Please
look and buy my book Malaysia 25 years research http://goo.gl/Pi87gp . As unemployed by buying this book you can support
my family with the neesary income!
Τρίτη 11 Φεβρουαρίου 2014
Πέμπτη 6 Φεβρουαρίου 2014
Cretive Zen V - a review for a bad purhcase
A very bad order for a gadget that never worked!
As you many know me i use a Creative Zen nano Plus mp3 as audio encoder. Several weeks ago I did a tidy up on my house for settling part of my gadgets (notice that they are too many ! ) and put my Zen in a place.Suddenly wishing to use it again for recording a radio signal , I forgot where I put it.
I was terribly upset . For more than than 2 hours for searching but still didn’t find anything .
This made me fell that I lost it . and under some bad feeling I did a googled into Internet for looking a cheap solution . Finally I found a model very close to it namely Creative Zen V but did n't check that the model does not use standard AAA batteries as mine ….
And finally I bought it . The cost of the player is ca $40 plus $20 (too much ) for shipping from somewhere I cold nt identify.
AS always I check the exact date when I received the model . It was 11 days after the purchase and the seller was from USA (notifying the full amount in the mini parcel ie 45 + 25 ) To my impression I saw that there was not any problem with clearance ie duties etc ! (so that seems such of low cost amounts pass without any duties)
Two days after , I found my Zen Nano Plus inside a locker and surely was very happy with it .
The new mp3 player /recorder has been received in a very dense packing . Its case was inside a standard UPS box which was inside a foam based A4 envelope !
The case unfolds from the middle showing two paper wings too
Inside it there is a bundle of many l leaflets Cd and the player which is inside a plastic case too many documents and a niec bag for traveling
I had to use a scissors in order to remove the player and its accessories
And here is a photo with the player and the accessories namely : a USB cable , a holder , earphones and adaptor cable . Upps ! I now have a new adaptor cable for making my recordings , yuppie !
As you many see the player is quite think and surely out fashioned. Several reviews sown that the model was produced on 2006 And just 1 GB ! But I was not so much interested for its size as it could be only used for recoding from external sources rather than as a standard player [though audio quality is the best as read somewhere ]And neither was annoyed that the model could record only WMA on160 kb (thus of better fidelity than a standard 96- 128-160 kb MP3 as my zen records ...) Thi is wring as after reading the users guide , you can always change the recording bitrate
And here is a description of the remain documents:
1. a mini leaflet for not listening very loud (care for your ears )
2. a fill your zen pamphlet - adverts for relative material
3. a leaf in more tan 20 languages on how to unlock the audio
4. a leaf for charging via USB
5. service extension
6. an instructions guide
7 acessories for zen that include: colored earphones , leather pouch , speakers, silicon skin , armband , bloototh heads , tune cast ii transmitter, car charger and several other
8. As per users guide the Zen requires the drivers and softwar in ordeer to be comnnected toa computer (nor Xr neither 7 can recognize it ....)
Here is a photo of the player itself
There are button for playback pause , arrow buttons , enter button as well as two others
Here is the RECbutton as well the volume button . These are in the right side of the player
And here is the left side of the player. On /off /lock functions and the reset button
And here is the upper side . from the left to the right are : USB socket , heads (the standard 1/8" SOCKET ) , line in (very thin plug ) and mic
I immediately tried to check for connectivity … Using this USB cable which is rather short from the front USB socket on the bottom of the computer to computer’s top I found that the player only was blinking …. Huh what s happening? The computer did t recognize it still….I thought that if I first have to charge it and then try to look what s happening
To my astonishment in the house 2 hours later , on the start it behaved the same : the buttons of the player were blinking for several times . And after some time it shown to start showing the logo , just entering into menu and immediately showing a message of low battery ....
.I already have uploaded a video on my page in youtube http://youtu.be/W3W7kPTwO8c that is also included here
I suppose the battery is dead. and cant be restored .
Anyway the player was a very bad selection on a bad time and a bad mood. This is gthe only exception of the set system The cable line in adaptor is OK for the use of my older Zen model as spare material
The earphones are not so good comparing to other ears i use . They are very bassy (bass seems pitched up) with lower trebles than other models . AS for example the AKG 908 offer more more normalized frequency response
I feel very pity to spend a rather much money (abt 55 Euros ?) for this gadget that does not work so far . ONw idea is to send it back?
Later two weeks after; with little search in ebay i fond and bought a battery from UK for replacement and awaiting the response of the seller
More upon receiving it...
As you many know me i use a Creative Zen nano Plus mp3 as audio encoder. Several weeks ago I did a tidy up on my house for settling part of my gadgets (notice that they are too many ! ) and put my Zen in a place.Suddenly wishing to use it again for recording a radio signal , I forgot where I put it.
I was terribly upset . For more than than 2 hours for searching but still didn’t find anything .
This made me fell that I lost it . and under some bad feeling I did a googled into Internet for looking a cheap solution . Finally I found a model very close to it namely Creative Zen V but did n't check that the model does not use standard AAA batteries as mine ….
And finally I bought it . The cost of the player is ca $40 plus $20 (too much ) for shipping from somewhere I cold nt identify.
AS always I check the exact date when I received the model . It was 11 days after the purchase and the seller was from USA (notifying the full amount in the mini parcel ie 45 + 25 ) To my impression I saw that there was not any problem with clearance ie duties etc ! (so that seems such of low cost amounts pass without any duties)
Two days after , I found my Zen Nano Plus inside a locker and surely was very happy with it .
The new mp3 player /recorder has been received in a very dense packing . Its case was inside a standard UPS box which was inside a foam based A4 envelope !
The case unfolds from the middle showing two paper wings too
Inside it there is a bundle of many l leaflets Cd and the player which is inside a plastic case too many documents and a niec bag for traveling
I had to use a scissors in order to remove the player and its accessories
And here is a photo with the player and the accessories namely : a USB cable , a holder , earphones and adaptor cable . Upps ! I now have a new adaptor cable for making my recordings , yuppie !
As you many see the player is quite think and surely out fashioned. Several reviews sown that the model was produced on 2006 And just 1 GB ! But I was not so much interested for its size as it could be only used for recoding from external sources rather than as a standard player [though audio quality is the best as read somewhere ]And neither was annoyed that the model could record only WMA on160 kb (thus of better fidelity than a standard 96- 128-160 kb MP3 as my zen records ...) Thi is wring as after reading the users guide , you can always change the recording bitrate
And here is a description of the remain documents:
1. a mini leaflet for not listening very loud (care for your ears )
2. a fill your zen pamphlet - adverts for relative material
3. a leaf in more tan 20 languages on how to unlock the audio
4. a leaf for charging via USB
5. service extension
6. an instructions guide
7 acessories for zen that include: colored earphones , leather pouch , speakers, silicon skin , armband , bloototh heads , tune cast ii transmitter, car charger and several other
8. As per users guide the Zen requires the drivers and softwar in ordeer to be comnnected toa computer (nor Xr neither 7 can recognize it ....)
Here is a photo of the player itself
There are button for playback pause , arrow buttons , enter button as well as two others
Here is the RECbutton as well the volume button . These are in the right side of the player
And here is the left side of the player. On /off /lock functions and the reset button
And here is the upper side . from the left to the right are : USB socket , heads (the standard 1/8" SOCKET ) , line in (very thin plug ) and mic
I immediately tried to check for connectivity … Using this USB cable which is rather short from the front USB socket on the bottom of the computer to computer’s top I found that the player only was blinking …. Huh what s happening? The computer did t recognize it still….I thought that if I first have to charge it and then try to look what s happening
To my astonishment in the house 2 hours later , on the start it behaved the same : the buttons of the player were blinking for several times . And after some time it shown to start showing the logo , just entering into menu and immediately showing a message of low battery ....
I suppose the battery is dead. and cant be restored .
Anyway the player was a very bad selection on a bad time and a bad mood. This is gthe only exception of the set system The cable line in adaptor is OK for the use of my older Zen model as spare material
The earphones are not so good comparing to other ears i use . They are very bassy (bass seems pitched up) with lower trebles than other models . AS for example the AKG 908 offer more more normalized frequency response
I feel very pity to spend a rather much money (abt 55 Euros ?) for this gadget that does not work so far . ONw idea is to send it back?
Later two weeks after; with little search in ebay i fond and bought a battery from UK for replacement and awaiting the response of the seller
More upon receiving it...
Δευτέρα 3 Ιουνίου 2013
Silvercrest SKD 1000A3 casete converter presentation
This is a cassette player and converter that just passed my hands and returned back to the shop bought it Lidl at a price of 22.5 euros ....
Anyway i made a very short check very carefully without opening any plastic paking in case i cold return it back.
The casete player can be easily removed from its foam wrapper by carefully detaching the scotch tape
This is the picture of the player with the cover closed .....
and here witrh the cover open!
and here with a tape for minimal test
Here are all the playback control buttons . ON top are the direction button , playback , FF (fast forward), REW rewind , the playback button and the stop button
and aboveare the controls for volume , USB earphone and eject
and here is how compares with my Aiwa tape player
As you know Lidl chain of supermarkets every week they offer news series of products that are recycled every half a year. Same happens to this nice and tiny cassette converter . Hoping that this small gadget could fulfill my interests in converting several cassettes I bought it with the hope that it could fulfill my interests : including a internal memory so that recording could be off computer . It was a specification not noticed in the box , so it was the only reason i boght to check into the users guide
Anyway i made a very short check very carefully without opening any plastic paking in case i cold return it back.
Just opening its box the following items were included:
A guide (easily unpacked from its wraper ) , the player , a USB cable , earphones two batteries and a CD called Audiolava that is the real time converter
Unfortunately no information was available for internal memory ! that means the converter can only convert on trhe fly with computer via the USB ... Gosh , it was not my intention ... so is the reason to return it back...
The casete player can be easily removed from its foam wrapper by carefully detaching the scotch tape
This is the picture of the player with the cover closed .....
and here witrh the cover open!
and here with a tape for minimal test
Here are all the playback control buttons . ON top are the direction button , playback , FF (fast forward), REW rewind , the playback button and the stop button
For the sake of the review i did a very short audio test by installing two batteries from my collection and used a company tape (original commercial recording )
The SKD required at least two times press PLAY so that it can start play . Otherwise ti seemed as 'dead'!
Sound: sound is great ! (used the Sennheiser earphones for the best possible audio ) and compares with the also great audio from Aiwa with little more higher tones.
As Aiwa is quite old (13 years after the purchase) that possibly means that the speed is somehow slower than the nominal. Checking the speed pf Silvercrest over Aiwa , foe at about one 'hash' over (Mi note shifts to Fa in silvercrest )
While changing direction on Silvercrest and changing tape, the direction remains the same . That means if the tape is played in the reverse (the B side while the normal side is in A )and you change the tape , the tape is played on the reverse side !
Maximum volume is relatively low. compared to Aiwa's at least 25 db ! Its sound is still comfortable with the Sennheiser earphones
If the player had an internal memory i could keep it . Otherwise it is very good though with relativity low though sufficient volume.
Πέμπτη 9 Μαΐου 2013
silvercrest earphones!!
Silvercrest earphones
This is my latest catch of earphones found and bought from Lidl several weeks ago The cost was relatively low at €5
For this price you get in a plastic package
The earphones with put in buds plus 1,2 m of cable length
Two spare plastic ear sockets , a fat set and a thin set
A nice bag for storing your buds
And a product guide of ca 50 pages in several languages including English Greek and Magyar (quite uncommon for models of this type !)
And 3 years of guarantee !!!
Now about their efficiency, that depends on how stiff you put the buds into your ears (for less or more bass)
Checking with Sandisk earphones , their sound is very low , close to 4-5 db and are more trebly
Same occurs with other bud type earphones as AKG 909 etc
But to my surprise using it with Sennheiser HD417 http://gadgets-zliangas.blogspot.gr/2012/10/sennheiser-hd417-headphones.html
Their sound seems very good very close to 417 with the same bandwidth , same bass excpt the middle tones which are higher !! (comparison between 417 and other buds yelds to same middle tone difference )
So verdict : 2/5 for their low audio output\
4/5 for their fidelity
Κυριακή 28 Οκτωβρίου 2012
Crypto Colorline 15
Crypto/ Colorline 15
It was my first thought after understanding that my favorite mp3 player Muvi ‘died’ for 3 days , 2 weeks ago to replace it wit a new one. And to revive as much as possible the play list included in Muvi. Fortunately I did a small backup in several Cds , including a directory listing that helped me much for re-making it with some success
This is a old mp3 player. Though I am not very sure when I bought I think 2-3 years ago that I had in my shelves for a later use . I don’t remember its price but it was of the 30-40 Euros range
This is a small gadget with 3x 7 cm wth a screen of just 1 sq inch with a 4 GB of memory . Having nt used for abt 2 years I could expect the battery to be fully exhausted . But I was wrong! Its battery still was ca 10-15%!! of its maximum
One important to notice Both (Muvi and Colorline ) are from same OEM importer Crypto , but I think are different manufacturers as the menurs and the operations are very different
The accessories included are : USB cable , mains adaptor with USB socket earphones and a mini CD (8 inch )with the accompanied software .packing is nearly the same for both Muvi and Colorline but the software seems quite different > I have kept just the players in one pack (there are also some other there not noticed till this time in the blog )
Appearance ; As you may look frmm the pics below , it is a quite nice design with nearly everything enclosd
Remain layout : ON the top is the USB the power switch that goes to the last operation (audio , radio at least )and the ear socket
On the reaer is the micrphone (qith quite good sound ) and a small speaker that requires quite high volume to be used in order to hbe heard outside . It is activated by pushing the arrow right for several seconds . BY pushing the arrow left , the speaker disactivates.
Mp3 playback : Colorline 1.5 plays all bit rates mp3 and WMA , tested from 8-192 kbps , using the program Xrecode II for compressing . Tested with ogg and m4a formats but not supported IN contrast Muvi can play all mp3 bitrates but WMA bitrates above 44kB
When a music file is played also ID tags are shown
Mp3 options: (by pressing menu )
Once a song is stopped (ab ove ): This is the directory options : folder , delete , delete all
Once a song is played (above ): these are the song options : play , play all , play once , play dir , random
Random playback : in contrast to MUvi that can random the half of the file list , colorline can support all file listing
Greek ID tag and filenames are not supported in Colorline . Latin based letters are shown in ID tags and spaces in filenames . IN contrast , Muvi does not support ID tags as nly the filename si shown but Greeks are shown OK
Media explorer: Its explorer shows only 4 files per page. If you are to search directories with many pages you have to wait abt 1 sec before the next page is shown ! Notice that this explorer is activated from the options menu for each mode separately as file browser
Starting up the player , the song is resumed from the pint is has been stopped (considering you pressed shutdown and not switched the button )
Microphone : there are 4 recording options: fine (32 wav )/long (8 wav ), VOR fine and long (32 and 8 respectively VoR mode) and the ability to save to any directory
Radio : the radio operation has a different philosophy than Muvi. The buttons previous-next are used for changing the frequency while start stop act as memories . The menu option does all the remain options for radio : save delete memory , record etc
Audio quality : as tested with two Carrefour ear buds ,Colorline has little less bass and little more treble
Audio output : HiFi using Greek music and Sony MDR . Trebly using Asian music . Making A./B or parallel listening with Muvi (using two Carrefour ear buds )
I found that FM is a bit more trebly than Muvi and less bassy. Thinking that a stereo sound goes into one line , you can imagine that the basses are diffused towards the left ear (listening to Muvi)and the trebles towards the right ear! (listening to colorline )
Into MP3 testing , it is quite difficult to test but with some delay between the one and the other I found to be nearly same !
Earphones : awful with bad and low audio .It is better is you use earphones from a more respected company . All my measurements here are with Sony MDR or even with the Carrefour IPod compatible earphones . The AKG 315 offer very bassy audio but is quite good for MUvi but not Colorline
Volume : volume operation is also different from MUvi as it requires the bottom button to active volume from previous /next . IN contrast to it MUvi has two dedicated button on the top of the keyboard
Battery : 8-10 hours . can be charged by the provided mains supply and the provided USB cable interface , or via computer. It is quite nice(or sad by some way ) that needs no software disconnect to charge. I have not found the required time. The sad with it is that I did not know it before , as the battery was in its first 2-3 cycles in order to be thoroughly drained Muvi can be charged in about 30 minutes from a power supply or by a loose cable connection., If is connected properly in computer it can’t be charged!
Interface and speed : the speed is terribly slow. Just 450-600 kb . I wonder if it USB 1 or 1.1 Muvi had the same transfer speeds but lately , (little time before it collapsed )its speeds risen to 1.7 MB!!
Update:
Colorline found to behave very peculiarly after a surely typical charging procedure by first connecting the plug into C's socket and then putting adaptor in mains power.
Afer this happening , the colorline requires ONLY connection to computer! (switched off or operating ) Otherwise it will not charge…
Whne charging with the mains or with the provided mains power to USb adaptor I found that if that time you charged it you were listening to the music , if the player was fully charged it stopped playing
Serial playback does not always correspond to unsorted directory listing . What I mean : if your files have been transferred with sorted listing , the Colorline will possibly jump from 32th to 39th file ie doing a semi random playback . at least for big file list (mine Is 550 files )
--------
In general : A small quite nice with very low transfer rates and quite good FM
Possibly i will post several updates here
It is a very nice looking player Zach and your review reads well. I am not surprised by the slow transfer rates, most of these little cheaper MP3/MP4 players have slow transfer rates, do ipods?
Thanks for the indepth look at this interesting device and best regards!
Σάββατο 27 Οκτωβρίου 2012
Sennheiser HD417 headphones
Sennheiser HD417 headphones
the Sennheiser headphones with a background drawing by my daughter !
This is one of my oldest headphones together with the Koss UR 20 bought on early 2000s
IN contrast to the Koss and the AKG headphones described in the previous article this model consists of smaller headphones with insulation /sleeve that perfectly fits on the top of the ears. But the most important problem with them is that the grip/skeleton is quite tough that presses my eas and head . Thus this goes quite annoying after some time
As wit the remain headphones its cable is ca 2.5 m meters long. In contrast tot the others that use a thick coaxial cable , it uses a double coaxial (?) cable that easily bemuses by itself . I tis the cable used also with the m@h40 earphones.
As about the audio quality is very good. The produced sound is quite bass-y , normally bass-ier than any standard earphone but also trebly especially in the higher treble tones (above 2khz ?). IN terms of sound ou can use it for long time without problem
Rate 4/5
PS: In the picture you see also a nice drawing from my daughter ! it is one of the designs she does in her school !
Σάββατο 20 Οκτωβρίου 2012
AKG K77
AKG K77
This headphone has been found / bought in mid 2k's from an audio equipment store , of a friend's for a cost of ca E30
The design is similar to other AKG's design with adjustable headphones and a belt to keep the head. The cable length is very similar to other's length ca 2.5 m and 1.9mm thickness stereo plug . each headphone covers your ear with a slightly rubber sense.
Using it on computer the sound is excellent -Cd quality - especially with Soundblaster. Until last year 2011 when i replaced the old computer with a new, when i used its built in audio card . this new configuration lacks some clarity , tough still the sound is quite good.
Now the test: - comparison with other headphones- :
Comparison with Sennheiser : the Sennheiser is quite bassy., This AKG sound bassier
With AKG 512 : 512 is slightly bassier than 66 with same clarity with 66
Koss UR20 : lacks all basses !
Carrfour mini ears : same with Koss !!
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