Posted on Tuesday, 19th September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

Well, this is one of the latest product from Altec Lansing, the FX4021. At first, I don’t see anything special from this speaker, until I see the subwoofer’s design.

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Posted on Thursday, 14th September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I’ve just bought few parts for my stock yesterday. Now, I gather all of my stock components list them here. I found some unique, vintage “well known” good components, and expensive one (some old, some new). If you need assistance how to get these components, feel free to drop me an e-mail.

Elna Cerafine. Cerafine is well known as a premium quality capacitor. I’ve stocked some of popular values like 47uF, 100uF, and 220uF (25-100 Volt).

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Posted on Tuesday, 5th September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I’ve installed Windows Vista few months ago, but I don’t use it for typical daily use. Today, I examine the audio option and find few interesting things.

It looks like Microsoft has done a good job improving the audio feature on Vista. As the picture shows below, you can see more options for your audio. I think Microsoft has same idea with all of us: PC will merge with HT to establish a HTPC generation. Surely, Vista should support this platform better in the future and Microsoft just did it.

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Posted on Tuesday, 5th September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

A subwoofer is very common in audio system. In your car, in your home, in restaurant, anywhere. It’s not difficult to find a subwoofer. But this one is crazy. We are talking about MTX Audio JackHammer Check the picture below.

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Tags: car audio, jackhammer, mtx, subwoofer
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Posted on Monday, 4th September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

Later these days, I saw many new sound cards claiming itself as an audiophile’s card. Few of the sample are Onkyo SE-90PCI, SE-150PCI, and some from Audiotrak like Prodigy 7.1 XT Gold or HiFi version.

Very interesting to see what is real thing behind this phenomena.

Onkyo SE-90PCI, 2 channel sound card from Onkyo. Claims 110 dB SNR and 24 bit 192 kHz. High quality components used on board.

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Posted on Friday, 1st September 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I remembered this thing when we conducted the blind test last week. The RCA Splitter shouldn’t be used when examining the character of two cables. Read more to understand the scenario.

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Posted on Thursday, 31st August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I’ve heard about Toshiba SD-3950/3960 DVD Player from many modders on the web. Sadly, the SD-3950/3960 is only available on the US. For sure, the voltage is going to be 110 Volt. Here, in my country (Indonesia), we use 220 Volt. So, I can’t use that player without a step down transformer. And for your information, a step down transformer will reduce the sonic quality. That’s why, I always avoid the usage of step up/down transformer.

About last year, I saw the SD-2960 on local electronic store. I didn’t have any intention to buy that at that moment. Few weeks ago, I read again about this Toshiba on the web (the SD-3950/3960, not the SD-2960 that I saw at local store). Didn’t know why, but I asked my friend who worked near the store to check the availability on SD-2960. My phone rang and he told me that he found it. I didn’t have to think twice, then I asked him to buy it and sent it to me.

Here’s my SD-2960 picture below:

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Posted on Monday, 28th August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I visited the monthly audio blind test held by DIY community in my country last Saturday. The topic was interconnect cable. Very interesting Why? Because, not many people believe and put a lot of interest in cable. They think that as long as your cable is not broken, then you don’t have to consider to get another one. This is a mistake, a very BIG mistake.

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Posted on Friday, 18th August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

When you see or hear MP3, what’s the first thing on your mind? iPod? Perhaps We have to admit that iPod is very sensational in terms or brand awareness. For sound quality, I think we easily can see others MP3 player with same or even better sound quality.

I just visited Samsung’s factory yesterday and got their new MP3 player, Yepp YP-U2 fresh from the oven. FYI, this MP3 was built here in Indonesia. I saw myself the production of this player, but simply it’s out of our scope to discuss it.

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Posted on Monday, 14th August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

After spending over 8 months on research, finally I finished my first complete speakers project. I chose Vifa XT25 for tweeter and PL18 for woofer. I think they both are perfectly matched each others. Sadly the XT25 is 4 Ohm only, so I need to spend more money on crossover

The crossover was designed from an intensive research. All components are premium audio grade class, like Auricap, Wondercap, Alpha Core inductor, Dale wire wound resistor, WBT silver solder, high quality 18 AWG copper internal cable, and Shark rhodium binding post terminal. If you are a DIYer, I think you should know about the quality (and price) of those brand. As additional, the input also support bi-wire and bi-amping capability.

Red with gloss surface is choosen as finishing color. I will upgrade the box with better materials from specific wood soon (currently, the materials is 25mm MDF).

Overall, I’m quite pleased with her performance. The low is very extend, tight, and full of definition. The mid is very warm with excellent detail (I have no doubt that this speakers have outstanding mid vocal). The high is also warm, soft, and quite extend.

After hours of listening test, the high-end response has not reached my expectation (I expect more or maybe I’m not used with Ring Radiator’s characteristic? I also have some problem with my room’s acoustic, I will try to add some treatment in the near future). I think I need to experiment with her high pass filter. With the help of spectrum analyzer (soon will come), I think I can do the experiment faster and more efficient, especially to tune up the crossover and my room’s acoustic. Will update here soon.

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Posted on Friday, 11th August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

Okay, okay. I’ve seen a lot of audio player enabeld phones review. But, most of them only evaluate the phone functionality, audio player interface, and etc… etc. I know that sound quality tends to be subjective (tested with ears), but it’s not a bad thing if we test the objective quality (tested with equipment), right?Few weeks ago, I borrowed two phones. One was the Nokia N91 and the other is Sony Ericsson W810i. Two are audio player enabled phone. So, let’s evaluate them.

For introduction, I don’t use sophisticated equipment like Audio Precision. It’s just a software named RMAA and a sound card as D/A. I have few cards like EMU 1820M and ESI Juli@. Both are professional cards. But for this test, I just use prosumer card the M-Audio Revolution 7.1. This card has flat enough response (+0.13, -0.07 dB, and >90 dB of noise, dynamic range, and stereo crosstalk @ 16bit/44.1 kHz). If possible, I will re-test with my EMU or Juli@, but I believe the result will not be different. The RMAA is well know an excellent software for this purpose. One time, the creator had done comparison with Audio Precision and the result was quite similiar. So, we simply can trust this software

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Tags: Nokia, RMAA, Sony Ericsson
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Posted on Wednesday, 9th August 2006 by Auw Jimmy

I have done a lot of testing on sound cards. Not too much, around 12 cards actually which result was saved on my hard drive. I will post the RMAA result here just for collections. For your information, all the result here was done by myself. Feel free to contact me if you have any question. We will start in a bit random list. So don’t complain if your card is on the bottom list

Here’s the list:
1. Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
2. Terratec Aureon FireWire 7.1
3. Terratec Aureon Space 7.1
4. Hercules DJ Console
5. ESI Juli@
6. Lynx L22
7. Audiotrak Maya 5.1 MKII
8. Audiotrak Maya EX5
9. SoundStorm (ALC on Gigabyte 7NNXP)
10. Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1
11. M-Audio Revolution 7.1
12. Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro

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