind that you expect it looks it's pixel art voxel art kind of this is very voxely okay uh it looks very cute it's very it's actually fun uh you you get started you build a city uh and you have to keep your citizens happy and you can actually make them happier with decorations. Like the goal is to create a pretty city

and the game gives you a lot of tools to make your city look very pretty. And the soundtrack is really nice as well. I bought it on Bandcamp. So yeah, this is really nice. And for Chris, I have two games for you. One is a recommendation that I'm making. The other is a recommendation from Matt Fentinel. who DM'd me this because... Still not convinced that's a real person. Yes. He is real. And he had the game that he wanted me to recommend

to you for this challenge. So the first one coming from me is Uber Truck Simulator 2. Can I drive a Mustang in it? Because you are an American, so you love trucks. Yes. That's true. I like monster trucks. And there is like the same studio made American Truck Simulator. However, we don't care about that. We want you to learn more about Europe, and so we want you to drive around in a massive truck

in Europe. Now, would I even be able to play this game right now with the whole continent shut down? Yes. This is what they're all doing right now. They're all playing Euro Truck Simulator. That's right. Instead of driving real trucks, they're just They're just playing, they're driving fake trucks. There's actually online, yes, multiplayer with this. But it's mostly a solo game. I do prefer solo games. I'm not a big online multiplayer. And it's very chill. I always like to pick very long routes in this,

traverse the whole continent. It will take three hours to complete IRL. And I just watch something on the side, Twitch stream, podcast, listen to music. It's very chill. But the recommendation that I think got you the most is from Matt Fantinelle, and it's called Metal Wolf Chaos. What is that? If I understand this correctly, I've put in a YouTube link in the show notes if you want to click on that.

This is a game where you are the president of the United States. Cool. And you fight meckers, and you are a mecker or whatever. This seems unhinged. There's guns everywhere. This looks extremely unhinged, and I'm all for it. I am 100% for this. This is pure, I mean, it's in the net title, chaos. Yeah. So. Looks like there's an Xbox version.

Is there a PlayStation version? This is a pretty old game. Maybe. This looks like an Xbox 360 game, I think. Yeah. PlayStation. Wow. That's out of nowhere. I know. Matt DM'd me this, and I was like, okay, that's indeed the perfect game for Chris. I have nothing else to say about it. It looks like there's a PlayStation version. I'm going to check it out. Okay. Wow. There you go. Okay.

All right, Matt, what do you got? So I have quite simply found the perfect games for both of you. This will be undeniable. Neilian, I've picked Big Walk for you. This is a game that just came out this week. Yes. And it is a game for hanging out. It is a game that I think has some climbing around in it. And it's made by, it's published by Panic, another Panic published game. And it's made by the same development studio

who made Untitled Goose Game. So it's a very silly, very fun game. I already watched a bunch of Twitch streams on this game. Okay. And I think, yeah, but it feels like it should be played with people. So I need friends and I don't have friends. So sad. But the sound design of this game is amazing. Like this game, the sound is very immersive, very satisfying as well.

Every little bit of interaction sounds amazing in this game, it seems. And I already bought the soundtrack on Bandcamp as well. because the soundtrack is amazing. Okay, sounds like I nailed this pick. And for Chris. Chris, I wanted to pick something that I didn't think you'd played, but you might enjoy. And I have selected Hot Wheels Unleashed for you. Whoa, okay. Yes, what is this? This is a racing game. It is available all the places, but I gave you the Switch link for it.

It is, you race Hot Wheels, it's kind of it's an arcade racing game with hot wheels and it is better than you can ever imagine oh my gosh this looks awesome it's so good this looks awesome okay all right i am so down for this okay there's probably some american muscle cars in there in hot wheels form and yeah is it really 40 dollars it is 40 which is a little obnoxious but uh wait for a sale wish list to wait for it to go on sale i'm sure there's a batman expansion okay i think i just won there's a

bat guys there's a batman expansion yes you can get the batmobile but what about the trucks i the batmobile the trucks batmobile is the coolest fictional car okay all right we got to wrap things up here matt what is your challenge for the week my challenge is very simple I did not put it in the thing yet but my challenge is watch the first episode of the most recent season of Jetlag the Game and come back next week with a mini review Can you guys give me a link?

The first episode? Yes Can you give me the right link so I watch the right thing please? Yes I am pasting a link Can't you type Jetlag the Game in the YouTube search bar? make sure I watch the right one. Isn't that your job to be on YouTube? He's saying that a very specific one. So I want to make sure I watch the right thing. Yes. For listeners, we are doing... Yeah, the first episode of Statewide Scramble. This is a US-based one, so you'll have like some... You know, it's US. And it's really good.

And so, Neilian has already seen it. I've already seen it. But Chris refuses to watch Jetlag the game even though it changed my life after I watched it. We don't have time. You're right. We need to challenge him so he does find it. This is getting outside your comfort zone. This is going to introduce so much joy. There is a precedent for me not doing challenges. I would like to point that out. So we'll see what happens. But you're on the line here. You're the only one who has to do something this week. There is a precedent. Yeah, I do feel like, what the hell?

I'm going to watch it again. I'm going to watch it again. I can as well, yeah. To refresh myself on what happened. But Chris, this is the, you just, you're going to enjoy it. All right. Okay. I'll see. All right. I'll see if I can talk to Danielle into watching it. All right. This is a good place to wrap up. And we are running long. So I got to just wrap it up here. So no end of the show question this week, but send them in feedback form. Thank you so much to Max Stories for having us. We are Max Stories Podcast. Check out all the writings and other podcasts on the show or on the website.

And thank you all so much for listening or watching, however you consume the show. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.