Tuesday, 01 December 2009, 20:19:48 EDT
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Is four months long enough to go without an update? Seems so.
When I started my new job at CSU I made it a point to re-join the gym on campus. Not long afterward I learned about stereo Bluetooth headphones and upcoming support for them in iPhone OS 3.0. I've never particularly cared for using wired headphones in the gym, so I decided to give some Bluetooth ones a try. I did a bit of research and settled on the Motorola ROKR S9-HD headphones. I have been using these headphones for about four months, and feel comfortable writing a review of them now.
When I first got the headphones I let them charge and then noted my initial impressions. Copied verbatim, these are my initial impressions:
Light weight
Surprisingly comfortable
Medium ear bud covers are most comfortable for me
Large and medium covers have an extra bit of rubber that makes noise when the headset jostles
High notes have a warped tin-like sound (e.g. the hi-hats in Don't Damn Me by Guns N' Roses)
SRS WOW is muddy and distorted on most rock music (e.g. Guns N' Roses)
SRS WOW off sounds good with rock music and classical
SRS WOW on sounds pretty good with techno (hardcore, jungle, DnB)
Breakdown by Tom Petty sounds good with it either on or off
Overall, SRS WOW is a waste of time
Based on my initial impressions, the headphones seem rather poor, right? Well, that depends on how you intend to use them. But I'll get back to that.
Points (1), (2), and (3) are really the only postive points in my initial impressions. When making my decision to buy the headphones I thought they would be heavy and tight. I can barely tell they are on my head when I'm using them. They remain mostly stationary, even when running on a treadmill or doing jumping jacks. The headphones come with three rubber ear piece covers: small, medium, and large. The large cover is attached by default. It is definitely nice to have the ability to choose the most comfortable cover.
The sound of the headphones is generally okay. I definitely wouldn't use them over my MDR-V700DJs for casual listenting. Or even the MDR-NC7s I use at work. But for working out in the gym, the S9-HDs work quite well. The SRS WOW feature tends to make the bass overpower the rest of the music. Which is disappointing, because the feature is on by default. So every time you turn the headset off, the SRS WOW feature will be enabled the next time you turn the headset on again. Thankfully it is simple to turn SRS WOW off; just press and hold the "next track" button for a few seconds. You will be able to tell when you have held the button long enough. SRS WOW modifies the sound of the music significantly. About the only time I can really recommend using SRS WOW is as I mentioned in (8). Still, it doesn't sound good with a lot of songs.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm using this headset with an iPhone; an iPhone 3G to be exact. There are some caveats with this combination. For some reason, the Bluetooth implementation on the iPhone does not support the track forward and track backward buttons. So if you want to skip around in your playlist, you will have to do so via the phone's interface. But the phone does support volume up/down, play/pause, and phone call answer/hang up. So the most vital functions are present.
Speaking of phone calls, the headset actually performs quite well at handling them. I have received a couple of calls while in the gym, and each of them has gone smoothly. The person on the other end didn't complain about being unable to hear me, and their voice was very clear in my ears. This feature is a big plus for the headset.
One big point of concern is the environment in which the headset is used. When I first got them, I would put them on to listen to music while walking from my truck to the gym. With my phone in my pant pocket, the audio would skip (basically exactly like a scratched CD) constantly. If I held my phone in my hand, and didn't move the phone much, the skipping would not be quite as bad. If I put my phone in a shirt pocket, the skipping would virtually disappear. From what I have read, this is a direct result of not being indoors. The manual for the headset suggests getting ... (view rest)
Friday, 02 December 2005, 14:46:16 EDT
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I just bought two books for the two courses I am taking next semester. Both used. On of them listed as being in "acceptable" condition. What did I pay? Oh, only $138.45. Isn't that awesome? One of the is 384 pages. What a bargain! If it weren't for Campus-i I would have spent three times that much in the campus book store (fuckers). Oh well, such is the rising cost of education. At least next semester I will finally be a junior and that much closer to graduation.
With that out of the way, let's talk about another gadget. My previous post was a lead-in for this one. Well, not the books part; I just ordered those and wanted to go ahead and complain. It was a lead-in for a review of Kinsington's Digital FM Transmitter for the iPod. I bought one of these about three weeks ago because I wanted to be able to listen to my iPod in my truck. I was going to hold off on getting one for a while but I decided that I was too sick of the radio and bought one earlier than I should have. I knew that this is the one I wanted because I read a couple reviews about it that gave it a thumbs up over any other available FM transmitter. One of these reviews said "good enough for car listening." I'm not sure what "good enough" is to that guy but I'm not sure I agree with him.
Before I get to that, though, I would like to cover some of the details about the transmitter. The name seems to imply that the device will broadcast music from an iPod with a digital signal. This is merely marketing. The "digital" aspect of the device is the digital display and tuner. Kensington makes another FM tuner that has three buttons and can only broadcast to three different channels. The "digital" transmitter can tune to a wide spectrum of FM frequencies; it can also store up to three favorite frequencies for quick access. I would not recommend going for the cheaper "non-digital" version of this product. Particularly if you live in an area with a cluttered FM band (e.g. the metro Atlanta area). The transmitter is not very strong and you will have to find a frequency that is not being used by radio station. In fact, you will want to find a frequency that is fairly isolated. If you are able to tune a step away from a station and still sort of pick it up then you will get really crappy quality from this transmitter, if any at all. There is probably a lot of mathematics about it that I don't know, but it seems there are specific frequencies that are really good for broadcasting a signal. Of course, almost all of the frequencies are being used by the radio stations. There seems to be a nationwide frequency, 87.9, that is reserved for things such as this transmitter but the transmitter won't tune to that frequency without using a trick. You can hold the second and third preset buttons and tune to any frequency in the 87 band but you can't set them to one of the preset buttons and the transmitter will conveniently forget about being tuned to one of those frequencies when you turn your vehicle off. The lowest station my radio will tune to is 87.9, and the transmitter is super clear over that frequency, but I can't use it — awesome. I did manage to find a frequency that works fairly well though. I can tune to 89.1 and get a decent, mostly static free, transmission. One thing that helped was figuring out that the cord from the transmitter to the iPod acts as an antenna. So you have to play with the physical positioning of your iPod, as well as the station you are broadcasting to, in order to get a good signal.
Thus bringing me to the "good enough" comment. The signal coming from the transmitter has the quality of an audio cassette without the hiss. Sounds are a bit muted and if you are not listening to a high bitrate audio file it is almost impossible to hear over road noise. I suppose if you don't h ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 23 November 2005, 12:51:58 EDT
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I have written before about SmartBodies. What I didn't write about is the music that is played in the facility. Most of the people that use the facility are older people; either people from the surrounding community or faculty/staff from the university. As such, the music they play in SmartBodies is horrible. They don't want to offend the older people by playing good music so it is mostly bad 80s music (and I like a lot of 80s music!) and other random stuff that isn't entertaining. They do have Sade's greatest hits album in the CD changer but it hardly ever gets played and it really isn't exercise music, to me, any way. I had to do something about this so I bought an iPod nano.
I have been using the iPod since the beginning of October. It has made a tremendous difference in my workout; basically, it has made the activity bearable. Even if there wasn't plenty of research available showing music to be influential in exercise intensity, I would still claim that music is necessary for me to work out. I need something with a good beat to keep my mind occupied and get me moving. That is not the point of this post, though.
The point of this post is to review the device. I have done this once already on a forum I run. I wrote the review after having the iPod for about a week. I am going to copy and paste that review here and then add a little to it at the end. So, here is the review:
I have been using mine for a week now so I figured it time to give some impressions.
Style
It is damn pretty and is a good size. It slips into a pocket very easily and doesn't get in the way. There is a problem with it though, the surface scratches very easily (which I am sure you have heard about by now). I ordered an Invisible Shield for it but didn't have a chance to put it on until this past weekend. Since I wasn't able to apply the shield (more about that in a minute), which I received in the mail on the same day as the iPod, I left the plastic cover on the front of the iPod. This prevented the front from getting any scratches but the back picked up a few. The scratching wasn't too bad but I would certainly be upset to get them on the screen.
Sound
Good. I believe the only sound degradation noticeable is because of the lossy file formats (MP3/AAC). If the MP3/AAC file sounds like shit on a PC then it will sound like shit on the iPod. If the file doesn't sound like shit on a PC then you will not notice any difference from the iPod.
The earbuds are decent. They have a typical frequency response for cheapo earbuds which matches the frequency response that the actual unit can produce. My problem with the earbuds is the styrofoam covers that come with them. The covers slip off very easily and they cover the 'L' and 'R' designations on the earbuds. Because of the slippage, the earbuds always feel like they are going to fall out of my ears; especially when I am working out. The fact that they cover the ear designations is mildly upsetting. I can still move the styrofoam to the side to see which bud is which, but I would rather be able to just glance at them and put them in. The plus to these earbuds is that they are much, much, more comfortable than the Sony earbuds I have had for a couple of years. I will still be looking for suitable replacements, though.
Management
This basically comes down to one of two questions: 1) Do you like the way iTunes manages music? or 2) Can you get used to the way iTunes manages music? Without getting into a longwinded discussion about my digital music organization history I will give a brief "yes" to the second question. I have never been a fan of "playlists" since I like to listen to albums, but I am coming to terms with the fact that no one else seems to listen to music this way any more and I will just have to live with it. iTunes revolves around the playlist mentality and if you are going to be using iTunes to manage your iPod (there aren't too many other choices) then you will encounter this full force. When you first connect your iPod you are asked if you would like to let iTunes manage the playlists on your iPod automatically or if you would prefer to do it manually.
There are plusses and minuses to both methods. Initially I decided to manage the music on my iPod manually and the podcasts automatically. I have since decided to let iTunes manage specific playlists on my iPod automatically. That is, I choose the playlists I want it to put on the iPod in the preferences and it will ignore all other playlists. I switched to this method because iTunes and the iPod keep track of certain data like number of times a song has been played and how you rate the song (out of five stars). If you manually manage the iPod then this data does not sync between the iPod and the PC. Since I am trying to get used to the "iTunes way" I want to use all the features. There are scripts to take care of this problem but that is a lot more work than it is worth. By selecting the playlists I want iTunes to put on the iPod all I have to do is connect the iPod and all of that data is synced without any other interaction on my part. Spiffy cool but there is a problem. If I want to add an album to the iPod I have to do it via iTunes' preferences; even though I have my iPod playlists in a specific iTunes "folder" I can't tell iTunes to use all playlists in that folder. The folder hierarchy does not carry over to the preferences pane.
A note about the podcasts. iTunes and the iPod will not mark a song as played until after the song has finished playing. Not so with podcasts. As soon as you press play on a podcast the file is marked as having been played. Since I have iTunes setup to automatically manage my podcasts on my iPod and to only keep the ones that I haven't listened to yet this poses a problem. I have to fully listen to a podcast on my iPod before I reconnect it to my PC, otherwise iTunes will remove it from the iPod and delete the file. This is can be a bit annoying. It should look at the last played position, which it remembers by default on podcasts, and if it has been completed at least once before performing this action. If the play position is still in somewhere between the beginning and the end of the file it should not delete it. This is one I absolutely must report to Apple as feedback.
Navigation
Sort of genius. I must say, the click wheel takes some getting used to. It is very sensitive and acts in an analog manner. The faster you move your finger (I highly recommend that be your thumb) around the wheel the faster the menu selector or jog shuttle moves. So, you can quickly skip past songs in a list, blast out your ear drums, and skip way past sections of a track. Overall I like the interface and the wheel. It is much different than any other MP3 player I have used. The interface is very polished and feels more like software than some archaic thing devised just so the thing will be usable. No complaints on this one other than the sensitivity.
The Invisible Shield
This is really a requirement in my opinion. The company claims it was devised by 3M or some such for use on helicopter blades. Whatever. It does, however, seem to stand up to their claims of being awesome. The material feels sturdy and, having applied it, I no longer feel that I have to gingerly lay the iPod on surfaces for fear of scratching. If you want to keep your ipod nice and shiny I highly recommend picking buying this product and applying it as soon as possible. They ship very quickly (day or so in the mail).
That being said, the product is a pain in the ass to put on the iPod. You can read through http://www.theinvisibleshield.com/application.html, and particularly the link at the top of that page, to see what I mean. I thought the product was going to be a single sleeve like thing that would snuggly fit over the iPod; possibly slipping on through the bottom. Instead, it comes in two pieces, front and back, that you must literally apply to the iPod. The problem is in lining up the front and back with the edges of the iPod. I didn't do a very good job (it might have had something to do with my hangover at the time) so now there are a couple of edges on my ... (view rest)
Monday, 20 June 2005, 20:12:26 EDT
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A couple months ago I purchased an iRiver ifp-899 portable music player. It had a couple quirks like restarting or even turning off randomly when playing MP3s. Since I didn't play to listen to many MP3s with it I was willing to let that slide. There was one problem that prevented me from keeping the device which I will get to in a minute.
I bought the device because it is capable of playing Ogg Vorbis files, my preferred music file format. Ogg Vorbis support is important to me because every audio CD I own is ripped to Ogg Vorbis at quality setting five; yes, I am that picky about it. After my MP3 drive's head crashed for the second time I swore off downloading music and only keeping rips of compact discs that I actually, physically, own. Ogg Vorbis had just reached a stable 1.0 release at that time so I decided to drop the non-free, aurally inferior, MP3 format in favor of Ogg Vorbis. As a result, I have a rather sizable Ogg Vorbis collection and am not keen on reconverting the whole of it to MP3 just so I can use a portable music player. So, if a portable audio player doesn't support Ogg Vorbis it will be slightly hard to sell it to me.
Most of the music that I listen to requires gapless playback support. Listening to something like Richard Humpty Vission's "Damn That DJ Made My Day" without gapless support will drive a person insane. This means that any music player I get needs to support gapless playback or I will have to convert all of my rips to single files instead of track-by-track rips. I prefer ripping albums track-by-track because it makes it easy to skip to specific spots in the album. If the rip is a single file then you have to hold down fast forward until you get to the section you want to listen to — that is just annoying. So, not only does a music player need to support a file format that is just starting to get some press it also needs to play back the files seamlessly. Such a combination is very difficult to find; especially in a well designed device. In fact, no such device currently exists. There are a few [older] players that play MP3s seamlessly but none that play Ogg Vorbis files seamlessly. The lack of gapless playback is what prompted me to return the ifp-899.
I mentioned that Ogg Vorbis is a little known format that is just starting to get some attention. Technically, it is a superior format to MP3 in every way but it doesn't have the mindshare that MP3 has. Here is a good little article that talks about this problem. Another problem is that the format usually has to be supported by individuals with the know-how and time. Linux, of course, is very well support and Windows is a close second. Mac OS X, however, is only supported through third party applications that don't use the Quicktime system to play audio as of Quicktime version seven. Once Quicktime 7 was released the Ogg Vorbis plugin for Quicktime became obsolete and will no longer work. Any application that tries to play an Ogg Vorbis file through the Quicktime plugin will crash if Quicktime 7 is installed.
Since I acquired an Apple Powerbook I have been usin ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 19 August 2003, 16:31:57 EDT
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Well after a fun day of MSBlast yesterday I went home and checked the VMWare newsgroups again just to see if another solution had been devised. Lo and behold there was. It seems that I was able to remove all the cdroms from the virtual machine and add a "Generic SCSI device" mapped to '/dev/sg1'. So, yes it works. The problem is that, while ARTRAC3 sounds really good at 66Kbps, the walkman requires a lot of jumping through hoops to get audio on to it. If a device ever comes out that is sol ... (view rest)
Monday, 18 August 2003, 18:30:13 EDT
Damn Windows machines. Every machine brought on to campus today must have had the fucking MSBlast virus. It brought the campus' network to its knees right about lunch time, a.k.a. when everyone was on campus.
I am actually stunned that I am able to write this post right now. I am shocked that my bootleg server even has a connection.
If you, the person reading this page, are a Windows user and have not already done so then apply the patch found here. You would do the rest of the world a huge fucking favor by not sucking up all the damn bandwidth.
That or ins ... (view rest)