Useful Consumer Review

Micro SD playing headphones

I have a love/hate affair with wiring.

I love that stuff works.  That’s why I love ethernet cables.  Because wifi doesn’t work.

But I hate getting tangled in cables.  And I love music.  So walking around is a conundrum.

Micro SD card

Fortunately, some geniuses came up with the idea of putting the mp3 player into the headsets.

I’ve got a couple of Koss Tugo phones, but they have a tendency to break (2 pcs) or getting lost (1 pcs), so I need to replenish my stock.

But they’ve stopped making them!  And they only had like half a gig of memory, so I could only put like eight albums on them.  Drama!

I searched and I searched, and there are some really crappy “sports” ones available.  But I’ve tried them, and they’re really crappy. 

So I ordered these ones.  They are called (generically enough) “Headphones / FM stereo radio / Mp3 player”.  Sometimes I think that the Chinese could do with some marketing help.

Simple Instructions!

These take micro SD cards.  So I bought one and plugged it in.  And then I plugged the headphones into the USB port to transfer some songs and get grooving.

But the headphones do not expose an USB interface at all.  They can just use USB to charge.

Oh, well.  I plugged the micro SD card into a USB adapter and copied over 32 gigs of mp3s.  At 11MB/s.  Is that snappy?  It’ll take hours to fill it.  I stopped it after copying 150 albums, or 8GB. It was the cheapest SD card I could find.

So how does it sound?  It’s slightly hissy, but it’s a lot better than I thought it would be.  The headphones are very light and a lot smaller than the Koss Tugos, but I think they sound better. It has a really clear, appealing sound, with an acceptable amount of bass for the small size.

Anyway, they sound good, and they were cheap, and they work, and the user interface is quite good, what with jog shuttles to go to the next/prev song, and to control the volume.

I give this product at least seven thumbs up. Kudos to the SL:MRH-8801 MRH-8803 -MRH-8001 + MRH-8003, which might be the real name of these headphones.  If I understand the instructions right.

There. I Fixed It.

I really like the fanless machines from Aleutia.  They have a nice form factor, they’re really silent, and they have kinda amusing web pages.

I’ve got three of the Sandy Bridge machines now, and they just like work and stuff.  Nine thumbs up.

However!

These are Sandy Brigde machines.  That means built-in Intel graphics.  Built-in Intel graphics have always sucked.  It still sucks.  They will probably always suck.

This doesn’t matter for two of the machines, but the third one is the one I use to watch tv with.  And that’s a problem.

If I use “-vo xv”, then I get tearing, but I can watch really “H” D.  If I use “-vo gl2”, then I get no tearing, but the CPU overheats and gets throttled, which means that I get stuttering video.

This is only a problem when watching 1080p and higher, so I haven’t really bothered doing anything about it.

Until today.

I got a fancy (i.e. the cheapest) fan-less low-profile nVidia card.

Epic unboxing sequence:

The Box!

 

Opened Slightly!

 

Opened Fully!

 

The Manual Removed!

 

And Something Else!

 

The Bag With The Card Is Revealed!

 

The Bag!

 

The Bag Has Sticky Tape On The Back!

 

The Sticky Tape Has Been Vanquished!

 

Peeking Out!

 

Almost Fully Revealed!

 

The Back Of The Card Revealed!

 

The Front Of The Card!

 

Where’s My Pulitzer!

 

Popping The Covers!

 

Pop!  Pop! Pop!

 

Naked!

 

Unscrewed!

 

Lo  Profiled!

Anyway, I got the Aleutia machine down from the shelf.

That’s A Bad Picture!

 

Quite Roomy Inside, Despite Size!

 

See?  There Should Be Room!

 

Er.  It pokes Out At The Top.

 

And The HDMI Port Is Concealed!

 

Bwa Ha HA!  I’ve Got Pliers!

 

Vanquished!

 

There!  I Fixed It!

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/godzilla/images/8/81/Genius-meme.png/revision/latest?cb=20130511201401

And it seems to actually work.  I can now watch the highest “D” that I’ve got on disk without any problems.

CDO

I’m going to the I’ll Be Your Mirror thing next weekend.  They’re doing a tape swap thing.  I probably won’t be participating, because I’m lazy, but I did start thinking about what such a tape would consist of.

Fortunately, Emacs has kept track of all the albums I’ve played over the last decade, so I could just let it pick the albums I’ve played most. I’d have to pick the songs myself, though, since it only keeps track of this stuff on a per-album basis.

Here’s the list it came up with.  The most played album per release year.

1957Sun RaSun Song
1958Kurt WeillDie Dreigroschenoper
1959Ornette ColemanThe Shape Of Jazz To Come
1962Sheila JordanPortrait of Sheila
1964Eric DolphyOut to Lunch
1965Bert JanschBert Jansch
1967Shirley CollinsThe Power Of The True Love Knot
1968Joni MitchellJoni Mitchell
1969David BowieSpace Oddity
1970Vashti BunyanJust Another Diamond Day
1971David BowieHunky Dory
1972David BowieThe Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
1973David BowieAladdin Sane
1974David BowieDiamond Dogs
1975Joni MitchellThe Hissing Of Summer Lawns
1976Joni MitchellHejira
1977David Bowie“Heroes”
1978Kate BushThe Kick Inside
1979Talking HeadsFear Of Music
1980Talking HeadsRemain In Light
1981JapanTin Drum (1)
1982EurythmicsTouch
1983Kate BushThe Dreaming
1984Eurythmics1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother)
1985Kate BushHounds Of Love
1986TuxedomoonShip Of Fools
1987TuxedomoonHoly Wars
1988The CureThe Top
1989Kate BushThe Sensual World
1990Kate BushThis Woman’s Work II
1991Pet Shop BoysBehaviour
1992Jane SiberryWhen I Was A Boy
1993Kate BushThe Red Shoes
1994Joni MitchellTurbulent Indigo
1995MolokoDo You Like My Tight Sweater?
1996Vinicius CantuáriaSol Na Cara
1997Stephan MathieuWurmloch Variationen
1998Arto LindsayNoon Chill
1999Arto LindsayPrize
2000Vinicius CantuáriaTucumã
2001Vinicius CantuáriaVinicius
2002The NotwistNeon Golden
2003Other People’s ChildrenDelete.Control.Escape: The Selective Memory of OPC 2000-2003
2004DJ Rupture58.46 Radio Mix
2005Kate BushAerial (2)
2006Arthur RussellAnother Thought
2007Tracey ThornOut Of The Woods
2008Laura JeanEden Land
2009CirclesquareSongs About Dancing And Drugs
2010Oneohtrix Point NeverReturnal Remix
2011MenTalk About Body
2012ActressFaceless