Wondershare data recovery: Recover deleted files from Recycle Bin/Pendrive/SD Card/Hard disk/Memory Card

Looking for an efficient way to recover deleted, lost, or formatted data from your computer or storage device?

Try Data Recovery by Wondershare. It’s a tool you can download to your Windows PC or Mac in order to recover files from your computer storage, hard drive, memory card, recycle bin, flash drive, digital camera, and camcoder. It basically allows you to retrieve any type of data (as long as the file is one of the 550+ supported formats). It specifically offers five different ways (or “modes”) to help recover lost files in a variety of situations.

Here’s everything you need to know about the software.

What is Wondershare Data Recovery?

As we described above, Wondershare Data Recovery lets you recover various file formats and types — including documents, photos, emails, audio clips, and videos — from your PC’s hard drive as well as from USB drives, external hard drives, and other storage devices. Wondershare describes it as a file recovery software that currently serves over 5 million users across the world.

While recovering your lost or deleted data, you will be given the option to preview all the files the software finds and choose which ones you want to cover. The software can also enter a “Deep Scan” that allows you to find and restore formatted and even damaged files “within minutes”. The latest version offers five different recovery modes: Wizard, Lost File, Partition, Raw, and Resume.

So, whether your computer crashed, or you deleted important files or maybe mistakenly formatted something, there’s no need to freak out, because Data Recovery is designed to find and restore your stuff.

How do the recovery modes work?

• Wizard Recovery: If you don’t know anything about how to recover, try Wizard and simply follow the on-screen instructions. It’ll ask you to answer quick questions, and then it’ll find your lost files for you.
• Lost File Recovery: If you already know where you lost your file or just need to recover formatted and deleted with their original file names and paths, use Lost File Recovery.
• Partition Recovery: Sometimes things go wrong. If that happens to you with a partition, you can still use this option. It’ll restore your files from a deleted, lost, damaged, resized, and formatted partition in all file systems.
• Raw Recovery: Viruses and trojans can wreak havoc on your system and cause data loss, but this option lets you scan raw hard drive partitions, preview recoverable files, and get them back with just a click.
• Resume Recovery: You can always recover some of your lost files at a later date if you only want to do some now. Resume Recovery will important your scan results so that you can resume a recovery session after.

Is Data Recovery only for Mac and PC?

Yes. This is a desktop-only software that supports the following operating systems: Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista, Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 Yosemite) on iMac, MacBook, Mac Pro, etc. However, it not only works on computer hard drives, but also external drives, USB drives, and other storage devices.

How much is Wondershare Data Recovery?

You can try a trial version of Wondershare Data Recovery, but you’ll be limited. You’ll only be able to recover 100 MB data for free.

Alternatively, you can buy the full version to recover unlimited data and multiple file types.

• Windows version: $49.95
• Mac version: $45 on sale

Want to know more?

Check out the helpful video guides above.

Official Nintendo Switch accessories include Zelda skins, arcade stick and in-car charger

The Nintendo Switch will be officially unveiled on Friday 13 January, but we already have a good idea of what the console will look like. What we don’t know, is what sort of accessories to expect to be made available for it, until now.

• Nintendo Switch: Release date, price, specs and everything you need to know

@DroidXAce pic.twitter.com/8nSyHT2CnX

— DroidXAce (@DroidXAce) 10 January 2017

French Twitter user DroidXAce has obtained a document detailing several accessories made by Hori, a manufacturer of accessories for all the major gaming platforms.

DroidXAce does say he can’t confirm the authenticity of the document, but it gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect. Expected accessories include several Legend of Zelda items, such as skins for the main dock and the centre of the Joycon dock, as well as cases for the main tablet. Hori has clearly realised that Legend of Zelda series is a fan-favourite, although we’d love to see some official Mario skins as well.

@DroidXAce pic.twitter.com/cJkO6XOwZb

— DroidXAce (@DroidXAce) 10 January 2017

Other items include:

• Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild skin set – March 2017 release
• An arcade stick
• An in-car charger
• A LAN adapter
• A carry case
• A charging dock for the Joycon controller
• A charging dock for the Switch tablet
• Replacement analogue stick tops and thumb buttons

It’s not clear if any of these accessories will be announced during the official launch of the Nintendo Switch, or if they’ll quietly make their way into stores and online. We only have a couple of days to wait though, so watch this space.

Huawei sends out invites for MWC 2017 event, P10 incoming?

Huawei sent invitations out to members of the press this afternoon, inviting the world of tech journalism to an event taking place in Barcelona on 26 February, the day before MWC officially kicks off.

As is usually the case with media invites, the details are vague, but the company’s chief Richard Yu will be unveiling a “flagship device”.

Of course there are many interpretations possible for “flagship device”, but it could well be the Huawei P10.

• Huawei P10: What’s the story so far?
• Mobile World Congress 2017: Smartphones, smartphones, smartphones to expect

While the manufacturer usually launches the P-series phones at a separate event a month or two after MWC, it wouldn’t be hugely surprising to see it move away from its usual annual release cycle.

Using the biggest smartphone convention on earth as a platform for its next important product makes sense in some ways. That’s if the company is referring to a smartphone at all. 

At MWC 2016, Huawei used its Sunday afternoon event to unveil the latest MateBook; a 2-in-1 Windows laptop crossover, rather than a high-powered smartphone. 

As for the P10, whenever it arrives, leaks suggest the design will look slightly different to both the P9 and P8.

Leaked images suggest we’ll see a phone with a front-mounted fingerprint sensor, rather than a scanner built into the back of the phone. In many ways it looks similar to the Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design, with its glass and metal combination and the pill-shaped home button. 

Unverified leaks also suggest we’ll finally see a Quad HD resolution display on the P10, rather than a full HD panel, and that it might be 5.5-inches. 

Until all of this is announced, it’s all just hearsay for now, but Huawei might actually give us something to remember them by at Barcelona this year. 

Uber can start trips based on your calendar

If you’re a frequent Uber passenger, you probably don’t pick all your destinations on the spot — you sometimes have a scheduled meet-up in mind. Why do you have to dig up the address for that appointment when you already have it in your calendar? You might not have to after today. Uber is rolling out a Calendar Shortcuts feature that (surprise) lets you start a trip based on an upcoming calendar entry instead of your home, work or ride history. So long as that important business meeting has an address, you won’t have to memorize it when you’re hailing a car.

The feature is already starting to reach iOS devices worldwide. If you’re an Android user, however, you’ll have to sit tight — Uber says calendar integration is “coming soon” to Google’s platform. That’s not completely surprising given the differences in calendar software, but it still means that you might have to punch in your destination the old fashioned way for a while.

Source: Uber

Facebook’s fix for journalism involves digests and subscriptions

Facebook’s efforts to mend fences with journalists just got a formal name. The social network just launched the Facebook Journalism Project, an initiative meant to “establish stronger ties” with the news world. The program will have it working with journalists on new business models, offering journo-friendly tools and encouraging everyone to both read critically and fight fake news.

The collaborations will not only include refining existing news options (such as creating digests of multiple Instant Articles), but exploring new business strategies. As an example, it’s about to run a test with Germany’s Bild that will let Instant Article readers start a trial subscription from inside a story — ideally, this shows that a Facebook piece can lead to paying customers. Facebook is also promising to foster local journalism and run news-oriented hackathons.

As far as training and tools? It’s offering online courses to help master its products, and its recent acquisition CrowdTangle will be free to help news outlets both bring their stories to the surface and track their success. Facebook is also boosting its support for the First Draft Partner Network (which helps discover news from social sources) and working with third parties that promote news literacy, such as the News Literacy Project and Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The company is quick to say that this is “just the beginning” of the project, and that there’s more it will do. With that said, the news industry might just see this as a half-hearted measure. After all, journalists have spent years complaining that Facebook hurts journalism by keeping users off their websites (where they’d make significant ad revenue) and giving legitimacy to dodgy sources. This only partly addresses the issue — digests and subscription offers help, but they’re not going to turn Facebook into a profit center for media outlets.

Source: Facebook

The iPhone could have been very different

Apple’s decision to give the iPhone a touchscreen was a bold and controversial one at the time. In an era where Blackberry was thriving with its keyboard phones, the idea of removing them entirely seemed baffling. History shows that Apple made the right decision with a full-screen touchscreen, but that wasn’t the only option. We’ve heard of the iPod-esque touch wheel prototype iPhone before now, but a new video from tech leaker Sonny Dickson now shows this interface going toe-to-toe with an icon and (touch-controlled) iteration.

Created by Tony Fadell, the man behind the iPod, this click wheel prototype (P1) used an onscreen wheel to navigate a UI that looked almost identical to the iPod’s. Going up against Fadell’s more familiar take was Scott Forstall’s touchscreen based prototype (P2). While the video appears to show P2 running on something that looks closer to the iOS we know today, both phones actually operated on an early touch operating system known as Acorn OS.

As you can see, the scroll-wheel P1 model loads faster thanks to running a slimmed down version of the OS, booting to an iPod Classic Logo. Meanwhile, the touchscreen prototype takes a little longer to boot, initially displaying the image of an octopus. This slower start time is a result of the more developed OS that P2 was running on.

Ten years on, this footage serves as an intriguing insight into the choices Apple engineers faced as they attempted to create one of the most iconic tech products ever. Interestingly, this process of pitting ‘p devices’ (or incredibly basic prototypes) against each other is still the first step of getting a new product approved at Apple, according to Dickson.

Luckily for us, the process had the right outcome, with Apple mercifully saving the world from years of typing out texts with a scroll wheel.

Via: Mac Rumours

Source: Sonny Dickson

Technology helped me through the emotional roller coaster of CES

Humans love to control how they feel. Booze and coffee have been perking us up and lubricating social situations for millennia. Mood-enhancing technology, on the other hand, usually tries to emulate a cup of joe or a glass of wine but without the need for rinsing your liver. I’m generally OK with pumping chemicals into my body, but with a few mood-changing gadgets catching my eye in the run-up to this year’s CES, I thought I’d give some a go. The hope was that I could avoid the usual uppers-and-downers routine that a week in Vegas demands.

Day One

Mood enhancer: Coffee and ibuprofen

It’s 8 AM on New Year’s Day. Most of the world is nursing a hangover after ushering in 2017. Me? I’m getting into an Uber, headed to the airport. I have the usual mixed feelings about attending CES. It’s a fun show, with lots of new gadgets, but it’s also our busiest working week of the year. Our team gets to Las Vegas early, as there’s so much preparation to do. I’m feeling pretty good, though, running on hope and caffeine (the gadgets will come later). Despite a near-death experience on the highway as someone cuts us off at an exit, I’m generally in good spirits.

Current feeling: Light anxiety

Day Two

Mood enhancer: Camaraderie and beer

Monday is my first full day in Vegas. The first night in the hotel we stay at every year hasn’t done much to improve my mood. It’s not a bad hotel; it’s just become such an integral part of the CES experience for me that it serves to underscore the reality of what’s coming. I’m also feeling a little worse for wear after overindulging at a team dinner the night before. The day’s agenda is pretty relaxed, though. We have our management meeting, followed by a team all-hands, where we go through the plan for the week ahead.

The Engadget staff is spread out across the globe, and CES is pretty much the one time that we all get together (save for a few noble souls who stay home to keep the news machine running). Seeing everyone again is a great motivational lift and a chance to shoot the shit ahead of the impending tidal wave of work. I enjoy dinner that night with a few colleagues and embrace a few more fermented beverages to take the edge off of my excitement (or is it fear? It’s hard to tell by now). This is pretty much how every CES begins.

Current feeling: Optimism with a slight hangover

Day Three

Mood enhancer: Mio Slice and light exercise

Three days in and I’ve barely touched a gadget. Today that changes as meetings are in full swing. I knew I wanted to try out technology that helped change or control one’s mood, but I’d need some sort of objectivity to underpin the whole thing. Enter the $129 Mio Slice. The Slice is an activity tracker much like a Fitbit. Mio tries to differentiate itself with a holistic metric it calls Personal Activity Intelligence, or PAI for short. (Get it? Slice/pie.) In addition to tracking your motion, the Slice measures your heart rate, so it can tell how much effort that movement required. It’s $20 cheaper than Fitbit’s new Charge band, but it doesn’t look as nice and there’s no GPS either.

With the Slice, the goal is to get a PAI score of 100 or more per week. The physical and mental benefits of getting up and moving around are well known, and I’m hoping the Slice will encourage me to do a bit more of each. I also plan on using the all-day heart rate monitoring as a general indicator of my stress levels.

Before that, though, tonight is when the the first official CES business takes place — an evening press event called Unveiled. It’s basically a technological flea market, and it’s one of the more stressful parts of the week. The Slice seems to confirm that, with my pulse rarely dipping below 115 all night. However, unlike the wave of well being that tends to follow a run or gym workout, by the end of the night my brain is like cotton candy, and I want to punch a man at the show who is dressed up as a robot sounding a horn all the way through the event.

Current feeling: Punchy

Day Four

Mood enhancer: Nuheara IQbuds

After last night’s debacle with horny robot guy, I’m not taking any chances. There’s another event this evening like Unveiled, and I want to protect both my ears and my sanity. Nuheara’s $299 IQbuds seem to fit the bill. They’re wireless headphones that also improve your hearing through a mix of noise-canceling and speech enhancement (useful for tonight!). They can also help your mood by drowning out the world with music.

Earlier in the day, I had been out in the desert at the Drone Rodeo. I had hopes that being outside would help bump my PAI score on the Slice. There’s only one problem: The Slice has run out of battery somewhere along the way. The claimed runtime is about five days, but I’ve been wearing it for one and a half at best. Of course, I don’t realize this until I’m out in the desert, and I left the charger back at the hotel. So without the judging eyes of the Mio Slice spying on my healthiness, I enjoy two of the best food truck grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever had. Thank you, Strip Chezze. Mio, not so much.

Back in Vegas proper, I turn on a dime and head out to the evening press event armed with my IQbuds. I had tried them a few weeks ago back in San Francisco and liked how they worked. At the event, though, it’s a different experience. The buds still work, and the voice enhancement is helpful for understanding people over the din of the background noise (and thankfully, no robot dude).

The problem is that the buds keep generating feedback noise right into my ears. When this happens, the people you’re talking to can also hear it, and it’s a bit distracting. I take them out for the rest of the show but continue to use them throughout the following morning. The IQbuds are effective and that feedback isn’t a total buzzkill, but I’m looking forward to trying them out again once they finally hit the shelves.

Current feeling: Tired with cheese sweats

Day Five

Mood enhancer: NuCalm

It’s day five and time to pull out the big guns. Enter NuCalm, which uses microcurrents (via sticky pads), topical cream for addressing adrenaline and binaural-style audio tracks for a triple-threat attack on my shaky trade-show temperament. After reading the company’s own description — “The only patented system for balancing and maintaining the health of your autonomic nervous system” and a “reset button that calms and focuses your mind while allowing your body to recover” — I’m pretty excited.

I had a fitful sleep the night before (thanks to all the cheese, I imagine), so when I wake I’m eager to give NuCalm a spin, especially as today is the day the CES show floor opens. My email inbox is already a shit show, and my calendar is full of near back-to-back appointments and reminders. I wash my face to wake myself up, apply the topical cream (with unspecified amino acids), stick two pads behind my ears as instructed and choose one of the neuroacoustic audio tracks preloaded in the NuCalm app. With headphones and eye mask on, I lie back and have the most zen 30 minutes I’ve had in the past few weeks.

I should note that I have forgotten the instructions given to me by NuCalm’s CEO, so I jack up the microcurrents to level eight (I should have left it on level one). I’m going in at pro levels here without even knowing it. The tingling behind my ears is comfortable, and the audio paints an acoustic forest setting. The darkness caused by the eye guard means my optical senses are left to their own devices.

After about five minutes, I’ve fully settled in, and my mind starts to wander. I’m thinking about nothing in particular, though I become aware of my breathing shifting from shallow inhalations to deeper, presleep rasps. Every now and again, the rattle of the hotel housekeeping carts going past my room invades my senses. At times, the isolation gets a bit overwhelming and I feel disoriented, but once my 30 minutes are up, I feel … good? Good enough that the sad hotel breakfast that follows doesn’t taste like the usual rubber and cardboard. Good enough that, heck, I might even be ready for CES.

During my time with NuCalm, I have been wearing the Mio Slice (the battery problems are now somewhat ameliorated by a firmware update). When I check the app, I can see that the NuCalm has had a tangible impact on my heart rate. I dropped from about 80 to 90 beats per minute to around 65 for the duration of my session. The fact that I was lying down listening to pretty chill audio will likely have contributed, but it’s the first gadget I’ve used that might have done the trick.

The NuCalm unit that I’m using is the company’s industrial model, designed mainly for clinical use (think calming people in the dentist’s chair). At CES, NuCalm is showing off a prototype called ReNu, a more accessible model for consumers. It costs over $800. But that’s at least more accessible than the multi-thousand-dollar device I’m wearing.

Current feeling: Calm, rejuvenated

Day Six

Mood enhancer: Cambridge Sound Nightingale

Of all the days I’m at CES, Friday (or rather, Thursday night) is the one that requires I enjoy a decent night’s sleep. I have three back-to-back stage interviews to conduct in the morning, and nothing kills a conversation quicker than a yawning interviewer. My weapon of choice is the Nightingale by Cambridge Sound. It’s basically a fancy-pants white noise generator that you can control through an app or web interface.

The Nightingale is composed of two speakers that plug into outlets (the devices pass through outlets so you’re not losing any plug sockets). You choose from a number of audio “blankets” to fill the room, but white noise is the default (others include forest, ocean, etc.). There’s also a night light, which could be handy for people with kids. That or exhausted CES reporters who keep forgetting where the hotel bathroom light switch is.

I’m skeptical at first, but our hotel walls aren’t soundproof, and it’s easy to hear people walking past, as well as the near-constant rattle of housekeeping trolleys (in the morning, at least). With Nightingale plugged in, I quickly doze off into what turns out to be the best night’s sleep of the whole week. It could be a number of factors, but the timing for me is perfect and I feel about as good as I can while onstage with David Copperfield.

Later that day, I also get a chance to try out an updated version of Thync’s mood-enhancing wearable. I tried the first edition two years ago and enjoyed it, so I’m eager to see if it has improved. It certainly affects how I feel. These things are always hard to quantify, but it’s weirdly enjoyable, that gentle electric-pulse tingle on your back. The real impact of this device will come a day later while taking some much needed horizontal time.

Let me jump forward a day and explain. On Saturday I tested the “sleep” enhancer mode on Thync in my hotel room. Something about the light, prickly electrical stimulation was indeed helping me sleep, just as the companion app promises. But, the effect didn’t stop there. About 10 minutes in, I suddenly became very lucid, but also very aware I was still snoozing.

I’ve had lucid dreams before, this was different. My brain feels active and I can see colors washing over my eyes, that coalesce into kaleidoscopic forms, but I can feel my body is in a slumber. The experience was trippy, and I liked it. Note: I have a lucid dreaming app installed that prompts me to check if I am sleeping or not about six times a day; in other words, I actively seek to lucid-dream. I doubt this effect is common for those not looking for it.

Current mood: Transcendental

Day Seven

Mood enhancers: B&O Play H9 headphones and the Basslet wearable subwoofer

Saturday rolls in and the home stretch is in sight. Along with the abovementioned gadgets, my week has been enhanced by some unexpected items. Perhaps the biggest surprise was a pair of headphones from Bang & Olufsen (the $499 B&O Play H9, to be precise). For years I’ve been something of a naysayer about noise-canceling headphones. I generally like to play my music loud, to the extent that real-world noises don’t spoil it, at least not enough to pay extra for ANC. I’ve also never had a problem with sleeping on planes and so on (a typical use case for the people who suggest them to me).

What I finally realize at CES is, there is a peaceful alternative to music and/or background noise. The H9 doesn’t give you perfect silence, but while working from Engadget’s busy trailer outside the conference hall, it is enough to drown out the background chatter and the occasional lady burps (and giggling) from one of my colleagues working to my right. I end up using the H9s all week, and half of the time it’s for the noise canceling — no music.

The other half of that time I use them as nature intended: for playing throbbing music, something this next gadget helps with. I spent most of the week enjoying/explaining/defending to my colleagues the curious Basslet ($299). If active noise canceling was a surprise route to tranquility, then the Basslet is an audio adrenaline shot in the eyeball. When it rumbles on your wrist in time to the bass of your music, it’s as if you’ve added an extra three levels of volume and have engaged the tactile senses. A lot of people don’t seem to get it until they try it, but for bass-heads it’s a no-brainer.

Anytime I need a pick-me-up throughout the week, I find myself reaching for the Basslet. Even more so today, which is the last day of the show, and spirits are starting to lift across the team. Later, while demonstrating the Basslet to a colleague, I place it on her head. She remarks how relaxing it was, so perhaps there’s a hidden dual use here. Or maybe she’s a bit weird — I can’t decide.

With the show finally coming to a close, the best feeling is knowing that I can go home and sleep in my own bed. The technology I have tried, though, makes me eager to experiment more once I get home. NuCalm has me curious to try a few more sessions. The Nightingale might also become a permanent fixture in my sleep routine (if it doesn’t annoy my spouse). I think it’s pretty clear that the Basslet will spend a lot of time on my wrist, and I thank the H9s (and Dana’s burps) for teaching me the joy of active noise cancelation.

Current mood: Thank God that’s over

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Hacker’s unofficial ‘Watch Dogs 2’ app is incredibly appropriate

After successfully linking GTA V to an iPhone, the same Hungarian hacker has now developed software that allows users to manipulate Watch Dogs 2 from their smartphone. Using the programming language, Python, YouTuber Planetleak DIY Projects has managed to recreate the game’s Dedsec app on his iPhone — and the irony of creating an iPhone hack for a game about hacking probably wasn’t lost on him.

Thanks to clever keypress emulation and screenshots mimicking the look of the game’s smartphone, the custom app instantly navigates a convincing replica of Watch Dogs 2’s in-game menu via the iPhone’s touchscreen. Hopefully the irony of creating an iPhone hack for a game about hacking wasn’t lost on him.

It’s certainly a step-up from the hacker’s GTA V app. While his 2015 effort required an Arduino in order to recreate GTA’s button presses, he claims this new software-only solution has resulted in a far smoother and less laggy experience. When the YouTuber contacted Ubisoft, the company expressed interest in the project, giving him permission to share the app’s source files. These means that anyone can modify the software (or simply use it as is) by downloading the source code for the Python server.

A couple of years ago, hackers didn’t need to bother creating these kind of solutions. After the Wii U launched, many publishers initially responded by releasing companion apps for Xbox 360 and PS3 games, offering non-Nintendo gamers a second screen experience of their own. While these apps were pretty useful, they were largely seen as a gimmick and after declining public interest, publishers quickly stopped developing them.

With this console generation seeing fewer and fewer games launching with companion apps, gamers who liked a degree of smartphone integration will have to rely on the work of hackers like this one.

Source: Planetleak DIY Projects

Tesla hires key designer behind Apple’s new MacBook Pro

Apple’s Swift language architect isn’t its only high-profile team member to have jumped ship for Tesla in recent memory. The 9to5Mac team has discovered that Matt Casebolt, a product design director for Apple, left the company in December to become a senior engineering director for “closures & mechanisms” at Tesla. It’s not clear exactly how he’ll shape Tesla design, but you’ll definitely recognize his Apple work — he was key to the designs of everything from the MacBook Air through to the current Mac Pro and new MacBook Pro.

Of course, Apple staff heading to Tesla isn’t new. Multiple people have made that leap in the recent past, including Mac hardware engineering VP Doug Field. And the reverse is true as well: Apple has hired Tesla veterans for its own automotive work, which is significant despite Elon Musk’s bid to downplay the departures. However, there’s no doubt that Casebolt’s exit will cut deep. Whatever you may think about the Macs he helped make, there’s no question that they’re clever feats of engineering. Whoever his replacement may be will have big shoes to fill, and may well change the direction of Apple hardware.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: LinkedIn

Teaching the uninterested about headphones

By Aaron Souppouris and Mat Smith

There’s a constant divide at Engadget between those who care about audio, and those who don’t. I (that’s Aaron) fall mostly in the first category: I appreciate high-end headphones, but my budget typically leaves me with pairs costing $200 to $300. My current daily ‘phones are AKG K702s for home, and Master & Dynamic MH30s for out and about.

My colleague Mat Smith couldn’t be more different. He uses a mix of unremarkable Sony earbuds and Bluetooth headphones, and responds to “audiophile” conversation with a bespoke mixture of groans and eye rolls. This CES, I decided to spend a morning getting him excited about headphones. It went… okay?

The rules were simple, and our methodology entirely unscientific. We would travel from booth to booth, listening to a single track, over and over. Because we’re mean, the Engadget CES team deemed Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” the perfect fit, despite the holidays being long gone.

After adding a 1411 Kbps (16/44.1 kHz) FLAC file to my iPhone, we headed onto the show floor, stopping at Sennheiser, Audio Technica, HiFiMan, Audeze and Klipsch. In general, I was looking for portable headphones that work well when connected to a phone. For each listen, I had Mat tell me his thoughts before we moved on to the next booth.

Sennheiser HD 4.50BTNC ($200)

Mat: It’s my first listen, so there’s nothing to measure against. The track sounds rich, but nothing I can call out explicitly. I don’t really like cans — they’re uncomfortable.

Aaron: We visited Sennheiser first for no reason other than it was closest to the front door. I paired Sennheiser’s latest wireless headphones, the HD4.50BTNC, with my phone, switched off noise cancellation, and gave them to Mat for his first dose of Mariah. They’re fairly functional cans, but don’t excite me massively (their main selling point is noise cancellation, which I have no use for).

Audio Technica ATH-SR9 ($450)

Aaron: After Mat’s uninspired response to the Sennheisers, I figured it was a safe bet that Audio Technica’s SR9s would at least sound different than the HD 4.50s. I was a little worried that they wouldn’t sound great on an iPhone, but the Audio Technica rep said they’d be fine, and any fears were allayed by a quick listen. They sounded rich and sharp to my ears.

Mat: Ugh, more cans. The song had both more depth, and the treble stood out a lot more. Mariah even sounded a little hissy. I could hear the components of the track better than the Sennheisers. I think these are better, but I need more. Are these more expensive?

HiFiMan Edition S ($250)

Aaron: Now that I’d got Mat at least acknowledging that there were differences between headphones, I wanted him to experience the change between open- and closed-back cans. HiFiMan’s Edition S are portable headphones that switch from closed to open back with the removal of magnetic side plates. In general, open back headphones offer a wider, more neutral sound, at the cost of bass response and noise isolation. We began the test with them closed, and after a couple of minutes I removed the covers, before placing them back in for the song’s finale.

Mat: The difference is almost indistinguishable. The song sounded tinnier with the covers on. When you took them off, it all became richer — somehow airier? Does that make sense? It definitely sounded better open back, but I was afraid of the sound leak. I listen to a lot of embarrassing crap, so this is a concern for me.

Audeze iSine 20 ($600)

Aaron: Knowing that Mat has an aversion to over- and on-ear cans, Audeze’s iSines were high up on my list. I tried a pair briefly a few months ago, and they’re like no in-ear monitors (IEMs) I’ve heard before. The planar magnetic drivers inside them result in very low levels of distortion, and a much more crisp sound than you’d expect. They’re also capable of getting ridiculously loud.

Mat: These were confusing. They didn’t sound like any in-ear buds. They sounded very different than what I’d heard so far. I felt the bass was a bit lacking, but maybe that’s because I came from on-ear cans just before. Still the audio was powerful; very strong. The sounds seemed crisper. I was really surprised by power.

Audeze Sine ($450)

Aaron: Slightly crestfallen from the “meh” response to the iSines — I’m pretty sure they just weren’t in his ears properly — I took one last shot at impressing Mat. I’ve been weighing up buying a pair of Sines for months now in preparation for owning an iPhone without a headphone jack. All of the Sine series can be bought with Lightning cables, and I took advantage of that for the test, bypassing my iPhone’s audio circuitry in favor of Audeze’s in-cable solution.

Mat: These were really good; the best-sounding headphones so far. It wasn’t only the level richness, but you can really get a sense of distance between you and the various instruments. The sleigh bells were further away. It was almost like listening to a sound system or a soundbar: deep and bassy. Luxurious. So much better than everything else.

3.5mm diversion

Aaron: The breakthrough had happened. Mat was actually excited about a pair of headphones, and now it was time to demonstrate how big a difference Audeze’s in-wire DAC made. I swapped out cables, connected him up to my iPhone’s 3.5mm jack, and let “All I Want For Christmas Is You” play out.

Mat: Yuck. Completely different. Sounds like any pair of loose-fitting cans. I think the downgrade is especially noticeable because I hopped to the 3.5mm jack mid-track. It sounded grayer, flatter. Meh. That test makes a persuasive argument for fair-weather listeners like me to lose the headphone jack.

Klipsch Heritage hp-3 ($1,000)

Aaron: I think that last test was a little unfair. The iPhone probably didn’t have the power to make the Sines sound good, as I know from experience that they’re still very good headphones without the Lightning adapter. For our last show-floor test, I gave Mat what should have been a delightful pairing: Klipsch’s new $1000 Heritage hp-3, connected to my phone via a tube amplifier. It’s anything but portable, but I figured we’d go out on a high note.

Mat: These look very nice — and feel comfortable too. The track sounds deep and rich, but nothing particularly stands out. I think I was spoiled (or at least distracted) by the planar headphones before.

Mat’s Sony earbuds (~$60)

Aaron: Okay, so it turns out Mat actually has good taste. I did the one-two listen on the Sines and Heritage hp-3, and was also way more impressed with Audeze’s cans. To finish off our little adventure, I had Mat go back to the trailer, and listen to the same track on his phone, on his earbuds, using standard Spotify streaming (as he is wont to do).

Mat: These are my regular listening headphones. Treble’s fine; the bass doesn’t feel as rich as the headphones I’ve tried today. The track also doesn’t sound as natural. While punchy, the richer orchestrated parts sounds a bit thinner.

The sound of change

Mat: I know how terrible some headphones sound, but I’m more than happy with my current set. Yes, I expected more expensive headphones to sound better — that was a given. However, I was surprised that I was able to notice differences between headsets at prices way above my usual headphone budget. Will it change how I shop for and buy headphones? I’m not sure. I far prefer in-ear buds to cans (my ears get sweaty) and listening to music through any kind of headphones is something I do when my attention is mostly elsewhere — while working, at the gym, during my commute. That’s why it’s harder to justify spending more on them.

Aaron: I feel thoroughly vindicated here. I’m pretty certain Mat’s not going to run out and buy a pair of $500 cans, but I’m at least hopeful he won’t point and laugh if I do.

Mat: There is an aspect of premium headphones that I am intrigued by: Many of them come with lifetime guarantees. I go through my middleweight (or even boxed-with phone) headphones at a rate of about a pair a year. Maybe a pair of more expensive headphones might be worth it in the long run. Even if I change, then, audio quality would be the secondary benefit.

Aaron: Mission… accomplished? Kind of? I’ll take it.

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