Archive for the 'gadgets' Category

Headphones, pt. 1

 

As you know, I really like music, and am probably a bit of an audiophile. I don’t have the money for a full hi-fi setup of audiophile quality, but I try to get the most out of headphones. I might detail my full headphone setup in a later post, but this about my future portable setup.

My current setup is a Cowon J3 with Sennheiser HD 25-1 IIs. But because I carry it in my trouser pocket the cable is under a lot of stress and it breaks every so often. I am now sick of repairing or buying new cables (though I will probably make a blogpost about my next and hopefully last attempt at cable-repair), so I decided to go wireless.

After a favorable video review at Head-fi I decided to give the Sennheiser MM 450 Bluetooth headphones a try, but it affirmed all my fears about Bluetooth headphones. It makes everything played through it sound like an overcompressed MP3. I returned it.

So I searched around for a better wireless technology and stumbled upon Sleek Audio. They produce in-ear monitors and a wireless accessory which uses the proprietary KLEER wireless technology which promises wireless CD quality. I contacted their European dependance about purchasing the SA6R IEMs with the W1 wireless accessory but I was told that they don’t know yet when it will be available. Instead they offered me a bargain for their CT6 custom IEMs.

I decided to take them up on their offer, so I had to have molds made of my ears, that they will then use to make the custom casings. I went to two different companies who produce hearing aids and asked if they could provide said molds. I got a “Yes, but” from both companies; apparently they only produce molds for their contract partners, sending them to Sleek Audio in the Netherlands is not something they want to do. So I looked further, and to my surprise Google told me that the place where I got my glasses, Fielmann, also makes hearing aids. Not only were they very professional and friendly, I was able to take the molds home with me, they didn’t even charge me for anthing. I don’t want to sound like an advertisement, but that is good customer service!

So, here they are, backups molds of my ears. I’ll send them to Sleek Audio today, with a few pages of paper detailing the IEMs I want to order, and I’m looking forward to hearing the results.

Cowon D2

My MP3-Player (or rather Portable Media Player, as it plays not only MP3, but also videos, and more importantly FLAC and ogg vorbis) the Cowon D2 has had some problems with playing tracks in the right order.

It worked fine when opening the files via the file browser, but when browsing them via tags the playing order was… well, out of order. It wasn’t random though, on the iAudiophile forums I read something about it being a typically Korean bug, because the track numbers were read from right to left or something.

Anyways, the latest firmware update, 2.59, finally fixed that bug. Or so I thought. All my mp3s are now playing in the correct order, which is really great. The problem is: The FLACs are still playing out of order.

So now I’m converting all my FLACs to mp3s. With LAME and the -V0 setting, which schould produce really good quality mp3s. I probably won’t hear the difference, but it still makes me sad that Cowon didn’t manage to fix that bug once and for all.

So right now I cannot recommend buying a Cowon D2, though it is really an awesome device!

I’ll file this under “lesson learned”: Check the web for bug reports before you buy something.

Peggle on the PSP

I managed to bring one of my favourite games, Peggle, onto one of my favourite gadgets, the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). If you don’t know Peggle, do yourself a favour and download the demo, it is an awesome little game!

But, Peggle was never released for the PSP!

There will be a release for the Nintendo DS (NDS, another of my favourite gadgets) later this year, but not everybody has a NDS, and it isn’t out yet. There are also releases for Windows, Mac OS, iPod, and mobile phones.

So, how did I manage to run Peggle on my PSP?

Continue reading ‘Peggle on the PSP’