Tecsun headphones E 805

This is the second headphone set the friend has recently given to me. He bought it from Anon Co about 10 months ago together with other products from Tecsun and Degen, on a joint purchase with me the time I was in a better monetary condition than today. 

As far as   remember the group Tecsun-Degen has stopped making earphones and headphones since 2008 and this is possibly the reminiscent headphones produced from that time. Gone are the days of the excellent  earphones used on the DE1103 (DE929  if I remember correctly  ) a model also available separately that surpassed all  known brands at that time with its very broad audio spectrum that followed the spectrum of  headphones with  as low price as  Eu5-6. I tried  many times   to find them  but my former  source two years ago  advised me that the company stopped quite long to produce them.

As notice previously, my friend has given the headphone to me for testing without its package, which has been littered to the dust bin for space saving reasons. It has a decent and classical design with speakers that cover the ear tough they are quite big at 10 x 6 with plastic lids of ca 1.5 cm wide and 2 mm thick that move inside the headband. In a way it can be characterized as old fashioned comparing to the modern designed Silvercrest model.

The cable used is very lengthy, the lengthier of nearly all tested so far. It was measured to 330 cm. It is perfect to be used with the houses' HiFi system connected to the digital TV receiver.   It uses a twin type possibly coaxial cable similar to Sennheiser.

Nice plzstic sleeve

Now about the audio quality. This is something of big discussion. Its audio spectrum seems  to be quite close to the AKG as tested  in parallel with it,   using the equipment and  connectivity  as with the previous blogs :
"-using the  Bolong radio with a audio 2:1 splitter  over the radios' socket and connecting  AKG  and Tecsun in both  ends. "

Again as with previous post I have used the same station i.e.104 Fm   which has the widest audio spectrum in town with the best audio quality and checked each headphone for a given time and changed it immediately with the other. It is possibly the so called A/B testing

Tecsun has stronger audio than AKG which is good. Unfortunately its audio is extremly bassy. Around 3-4 db higher a very annoying sound due to very high bass, considering that also AKG has a bassy audio. This is one reason to get rid of them very shortly and change to other headphones. 
A minor problem found is that some bass goes to the left earphone.
Second problem is that monophonic as stereophonic sounds have some added spatiality. The monophonic sounds seem to have a spatiality to a +/-1 range if we set the 5 to the upper left or right that means towards the speakers.  I don’t know what causes this problem and is not my business. 
The only OK is that the audio spectrum is nearly the same as with AKG headset always using high volumes under test. But the above problems underrate it. 

Verdict: this headphone takes a low rating   due to its extra bass and zero spatiality though spectrum is OK 2/5 not for much time to listen or it can irritate your ears

The model  has been given to a friond who used it as ...speaker

 

 

 

Silvercrest headphones SKH 60 C1 a tech review

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A friend of me has given several of his headphones for testing. These blog tests   start from this article and follow for the next two articles. As  my friend told me  he bought  this headphone  from a  international hypermarket  chain store  with ca 7 Euro  price which is still quite cheap  . He provided to me it with its full packing in contrast to the others mentioned in the next blogs as e.g. with the Tecsun models which were  given unpacked in a  plastic bag to me. 

It seems that this brand has only one headphone model.  I can't otherwise think model with no product code mentioned in the carton box.

Its carton box is very nice in a black mat color. Very nice packing design with main product info in several languages including German English   Bulgarian Croatian Romanian and Greek. Manufactured in China it is imported via a German company and distributed (exclusively?) via this German hypermarket you guessed it. Unpacking it required to remove a plastic adhesive tape and then  open a stop lid   to open  the main box's carton lid .There was no plastic bag to contend  the earphones inside , but only the headphones which are included  together with the  user's manual (not removed from the box while testing it)

Only in the product guide the code number is only noticed.

The headphones have a very nice design are of closed type speakers with very soft plastic cushions to fit over the ear (circumaural). The top sleeve/ headband   have a textured sleeve to cover the head. It has an adjustable design using a double metallic rod to fold or unfold the speakers from the top hanger. Speakers ca even be folded to inside to save it space.

 There is also a 3.9 connector socket on the lower part of the left speaker that adds connectivity to a second head- or ear-phone. The in between cabling is somehow thin comparing to the  system design with the hope that  it will not easily cut, should it come  into strong pressure  from any external reason. 

The headband has a problem. It comes quite stiff to my head. It is quite tiresome for very long listening. I have to stop using it after 2 hours of continuous usage. 

The cable has an excellent design with textile casing .outperforming in beauty over most other models which use simple plastic casing, even for AKG and competing brands. It is 2 mm thick and 150 cm long as measured that meets the noticed box info. All cables used in wiring the headphone system have the same kind textured coating. 

Speaker:  In the carton box it is noticed that the speaker uses PET 40 membrane, a micro porous membrane that "meets   the best audio criteria used to introduce outstanding audio quality to your hearing experience". (This is mine's talking   using the language of advertising)

Usage: In order to listen and make A/B aural measurements I used a splitter to use a second headphone and tested it with my AKG K44 headphones.  

In order to perform the comparison I used my Bolong radio listening to a station of ’extended frequency range' i.e. .the highest possible audible spectrum. This radio has possibly the best and trebliest sound of all of my radios I have or possess. Only a few FM stations can qualify this requirement (the highest spectrum). One of them is 104 FM (no ID still known) airing mostly ambient music at the time tested.

These AKG   headphones are quite bassy comparing to my other professional heads as Sennheiser and Koss and add at least 6 db in the lower frequencies over the remain. The same happens with the SKH Silvercrest model in terms of basses they are quite bassy as and very close to AKG's fidelity and spectrum.   Only the in ear phones cannot qualify this demand.

This headphone has very clear audio as AKG. Compared   with my AKG 'bassy' headphones  it has  the same audio  spectrum  in higher frequencies , It cuts the very low  -bassy-  frequencies ,giving a sense of 'shifting' bit higher.
Audio level is the same as with the AKG. .Anyway it gets too close with the fidelity of AKG D66 heads at a portion of AKG's   price (abt Eu35 bought 7 years ago). Important to notice  that  in order to  listen  to the best fidelity some added  volume is required  starting  from ca 60 db or you wall not hear the  full fidelity or  audio to activate the speaker. 

My verdict: these headphones excel in design, component selection and also sound quality for their price 5/5.
Comparing to the AKG headphones they have a very narrow bass cut in the lower spectrum 4.5/5

Tecsun Q3 review

(also on my radio web page )

I m very curious why this model has a very low audience views ...

Following  the demise of the  Creative Zen due to sudden  battery drainage , i decided to look into a better and more up to date   recorder for all usages.  I found via the ebay  a slightly  used copy of it for only $5 which i ought it immediately that came  in ca 3 weeks . with little  more search  i hacve seen that the normal price of it is $25 (price of anon co )

Q3 us not so small gadget of  10 x 6 x 2 cm size , nearly the  size of a cigarette box. 
This model  is circulated with  two colours black or  white  The model i found has white colour. 

Opening its box , most of the operations lie in the right part of the  gadget . On the top youwill find only one three  position  switch, 

The positions are : OFF , MP3  , RADIO . In MP3 mode  it plays either  the mp3 collection you have already stored  in  the SD memory , (not included)  or the  recordings you already made (and stored  in the SD memory ). In RADIO mode it is a FM only radio player

The front panel include  green LED panel with the standard operations . ON the right  there are two very small buttons for the audio folders : music folder & voice folder
It is better to describe here how the  files are shown in the  LED

- IN mp3 file mode (music folder )the player reads the  files in unsorted mode starting from the fist file  is copied from the computer and starting from  the main   MP3 directory and a serial number (counter ) is shown in the LED screen .   If there are  files in directories  it reads them  sorted (?) with counter;s number to follow (ie of the main dir  has 15 fMP3 songs  the next number  starting with the  subdirectories will be 16 not 1  )
- In voice mode (voice folder ) , the player shows the corresponding serial  recording .Once you look into your computer , the files  have a  letter in the end as like 15M meaning it is recorded from microphone , 16 L  ie line recording , and 17R or 17F  ie from radio

Under the LED panel there are three buttons : REC  for recording  a STOP  button and a REPEAT  play button all these are self explaining
There  is a numeral keypad with a  repeat button and enter . This keypad  works for the  frequency setting , the mp3 or REC file setting
There are  three more buttons on the right edge of the  front panel : Next or fast forward / pause or play / previous of reverse that applies  to the recordings and  to radio mode .

Now on the  right part of the player
-A USB  socket  written as  computer audio input . did nt try if this can also transfer  audio , but all this time (at 3 months ) used it mainly to charge its battery. The computer to Q3 transfer speed is  very low . 
-A line in 3.1 mm  socket and provided  cable  abt  25 cm .
-An ear  out 3.1mm socket .
-Volume control , with analog  resistor. Audio is quite high in all modes as radio , as mp3 player and also as radio  recorder  but many times  the audio in very low  levels  is prone to turn on the one speaker  (either on the left or the right  depending n how you put the earphones into your ears)

IN the bottom   there is a Sd memory card slot. I put a old 8 GB memory

A few notices  on the  operation of the gadget:

- Radio ; it is  only  FM radio . You cannot scan  the  band without making the radio auto-store all frequencies (ATS) which is bad for me unless i start  delete more han  55 out of 65  stations in my  place . Therefore i prefer to enter the frequency via the keyboard.  Its audio  is relatively bassy  , and lacks stereo   spatiality comparing to all other radios i use. meaning all stereo stations are heard  in between   mono- and stereo-phonic .Audio is good though  bassier than  other radios (1126  and 380) and once recorded shows the same quality.

-Recording  : Line in is activated once you plug the cable onto the socket and surpasses the radio or mp3 operation . Tested with PL880 , 380 and once via an old unused journalist recorder unit with  a really replica quality. This  journalist recorder  is not supported by Windows 7
I cannot find where is the inbuilt  microphone .  The quality is good and has been used to  record a seminar of ca 70 minutes  which was  the lengthiest of my recordings. The best to get out for audio quality from seminars is to use it on a steady place far from your clothes.

I did a crazy experiment  with it connecting it to my tablet. The tablet   was connected on the main via its wall adaptor. Q3 was connected to the tablet  in two ways : USB to USB cable for charging it and  the audio cable to record from a streaming radio.  Audio was  very good but i preferred not to use it for a long time should any  damage caused to one of them . The seller advised me to use  separate power adaptors  for each. 
Everything  is recorded with 128kb MP3 /22 KHz as standard . 22kHz  is bad selection.  Though  very good audio for my ears , it is inapropriate for commercial works such as  recording from tapes or vinyl discs.  This was the reason  i bought it but for the price  i feel very hapy .
And the last thing to notice. Any  recordings are time separated to 1 hr files. If your recording is longer than 1 hr the player will stop and immediately continue  recording under  a new file . Neither good nor bad but  i have not tested it so far to see if something has been cut  . 

-Mp3 : i have tested  it with my favorite  (Crypto )Muvi 18 mp3 player  and found really no difference in the audio quality , and used my Sennheiser open  ear headphones. Both have an excellent  audio  with crisp trebles even Muvi uses  slightly more  treble than other  Japanese models(say Sansa)  . That means  an excellent audio quality. most  reviewers in Amazon  say the same.

The Q3 plays not only MP3  but also WAV  and WMA  files. have not tested  WAV  but WMAs follow  the quality  of Muvi. 

Battery : Q3 uses battery model BL-5B Nokia type which was not included in the package. i found one  from ebay for ca 3 $  and is nearly the same charger  as of my mobile's (Nokia 6300) dimensions though a big smaller. Opening  the battery cover  is a bit  hard.  for one  time i charged it with a wall battery charger that supported BL4 , BL5 and BL5B  ie all battery formats i use for my Degen 1126 , mobile and Q3 , till  the charger reached its life after 200 uses in less than  1 year . Drained  BL5B required  abt 3 hours  to be charged  in full via the battery charger , but it was a problem with it since the charger  became hot with only this battery and I dont know why. Nearly the same  happens by charging the battery via the a power adapter . the power adapter becomes very hot  too.

About 7-8  hours  of recordings is  required to  drain the battery.

Rating  9/10

TurboX Rubik : The tablet of my daughter

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The replacement tablet ETB 9543

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Following the collapse of the  previous tablet ETB 9541  , the company replaced it with this new , numbered ETB 9543

This is the box of the new tablet . It has been given after the technician realized that mine was totally off and nor  could be started from its android logo or sticks to it then froze

Just a few pics of  the tablet

 This is  the front view

The rear  view . ON the left edge is the reset function

The sockets in its right part tht includes , charging , USB , SD card , mic , and ears .

and inside the box are the power adaptor , the cable adaptor and the guides

ON the start instead of the ANDROID  logo only the copany's logo is shown for ca 15 secs :

and the screen is shown this way ;(shortcuts in the iside screen , in the outer part with the basic ie settings , programs , browser , photos )

IN this  article i will shows only the most interesting , and funny things upon its use :

• Weird thing: its provided power adaptor interferes  with the thumb usage: It is good that i kept the older tablet's  adapter that does not interfere   with the touch screen Even with the newer 7"  adaptor there is not any problem
• Different operation design :task-bar is  shown in horizontal , instead the vertical line task icons as shown above 
• Operating system Android 4.2.2.
• Shut down : shut down asks for  hibernating  or shut down 
• In just  2 minute of no operation the tablet gets nto sleep mode (this is the default of it though it can be adjusted from the settings mode )
• Chrome and internal browser (though Chrome based ) are available in this  tablet. There is a special 'request  desktop mode' option in build in browser . This inner browser can be hidden  leaving all space only for watching the  web page.Chrome as standby program has a  rather strange behaviour  with its inside zoomer hat makes it sometime to zoom not only  the page but  zoom the screen  so that you cant workk it properly unless you minimize it
• '1 mobile' market is the  free replacement of Slide share (program market) this also offers  update facility.There is a nag screen on  start-up  menu at the right bottom of the screen
• MX player available . it can sometimes freeze esp if you want to fast forward(whie watching online movies )
• 'Prt screen'  (when using physical keyboard )does  not  operate 
• Weird screen watching : you ned to tilt the tablet by 15  degs upwards (in lateral use) to watch the whole screen !Very good if you do not want someone to look into your screen esp if he is in the left of you !May i suppose it is LCD?
• Audio is very huge . Huge and very sharp (read :trebly ). The volume level 3 in this tablet  corresponds to 12 in the previous) Tested with the new for my daughter (report later ) had the same  audio quality and can also work in sleep mode AAC+ is also supported. 
• Two problems with the   audio : changing program  , but also during the MX player audio is muted by itself . The second though minimal is that AAC  operation causes some 'trickling' sounds esp in strong basses 
• Hibernation is very good for radio listening keeping the battery to very low without burning
• Seems draining  faster the battery if video is used than its predecessor . IN other modes as eg text browsing as in reader battery drainage  is abt 2% per minute In case is used offline only for text reading (as for example pdf reading )o sometimes even writing to text  to Evernote applet (special for writing notes etc )the battery drains even lower . About 2-3 % per 1 hr Even less in case lower luminance is used , it can dain battery for more than 2 hrs per 2 % Same applies also to watching offline video. But in the levels of 80-70 %  the battery drops faster , even if is used totally offline All offline operations  keep the tablet cool.   This is what i could call idling 
• And more asd the time passes : After 1.5 year of use  for abt 8 hours a day i ve sen  some irritation of the screen after 4 hrs at lat of usage that day
• A very good program tested is UC browser  .it can cover all your needs
• 
  
• 1.5 year after  and about 3500  hours of operation  the following symptoms seems to describe  tablet's  end of life : 
• 
  
• -Instability of WiFi :afer less than half hour of WiFi connectivity  , it starts  suspend to  and commence  its connectivity 
• -Instability of charging . It happened once but while battery  charges very slowly it drains very fast THis happened after an accident that i dont remember . That time  the screen seemed  as software broken due to a maloperationn . Then the battery  started  draining very fast  ie 5% per minute from the standard of t of ca 1.5-2% per minute .I used to be very careful in operiting it 
• -requires internet  to synchronize its  clock !!!

Therefore  the  tablet  works for he moment very well  and if used offline with internal material (pdfs videos etc )its battery can last much longer than online . Nice feature !
4/5 

Zen V : now the player works!

Following the  negative  review in a previous post, i suspected  that the  problem was from the battery / I  did a search and bought  one new battery  via the ebay.  The battery costed  me abt 12 Euros !
I tried  to open the case but it was  quit tricky to me . dfo this reason  i given it to a tecjnicain to do the 'dirty job' IN just 2 minutes he opened the player unscrew  a screw and  change the battery . And Player is now working properly. 

Now the  player after the welcome screen  it shows a menu this way:

At fist i thought that the  red cycle  was the navigation knob. but could nt  do anything... readin a bit in the user's guide  the navigation  is amde from the  middle button that worls as joystick
 The menu consists  of the music library , recordings , the just playing  photos (ie very small sizes , some extras  and  system settings )

Teh recordings menu shows all recordings . microphone and inline recs / for all  files as  well as the tansfered files  the screen shows  the filename as scrolled . Pressing the joystick  for several seconds i shows a quick menu for adding  the file to playlist 


Now playing  shwos the current  and the previous  song 
Photos  shows the directory  in  a form as of Windows 7 
Extrasmenu include  date/time  MIc rec  Line in rec Organizer (calendar tasks contacts )propviding that you alerady have installed  the  provided CD in the packing

The  player is recognized as a portable device . not as a removable disk.More on the end of this article

Settings:  for audio - including level limitation  , player  settings (serial random play , one dir all dirs  etc ) clock  settings (adjsut time and date) -  , language (abt 15  including tai chinese  etc )and reset  to default 

Audio settings :  play mode (serial , random , repeat , 9  equalizer modes  and volume smart or excess compression )

 Here is how a file is played. Special additions  are available  wth prolongd push on  button as  add to  favs , add to playlists etc


Recording 
Recording is  the  main reason i bought this player .  Not only for  shortwave  logs but also for recording audio tapes , vinyls  etc 
This is the reason that this part is more dedicated . I very sparingly use it for playback

Here is a photo during recording. recording is made by pressing the REC button  int he right part of the player  .In contast to  Nano plus  , Zen V has the ability  to adjust the earphone level during recording 
Tere are 3 ways to use it  for recording 
1. use the special  button  at  the middle of right side of the palyer 
2. naviagate from the extras  menu 
3. from the quick menu 

The quick menu shows : 



In silent mode (is when is not recording ) you can also make  these ajustmensts : 

• start  recording
• delete recording
• review 
• ---
• bitrate     [WMA only  128 and 160 ]
• synch    [That means once the player finds audio gaps to immediately  stop this is achieved by pressing for more than  2 secs the  back button (bottom  right ) ]

Maximum recording time is 10 hours (still wondering if that means  ).If part of the memory is filled with files it shows  the remain  recording  time

I have bought this player only for this  reason . I think that its memory is quite small. Nevertheless 900 MB are  enough for making recordings  up to 980 minutes
Testing  recording differences  between V and  Nano : As noticed in my  audio  test  site on ipernity severeal people  found that V has a bassier   and  richer audio than  Plus 

And a  few  more on the  generated files: 
In contast to Creative  Zen Plus (PLus files are generated as in series ie ENC001  etc  ) the  files have the format LINE-2014-04-13 17h10m14s  .wma  ie showing date and time the file is saved

Audio : Creative was the leader  on computer audio systems . Therefore their fidelity is surely the best  among computer audio equipment  . The same applies to this player . Using the tracks provided with the player the sound is superb . I have tested  with the Sennheiser headphones which  have the flatter audio  response among my headphones. The highest possible level is still not very strong with these headphones

Comparison  with Zen Nano: Using the Sennheiser  headphones  ,the sound is nearly the same with V being a  little  bassier . I used the audio files  provided in  V for this test  

Computer connectivity: 

Instead of being recognized asa typical  external media storage it has  the format of a device as  printer or external device .. 
The player can be synchronized with the computer's media player . Drag  and drop can work only for  file transfer from and to computer  but cannot  be directly applauded to any site via the browser. The files  have fist to  be transferred to computer and then posted ! 
I found that in Win XP  the files have registry format numbers etc  that means as a peculiar  string format esp the directories  produced  by the install shield or any other  installation proram in the  /temp directory 
Once i have changed a  recorded file via computer but the player still shown the recorded name ! 


MY verdict: 4/5
Zen V is an excellent recorder and player with  a rich sound. The only awkward  is with the connectivity and bevhaviour of its files ...

MY new tablet F&U ETB9541 /9" screen

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