Posted on Wednesday, 30th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Last Saturday, 26 January 2008, Eee PC was launched at Indonesia. Here is some photos for you who didn’t see this special event

Few hours before the launch. Hmmm… some people already queuing on the line. Want to be the number one who gets the Eee PC?

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Posted on Sunday, 27th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Few years ago, I played with Car PC with some of my friends. At that time, it was complicated to bring PC into the car. We need to buy expensive DC-to-DC inverter, have to buy expensive VIA EPIA C3 mainboard and chassis, then finally have to work with slow VIA C3 processor.

It was so slow and expensive!

We also need to build (or buy) chassis like picture below (taken somewhere on the net).

The cost would be very high just to adopt a slow computer inside your car.

Some of my friends suggested to buy 2nd hand notebook and use it as computer. Interesting. But now, I have a “light bulb” (better idea) on my head
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Posted on Sunday, 20th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Okay, I’m one of the Amanda McBroom fans. And one of my favorite song from her is “Make Me A Kite”. I bought two CD of Amanda McBroom (forgot when). Both contains the “Make Me A Kite” track.

Here is the CD…The first album “Portraits”. This is newer version, contains compilations from most/best Amanda McBroom tracks.

The second (below) is “Midnight Matine”. This is older version. Released before the “Portraits”.

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Posted on Sunday, 20th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Artist: SKRUK and Rim Banna
Album: Krybberom
Publisher: Kirkelig Kulturverksted
Recording Technology: -

About this album:
Rim Banna is a popular Palestine singer. One of her famous album is “Mirror of My Soul” used as reference by many audiophile, due to excellent quality recording and excellent Rim Banna “emotional transfer” of pain and loneliness inside. We might not understand what she is saying (Arabic lyrics), but her voice could “translate” the lyrics into enjoyable song. That’s the magic!

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Posted on Sunday, 20th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Well, I just couldn’t be more proud than this. Finally, a high end speaker driver brand from Indonesia. Call it SB Acoustics!

According to Stereophile, the Scandinavian Audio Research (ScAR) has annouced SB Acoustic. The people behind all of this are famous person in its world. Check the names below:
- Lars Goller (former directing engineer at Danish Sound Technology)
- Ulrik Schmidt (former ScanSpeak senior engineer)
- Frank Neilsen (former DST senior mechanical engineer)
- Benny Frank Pedersen (former ScanSpeak engineer)
- Alan Hydel Jensen (former ScanSpeak engineer)
- Torben Sondergaard (former ScanSpeak president)
- David A. Stephens (former vice-president of VIFA)

Maybe just former Peerless person is not on the list DST, Vifa, and ScanSpeak are there.

According to David A. Stephens:
“Lars and I are still dedicated to the system approach to hi-fi—to controlling the signal from its recovery to the time it leaves the drivers, but we felt a real void in our lives after Tymphany’s merger with DST. Deep down in our hearts, we’re old-school OEM guys and we missed that vigorous collaboration with manufacturers and the thrill of shepherding a product from conception to production. We’re problem solvers and, God help us, we actually thrive on deadlines, so we felt it was time to take all of the talent and experience we collectively have and find new challenges.

Manufacturers who can supply such challenges can reach Stephens at david@sbacostics.com or (262) 784-7852. The new drivers will be on display at CES 2008.“

A challenge from Stephens?

As you may also have heard the news our there. After Tymphany took over the Peerles, Vifa, Logic, and ScanSpeak, many good drivers have been discontinued. Many good products have been phased out (like Vifa brand which changed to Peerless V-Series. But then due to some reason, Tymphany changed it back to Vifa again). This produced a lot of disappointment from customers (and also from the people who worked behind those famous brand).

So, finally the SB Acoustic was born. From the screen shot below (taken from Solen.ca), SB Acoustics is made in Indonesia.

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Posted on Friday, 18th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

After a quite long searching period, finally I got my tube, the Brimar CV4024 and GE 12B4A. Actually, I was looking for RCA 12B4A or Tungsol. But got no luck for now But this two pairs of tubes should be good. Now I need to find a good pair of EL34 to start my EL34 SE project.

I have ordered custom DIY Output Transformer and some overrated Power Transformer (around 2A for both 12B4A, around 1.5A for both CV4024, and around 5A for EL34). We’ll see how this setup will perform   It takes some times before I can finish this project. So many things to do, but so little night to be spent. I wish I can have over 30 hours every day, not just 24.

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Posted on Thursday, 17th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Today, 17 January 2008 is one of the date that I will remember for some time in the future. Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX/JKSE) down to around 2559 after reaching 2835 two days before. What a bloody day! I see a lot of favorite stocks fall down. Only around 9 not popular stocks survive. What I see are all red… Really a bloody day!

Some people said that this market correction related with the increase of “Tempe” price Do you believe it?

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Posted on Thursday, 17th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Okay, I still read a lot of people claiming that he has a 24 bit 192 kHz CD Audio. And he asks me which CD Player will suit him to play 24 bit 192 kHz CD Audio. I will explain a little bit. Read it carefully.

You may see a lot of “audiophile wanna-be” CD Audio with 24 bit 192 kHz logo like the picture above. I never say that the CD Audio with that label will have bad sound. No and never. I never say that. The quality of a CD Audio will be affected by many factors.

The point from this article is to clarify that there’s no such thing of 24 bit 192 kHz CD Audio.

All CD Audio will follow Red Book standard which means that all CD Audio will have 16 bit 44.1 kHz as standard. Otherwise, it will not be playable on your standard CD Player.

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Posted on Wednesday, 16th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

I read somewhere around people are talking about SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) and I read many misunderstanding about SACD. I will write short explanation about it.

First, SACD is not a CD (there is SACD Hybrid, we will discuss it later). It’s different with CD standard. CD Audio will use PCM standard at 16 bit 44.1 kHz (this is the only standard for CD Audio). There’s no CD Audio with 24 bit 192 kHz (it’s a marketing gimmick to trick you).

On the other side, SACD will use what we call as DSD (Direct Stream Digital). It uses 1 bit delta-sigma modulation at very high sampling rate (2.8224 MHz) or over 64 times compared to CD Audio which runs at 44.1 kHz.

So it’s totally different architecture with CD Audio. So never expect about 16 bit or 192 kHz for SACD. It’s not using PCM, so forget about it. Also never compare the 1 bit (DSD) vs 16 bit (PCM) or 44.1 kHz (PCM) vs 2.8224 MHz (DSD). It’s totally in different league!

Despite of its controversy, DSD claims to have wider bandwidth up to 100 kHz and high dynamic range up to 120dB.

If we want to “look inside”, the PCM actually could support up to 100 kHz resolution (as DSD) at 192 kHz sampling rate (Nyquist theorem). While the 120db Dynamic Range claimed in DSD also could be provided with 20-24 bit PCM bit depth.

Most audio editing tools right now only support PCM (though later may support DSD-wide at 8 bit or PCM-narrow). So any DSD source should be converted to PCM domain before later converted to DSD again for SACD mastering.

Some people also say that with noise shaping technique used in SACD (it pushes the noise out of audio band), the SACD dynamic range may decrease quickly at frequencies beyond 20 kHz and also the raising noise floor effect. Some low pass filters may be added at the player side to compensate this problem.

There are few types of SACD:

- SACD Hybrid: This SACD is compatible with standard CD Audio player because it uses 2 layers. The first layer contains the data in PCM/CD Audio format. While the second layer contains the DSD/SACD.

- SACD Only: This CD is only compatible with SACD Player. Some SACD will have single layer (4.7 GB of data), some SACD will have double layer (8.4 GB of data). SACD also can provide multichannel 5.1 track, just like your DVD. So you can enjoy surround sound format from SACD.

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Posted on Sunday, 13th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

I just installed the trial version of Pocket Informant 8. Yes, I was the user of previous version of Pocket Informant. I thought this was the best PIM for Pocket PC. But after I tried the version 8, I couldn’t stop saying to myself that this version was even better!

Check the beautiful picture below (on my O2 Exec with VGA screen). Click the image for full resolution (640×480 pixels).

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Posted on Sunday, 13th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

At Friday night, my friend SMSed me. He asked me to join the CD Player comparison test at Audio Lifestyle magazine, Sunday 13 January 2008. Why not?

I arrived at 13.00pm, and here is the system setup. The event was started around 14.30pm.

There were 3 contenders on this comparison test:
1. Consonance Opera Reference 2.2
2. Rega Jupiter
3. Madrigal Proceed PDT 3 CD Transport

Mr. Didik also brought his NAD CD Player (542 series, if I remember correctly). This CD Player has been upgraded on the rectifier section (with ultra fast Avalanche SF5407 diode) and on the coupling caps (with Nichicon Muse). He only wanted to benchmark his NAD compared with the rest three. So his NAD was excluded from the contenders.

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Posted on Sunday, 13th January 2008 by Auw Jimmy

Artist: Tsai Chin/Cai Qin (蔡琴) and Chris Babida
Album: To Encounter
Publisher: Better Music Corp
Recording Technology: 24bit Super Analog

About this album:
Chris Babida is a famous music arranger with over 2000 music arrangement since 1970. Of course his collaboration with Cai Qin is expected to produce something spectacular, as we will find in this CD.

Maybe you will hear some songs on this album which you already familiar. But Chris arranges it a little bit differently with what you have heard before. I think, Chris tries to give some emotional touch to Cai Qin songs.

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