Stephen Mejias

And earlier in the night, I listened to an old Yazoo title: St. Louis Blues (1929-1935): The Depression, which has some amazing, moving cuts from Henry Townsend, Charley Jordan, Georgia Boyd, Peetie Wheatstraw, and Hi Henry Brown. Such pure, raw sounds are timeless, and are perhaps especially meaningful today.

The guitarist John Fahey was born on February 28, 1939, and died just days before what would have been his 62nd birthday, on February 22, 2001. Like so many other beautiful things that continue to have enormous impact on my life, Fahey’s music was introduced to me by Michelle. The album was 1997’s City of Refuge. We were in our second year at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in the second year of our relationship. Michelle had claimed the album from our campus radio station and brought it back to our dorm room and played it for me.

Thinksound ts02 in Black Chocolate finish.

I haven’t had much luck with in-ear headphones.

Kelli’s Etymotic ER-6i earphones ($99) offered a well-balanced sound, with satisfying bass and natural highs, but I found them extremely uncomfortable and I had a difficult time getting them to fit properly in my ear canals. I liked Shure’s SE210 ($149.99) and SE115 ($139.99), but they felt large and heavy in my ears, and friends often balked at their prices. Don’t get me started about the V-MODA Remix Metal in-ears ($99.99); their highs were so pronounced and glaring and bass so completely absent, I wanted to run away from my music—never a good sign. (But I’ll take the blame here: I should’ve known what to expect from an earphone with the word “Metal” in its name. I have since steered clear of models designed to look like bullets, arrows, and jet engines or whose product literature uses the words “crisp,” “sharp,” or “edgy.”)

During my recent trip to Seattle for Definitive Audio’s Music Matters 7 event, I decided to compare Thinksound’s ts02 ($79.99) to their ms01 ($99.99), the first model in the company’s new Monitor Series.