Ooh that does look good. I just did a rudimentary scan of my main stack of CDs and only found David Oistrakh Collection Vol. 6, EMI "The Devil's Trill", and the EMI DVD with Oistrakh, Menuhin, and Rostropovich. Didn't realize my Oistrakh collection was so lacking.
Yup, stock and especially if the cotton is removed and not replaced with anything the bass is kind of blobby and slow and that's because of the resonance from the back plate. Quick fix makes it better, and a good headphone, depending on the condition of the electrets.
In my experience with the RP18 and headphones in general, pads make a huge difference in frequency response. Pads that leak bass and are decently thick work well.
4'33"
Honestly it just sounds like he picked ten songs he liked. Also, every audiophile knows that Norah Jones album was probably mastered by people dumping acorns all over the boards and then letting some squirrels loose. Which is actually only slightly worse than the average mastering engineer.
Depends on the frequency, microwaves operate around 2.4GHz which happens to be quite close to the frequencies used by various wireless devices. You can try finding something that operates at a different frequency band to minimize interference.