Premium earphones. 🎧 I've been this way since my Discman days. I mean have you tried those standard-issue ones you get from Apple products? They're atrocious. They're not only very crass-sounding, they're too big for me and the edges always hurt/scratch my earlobes. So I always buy earphones separately, I love the noise-cancelling ones that stuff your ears with rubbery stuff (always in-ear and I'm not sure how I feel about headphones, still). I'm not even talking about fancy brands like B&O, just normal electronics brands—but the ones on the higher-ends of their lines (so it's not like I'm buying Lexus earphones, they're still very much Toyota but I'm buying the earphone equivalents of Crown/Corona/Celica as opposed to Corolla/Yaris—if that makes sense). I'm partial to Philips. 🌷 But they're also kind of rare, often out-of-stock although they're much more common now. I used to have to buy them at SOGO (the Plaza Senayan store, near the escalators). Sometimes when my earphones break and I need new ones, I buy non-premium ones because they're out-of-stock or the store doesn't carry them. My current ones aren't premium, they're very yellow and they look like a pair of lemons. 🍋 I mean I have a soft spot for them because it's a very cute pair of earphones, but they're painful. The bass is near nonexistent, the other day I accidentally played something too loud and it literally felt like my eardrums were being pierced by a blunt needle. But I always buy anything I can get my hands on when my current ones break (usually it's a problem with the cables). I'm not even going to give you a pretentious artsy excuse like "I can't live a day without music" to that, the real reason I always have to have earphones with me is because certain noises give me anxiety (certain aspects of Indonesian humour/variety television programmes—and the way they're passive-aggressively indirectly spoken/delivered specifically... Especially when I'm walking or using public transport, I'd rather not hear people verbally sexually harassing me lest I snap) and I muffle/drown those sounds with music to mitigate the anxiety. I currently want Philips' CitiScape St. Germain thing (the purple one). Hopefully some store still has them in-stock. 🎶 Also, I really appreciate quality earphones for listening to my "goat baaa" mp3's during meditation which I find immensely soothing...

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