I first set my budget to about £50-60 and then scoured the web for reviews on Senheisers, Sony, Panasonic etc….. I couldn’t see anything outstanding about any of the earphones I was looking at within this price range until I accidently came across the SoundMAGIC E10s and then this review from What HiFi.

I then checked the user reviews on Amazon and just made the purchase. Being a prime customer I was expecting next day delivery but as usual HDNL failed to deliver! So I cancelled the order and ordered from eBay with next day delivery.

Saturday 14th April my E10s had arrived and it was now time to put them to the test. I use a Samsung YP-R0 Audio player and a Samsung Galaxy S Phone with the Voodoo Sound app.

Instantly, I could tell that there was a difference in the music I was listening too, bass was not booming, treble was not too harsh that it hurt my ears on louder volume and there was a nice warm mid range which I didn’t expect.

I initially tested them with 320Kbps MP3 files and tracks from the following artists/bands Sting, Pink Floyd and Metallica and was able to tell a difference in a few of the tracks as I was able to hear sounds, backing vocals and instruments which I had not heard before.

Now, the main reason I posted this review is becasue I listen to a lot of metal from classic, trash to melodic death and I have to say these ear phones have not disappointed so far. Usually I tend to hear a lot of harsh treble which just hurts my ears fine, I could always adjust EQ but unless you have a very good audio player you end up with losing other sounds.

Look, I am no audiophile but I know what sounds good and these SoundMAGIC E10 with Heavy Metal Music sound great. At £35 you cannot go wrong!

Instead of going and purchasing another I wondered what would happen if I contacted Planet Waves to get a replacement screw sent to me (I would have even paid a little for it) and to my astonishment after a couple of emails they requested my address and said they would send out not one but two for FREE.

The screws took just a tad bit more than a week to arrive and I could not be happier with their service.

Thanks again Planet Waves.

I have changed my log-in logo and link on my page and it makes quite a difference to the look as you can see.

You are probably now wondering “well, how is it done?” Now, there are various methods and even plug-ins available to do this but I will show you my method which works for me.

Please note with this method you will need to redo this process each time you upgrade your WordPress version but this does not take long at all, I would say less than 10 minutes.

1. Before doing anything take a backup. You should really do this on a regular basis regardless or not of whether you are changing anything.

2. Open the wp-login.php page in notepad or which ever text editor you use.

3. Now search the wp-login.php file for “login_headerurl” and change this to your site address or wherever you would like to point it to.

4. Now search for “login_headertitle” and change this to your site name or anything else you like. This just changes the hover over text which is displayed over the link you specified above.

5. Good, now we have changed the link to which the WordPress logo takes us to but we still don’t have our image. Open up Photoshop or your preferred image editor and create a new file with the following dimensions 274 x 63. Put whatever you want on the image and save it somewhere as a PNG image with the following name “logo-login.png“

6. Now replace the logo-login.png file in wp-admin\images within your WordPress installation on the web server with the one you created and you are done. Refresh your browser.

I was born with protruding ears from birth and (only now is it known that it can be fixed in newborns without the need for surgery) I went through school, college and university and a fair bit of my professional career like this. I did have the issue that any child would have from other youngsters; the name calling. But I must say I was lucky enough to not only be strong enough to brush it aside but I had good friends throughout my academic career. In primary and secondary school it meant kids would think twice about making a remark about my looks

At the age of about 5 or 6 my parents did go and visit my GP to see what could be done but to their surprise they were told the following which is in no way true:

1. That the procedure is very dangerous.
2. Can cause loss of hearing.
3. May cause brain damage!
4. Very high chance of infection.

Now, I must say that none of these are true. Yes, every procedure does have its dangers and chances of infection are there too but that’s if you do not follow advice given by your surgeon or nurses. I will talk about this a bit more later on when I talk about the actual procedure I went through.

I will never know why my GP would have said this to me and my parents but in any case he was struck off as a GP a few years later. I have to say in some ways I am glad I never had it done then as I would have wanted to make the decision to change my body myself at an age when I was mature enough to understand the consequences of what I was going to do.

Growing up was not an issue apart from what I have already mentioned which goes on at school and is expected. Though I was always a little self conscious about my ears I never really let it prevent me from doing what I wanted to do, go where I wanted to go or meet the girl or person I wanted to meet. The last thing you can do is let it bring you down and bring down your self esteem and confidence. It is not easy to do but I didn’t let it happen to me and I am proud of how I managed myself during all those years.

It was January 1st 2012, this was the day I decided to finally look into changing the way I look, I was not drunk from the night before and it was a question from my sister which prompted me to go online and do some research and book a consultation with a surgeon. I booked an initial free comsultation with a nurse from the Harley Medical Group. Whilst I was waiting for my initial consultation I still carried out extensive research online and was lucky enough to meet with a friend who had an otoplasty done whilst she was in her early teens. She was able to tell me about the procedure, her reasons for having the procedure done and how she felt afterwards.

During my first consultation with the nurse she just talked me through the procedure and asked me about my medical history. She also took me in front of a mirror and told me what I could expect from the otoplasty procedure but said it is best to book a consultation with a surgeon. I did book and it cost me a non-refundable £500 just for a consultation with my surgeon Dr. Riccardo Frati.

I had heard of Dr. Frati on various cosmetic surgery forums but he was not known for the otoplasty procedure but he is listed (as of 1st April 2012) on the Specialist Register on the General Medical Council so I went ahead with the consultation. I did continue to do some more research in the event that if Dr. Frati could not answer my questions I had for him to my satisfaction I would rather lose that £500 and go with a surgeon who would be able to answer my questions and assure me that what they show me in the mirror prior to me going under the knife would be the final outcome as long as I followed all advice given.

The day came for my consultation with Dr. Frati me with my questions now memorised in my head walked into a room with a nurse taking notes and me sitting in front of Dr. Frati. He is a fairly quiet man but well mannered. He introduced himself and asked me the usual questions of meet and greet. One question which I was hoping that every surgeon should ask is “why do you want to have this done?” Dr. Frati did ask me this and I informed him briefly of not exactly having a reason now but it is something I have thought about in the past and now it just felt right to get it done. He asked a few other questions about my medical history before taking me in front of a mirror and letting me know exactly what my ears would look like following the procedure. However, he then said something which put a little doubt into my mind, he informed me my left year would be a bit more difficult to work on but finished the sentence with “But I will do my very best.” I left it at that and decided that I would go with Dr. Frati since he was able to answer my questions and reassured me that I was in good hands.

I spoke to my sister and a couple of other close friends that I was going to go ahead with the procedure. It had been a month since I had initially thought about the idea and the research and questions to others did not stop. I was going to become someone with a new look, I wouldn’t no longer have that little worry inside of me of whether people were talking about my ears or treating me differently because of them, there was excitement and fear.

Below are two surgeons who are quite renowned here in the UK when it comes to ear reshaping surgery and if you are looking for the best I suggest you research into these two surgeons:

David Gault – http://www.davidgault.co.uk/

Greg O’Toole – http://www.gregotoole.co.uk/

I must admit I only found out about these two surgeons after I had been to the consultation at the Harley Medical Group with Dr. Frati and I didn’t want to lose £500 but more importantly I felt that Dr. Frati was very honest in telling me what to expect and his assurances made me feel very comfortable.

A few weeks prior to my procedure I went to visit a nurse at the Harley Medical Group. Her name was Nicole and she was absolutely great, she had so much humility and care in what she did and was very talkative. She asked about my medical history, took a blood sample, checked my weight and also told me to stop smoking at least 2 weeks before and after the op to have the best possible chances of recovery. She informed me that she would also be the nurse that I would see at least twice after surgery; I was more than glad! She did take the rest of the payment for the procedure which came to a total of £3100 including the consultation with Dr. Frati.

I actually quit smoking a few days after this pre-op assessment and did not regret it at all I had the best reason I could think of to quit.

A couple of weeks had passed since my pre-op assessment and my surgery date was looming, I had booked time off at work and told friends and family that I would be homebound for at least a week after the surgery. I changed my diet, I stopped drinking alcohol for more than a week. I was prepared.

The day came for surgery, it was 5am and time to get out of bed and get ready to drive to Highgate Hospital in North London. My sister booked this day off work just so that she could take me to the hospital. I had never been under a general anaesthetic this was the only thing in my mind now and I will be honest in saying that I was scared. Depending on surgeons some opt to do this procedure under a local anaesthetic but HMG told me I would have a general.

At the hospital I was shown to my room and in walked Dr. Frati with a camera to take another batch of before pictures whilst again reminding me that my left ear needed a bit more work but all will be fine. An hour or so passed and I was getting a little annoyed at the waiting as I had been in the hospital since 07:45 and it was now 09:45. My vitals were checked a number of times during this wait until finally at about 10:00 I was called by the nurse to change and get ready to be put to sleep.

I woke up about 12:30 and was feeling fine until I looked into the mirror and noticed a bandage on my head. I did not expect it to be the size it was and it had two pads going across my cheeks so that I could not sleep with my head on its side!

~ I will still continue to write on this post until it is finished but a number of you are requesting pictures so they can be found below. ~