Awei A760BL BT headphone and testing with AKG DJ81

Quite long away i had a high interests in finding a Bluetooth model for me and my daughter The only question was the money  barrier that is to be under 20 Euro

Just looking via the net  I finally read this  article  in xiaomitoday page that aroused my interest to look for. The writer was well enthused for the quality of the product plus  its audio. Some local research shown prices from 19.5 plus shipping via courier etc With little more research  I found that in my city for just 19.5  out of around 25 -30 in other stores in Greece ! Due to covid19 conditions I Used the 'click away. method  and then immediately gone back to the house!
Notice that I was quite enthused to read his article even i was quite suspicious that it can't all be so true!

The model is provided in 3 different colors black red and green. I preferred to order the red model.

The model has the typical connections with optional stereo jumper wire for compatibility with non BT audio gear or older models as radios etc . There is also a mini USB D type socket for power adaptors . Around 2-3 hours for full charge. It's battery  was nearly empty at the time of purchase.

These are the only controls offered on the model.
-A lighter !
-in the middle of the control buttons is the on off button.It is also used to received  telephone call
-previous /next song buttons or volume control 

The headphones re also supposed to cancel the external noise . as the writer in the xiaomi page notices:

    They cancel noise very well.when i used them for the first time it was like everything else in he world had gone silent

I don't know exactly what happened to the model reviewer but the earphones were partially touching  to my ears leaving some space on their bottom as it can be seen in the photo below (around 6mm  space!) I needed to experiment more to find the optional position by tilting the headphone skeleton towards the front of my head  for the best  isolation

Its clear that most part  of the environment noise can be passed via the earphone without killing the outer world as Awei and him advises!!

What is mentioned from his page about the sound quality  :

promises crystal clear sound quality and provides it.  While the bass is not too much keeping in mind the security of your eardrum, while listening to some pop or rap music or some heavy death metal music, a decent amount of bass can be detected by the ears. But if you are someone who is looking for a very highly boosted bass, you might not find these particular headphones to your liking.

Did i notice my finding?

I used a forgotten model of AKG 81DJ model (DJ model??) I own this set around 3-4 years ago. It was bought at 18Eu via amazon, a original price of around 40 Eu but discontinued even longer.  They were tested by checking first  the wired AKG and then the Awei .
AKG model has relatively low volume and is a bit bassy . Awei model is much bassier than the AKG with lack of some high trebles and a rather high bass that  covers part of the  middle range. As in result it sounds relatively dull  This is the result of Awei in Bluetooth mode with my smartphone

As in result
-audio rating 4/5
-fidelity rating 2.5/5

The next test was with inline listing with both headphones and the results are a bit more linear towards the linearity of e DJ81
-audio rating 4/5
-fidelity rating 3-/5 

I then am curious which headphones the reviewer uses as 'pattern' or specimen to test the gear !!! Did he ever tested with more serious models as I?

Next test was walking inside the house and a paired with the smartphone. The max distance  is around 7-8 m with two walls in between, The building is 60 years old with just one brick-fat wall Just 10 cm wide!

As in result the headphones are not 100% what they promise. Not very hifi but just a middle level that can't cover the full distance as promised ! For the money at 19Eu the results are good but for 30 Eu are over priced!

 

 

 

 

Testing a friends Nintaus X10s MP3 model

Or YESCOOL X50

The ribbon cover was offered free of charge but separate from the pleyer box inside the parcel!

AS  most times, I do a service to many people by just  direct importing for them and then just making a short review before giving to them. Just look on the remain web page  to see on how many models have been already tested so far . older models were tested long ago the time i was a Multiply.com  member which page has bot been fully transferred so far here .This is a neighbor who has a string interest in high quality or fidelity audio systems as he was involved around 30 years ago 

Model  has been found via Ali with a price of around 45 EU plus only 2 for shipping with a total of 2 months of waiting.  

This will a short review by showing  the most interesting of the model 

 

The model is a rather complex in terms of operation   and screen  regarding to any others i have tested so far: Prev /naxt menu back /pause and volume buttons and roller that tis quite weird . Wheel is also used of the menu , volume and back buttons  instead of the prev/next buttons for faster access

As noticed in the main page the model is upgraded.

Fist lets see a bit on the model and its layout in the other sides 

On off button is used also for locking the player. Audio out is 0db and is programmable from the menu for 0 ,and db levels. Using car mode that supposedly normalizes the audio levels have seen no real difference

Here is the bottom that shown the USB connection and the USB socket isolated. For unknown reason the socket was not only isolated by the mini plastic lid but also by a sticker above A 16GB  original Japanese SD card is used as main memory as the player lacks inbuilt memory!

And here is the real inside. I m not very sure why they double isolated the slot Once  i reinserted the memory the player started alone and did a memory refresh. Another time i tested removing and re-inserting the card but nothing happened. Surely the first time the player was on... 

--

 This is the main screen for the file playback :

Screen has good analysis . As you see on the left includes the album photo if available  and basic ID3 tags plus the file mode . Text Scrolls leftwards in case text is long.

In menu mode all operations are shown either by the wheel or by the prev/next buttons

This is the volume control as shown in  the screen . The 60 is the standard but depending on the recorded volume. in most cases (-2db recordings) it is a fair volume that does not annoy the ears
 

This is the only way to play a  file you selected the time another song is played. OPerated either by wheel or by prev next buttons !

There are many other interesting operations and typical to all players that I will not go further (off time , sleep , refresh ,  favorites etc ) I wll only show  the results of my usual tests on operation and audio quality

Part 2 operation 

This model is audio file rich as is offered with 15  files of these various modes with pop Chinese music full clips plus one to test your left and right channels!

WMA , MP3, AIFF ,WAV, FLAC ,OGG , APE. ALAC 

I replaced the offered mini earbuds with mine AKG518 foor the best experience . They are very good for their size  with manual voice slider Good  for Tescun radios which have a stepped volume control with rather low toleracnes

The songs offered in the inbuilt SD memory sound exceptional and flat with nearly natural sound. Much better then my personal song collection from original cassetes or downloaded Malay songs

Her are the results of checking various file formats

-MP3 and various bit rates all played
-WMA  the same.
-OGG various  bit rates the same
-MP2 played smoothly in mono . most other players speedup with funny tuning as like siren!
-MP4 played  in low quality and mono
-AAC the same with MP4
-AIFF supported but not by the remain players as Ruizu or older
-APE   FLAC and MQA-FLAC also supported 
-DSD  64kb 2.8MB and 256 11.2 MB supported The 256 mode is heard at 1/2 of the main speed
-Stereo MQA FLAC supported
-5.1 surround versions not supported  For these versions We have downloaded test audios from a site . Very huge files with a total of 600 MB of size

-Create playlist refreshes all audio tracks similar to iPod and SanDisk operation Classification does what other players do with Indo derived from ID tracks There is also a favorite mode with 3 on the go listings

-The player has not internal memory.
-There are two player setting for audio volume: line level with audio synch/-3/-6 db and memory/ custom. On audio synch the line level is lower than the volume level so that the setting at 60  is equal to the headphone level at 14!!
-Car mode :as far as it is not used via the line input the player is shut off abruptly!
 

The main switch locksσ the player except:
-Wheel:  asjusts the volume
-prev next buttons play previous/next files

mini update: 

The final user advised me that the wheel sometimes lacks its scrolling.
-The on off switch started losing its contacts  a bit after the first  70th hours  of operation .He also noticed that 2-3 seconds are necessary to use again the power switch for locking the player or doing the next process!
-around 65 hours are enough to drain the in-built  battery .It is recharged in less than 2 hours 

I Did my best to show the highlights of this very interesting and quite 'expensive' model.If you liked my article just comment below and share this page to your friends!This is the least you can do for me

 

Ruizu X02 multi format player and its funny variations!

Long ago my very fist mp3 player a local muvi 18 has been dreaded after its system deleted from unknown reason  many files in its ram of just 2 GB and put a long part of junk files in its main directory together wit thousands of folders and zero sized files . There were only a few ,around 120 fiels from the 2000 included

This is the reason two years ago I bought one new model from eBay Ruizu X02 that was receivd in around 2 months from a company of unknown origin possibly Thailand of Laos  as oi could understand from the text included in the mini parcel.

Nearly a few days after I made a short folder in it experimented with an excellent conversion program called Xrecode. This is a shell program that uses graphical interface for more than 25 codecs , with MP3 WMA OGG FLAC APE DTS TAC M4A AAC  MP2 AC3 to name a few but also adds several useful plugins as  normalization merge-cue tempo fade silence removing metadata and much more. I always use it for more than 4 years. The folder I made contains all the refered formats and bit compression up tp 8 in wma and 16 in mp3 for investigation and later reviewing in my posts. The original file is a white noise of 1 minute  

I m stopping this discussion as it will go to nowhere I think this info is quite important to disclose which ‘modes’ are ‘hidden’ from the main list  Simple playback of these 16 files shown that  the Ruizu X02 (spelled Zuicu) supported mp3 flac ape wma wav ogg and m4a but aac was heard in only one channel and mp2 was played in double speed with a weird audio.

The Ruizu seems to be from the same manufacturer of MUvi 18 and my old wife’s Muvi 24 as it uses nearly the  same screen format and playback. 

It worked very well for around 2 years . I used cable form another supplier to make music updates tat worked well for many times but after April this year the connection  was quite loose so that he player was disconnected from the mini PC for unknown reasons . I also tried a few other cables which shown nearly the same problem.I made a few tries  in my older PC with still the same problem. After that I fond that the ruizu instead of playing ony shown the startup picture and then made continuous restarts as like the problem was from its battery as happened with a Creative Zen many years ago 

Fortunately after giving that to a PC technician using a tiger cotton dressed cable the player was identified and then we did a total transfer of all its contents a 10 GB material . it was a 45 minutes transfer . the next day I left the player on for all time , recharged it in full but the problem remained . It was suerly a different problem from inside . Possibly the many on offs wit the cables affected the RAM’s   startup programs

After that I found a company from the English amazon from Evo Digitals [ZL1] to replace it . it was received on time after 21 days intead of the common of 14 due to corona virus and tested immediately . The fun with this case was with its packing : Just a small sachet with cable ,earphones the player and its instruction guide in a folded document of  15 x3 cm  in a foamed envelope . In contrast the older player was inside a mini box a I smaller than a 3” smartphone with the same accessories.

Discussion with my wife and my 12 aged daughter they also show an interest in this player. I was checking in several pages where there were a few colors etc but for unknown reason i dint  bookmarked them into the basket . checking ocne again I found a very similar to that with rear speakers and  made the order immediately with two pieces

It was received in nealy the same manner in 21 days . two days before I was recivd a message from the parcel company for the delivery on the nexr day in a post office around 5 km far  I just asked them to divert the delivery to our local post office.There is really a pack for each player togetehr with the standard accessories - USB cable in ear mini earphones  and the

As you can understand there was a “very long route to Rome” after the damaged model In the mean time after the original Ruizu made its destination has been littered to the dustbin . 

Another funny is that a very simple model as this has so  many variations that can impress anyone. 

Player details

Both original and my new have the same external design  the font panels you will see below, the Evo digitals model does not have the logo of Ruizu Also to notice, the twin model is 3 grams lighter than the original! 

The twin model has the SD card in lower place  than the original or the EvoTher is not practical difference except that the card is added a bit difficult for my very fat thubms ! 

adn this is the maxi diference between the Evo /Ruizu and the twin model : simly twin has also speakers behind

but also see on how the two models differ in the bottom ! all buttons and sockets are the typical  English way of putting everything in opposite! even the switches are inverted and both are in off position !

The menu is the same between the Evo and the twin as you can see . But the older model has a nicer menu with semi3D  icons that madeit seem much better

Playback is different  between all models . The old has the lines as with the twin as shown in the right while if there are lyrics attached to the file they are shown as in the left player . BOth old Ruizu and the Evo Ruizu show the playable bars but are the half of the noticed from the twin model 

Even the layout of the fonts are different! The twin uses nearly the same font as the older model The Evo  derivation uses more rounded font  roughly similar to Arial fonts !

Looking at the inner operations from the menu I found several interesting things 

 

-All players support many languages from the settings menu . The older supports English Greek Thai German french Dutch among the 20 languages supported

I have seen that the EvoRuizu does not support Greek ID text but it can show  the file names !
-There i a song commence operation under the songs menu in only the older model!
-Once memory is updated with new songs , the older model does immediately refresh as several models did in the past . In contrast both new models do not require any refresh as far as an external SD is added . Refresh is very short in case it is updated in its local memory 
-Audio wise the new models  have a sharper curve from nearly 800 HZ and above compared to the original !This irritated much to me since the older has been tested to be in accordance with my Tecsun  Q3 recorder's quality which has the best audio fidelity but is not truly a pocket MP3 player !I Used it only for radio recordings from shortwaves
-Even funnier is wit the radio . As far as i remember  the original was monophonic . The same happens with the Evo. In contrast  the twins are stereo with suficient sound quality !
-WAV MP3 WMA OGG FLAC APE and M4A are  the supported audio formats as tested with the test files . AAC is supported but only one channel is heard. MP2 are also played in double speed with a weird audio for the white noise.    Neatly most bit rates are supported 

-Playback is identical with the previous: FF and REW can support only the standard FF but also scan on  longer files with higher speeds after 5 seconds
-Battery not tested so far for the twins , It worked well for around 40-45 hours  for the Evo/Ruizu  The original operated around 80-90 hours! 
- the twin model is the only with update  option !

The earphones of both models are totally junk.  I used an AKG model that is more expensive than the player itself. It was in bargain price of 18eu plus 5 from Italian amazon three years ago . Its original price is around 45 Eu but seems discontinued in favor possibly to plastic models 

 

Verdict : I m totally amazed on how a model has so many variants except of firmware versions. i tis very possible that this model has more versions that i think ! Anyway the model performs very well for its price tut bis not for the audiophile
Notice that i m not audiophile but just person who needs some good audio >The only problem is that some songs were recorded -not by me -with very high treble level that irritate my ears and enhance  my tinnitus!
this is the reason that mine have been given to a  a friend later to unfortunately favor a nearly same fidelity model as the Amoi /yescool C10 one of  the heaviest metallic models i ever tested!