Posted on Monday, 9th January 2012 by Auw Jimmy

Let’s forget a little bit about audio and move a little bit to another hobby of me: photography.

Recently, I rarely bring my camera during short trip. Why? Because mostly I visit a similar place which no longer interesting. If you have been there to a place multiple times, then the rest would become a boring day. Agree?

By the way, before continuing this, I have to admit that I’m not a professional photographer – not even close. My gear mostly an obsolete one (now I’m using Canon SX10 IS for my daily photography needs). I own several cameras before, including DSLR. But due to less used, compared to my audio gear, then I decide to sell them – mostly. Only keep some simple gear, means no DLSR, welcome Prosumer grade camera.

When I first time got the Nokia Lumia 800, I’m quite impressed with the camera quality. I think it can compete with most smartphone on its class. Not to mention the f/2.2 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens could give you better capture.

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Tags: Lumia 800, Nokia, Windows Phone
Posted in IT/Gadget, Personal | Comments (0)

Posted on Friday, 16th September 2011 by Auw Jimmy

“USB On-The-Go” is not really a new thing actually. But since I have ‘exiled’ myself from the glamorous gadget world, probably I have missed this one. So, I just acquire a Nokia E7, featured with USB On-The-Go. Basically, you can plug a standard device like keyboard, mouse, or flash drive on it (and get a flexible control over your supported device). But I would like to try a different approach. How if I plug standard USB Audio Device (USB sound card)?

I read somewhere that the maximum power supply current supported is 200 mA. Well, probably some USB sound card could take more. But, no risk, no gain, right? I check several of my USB sound card collection and start playing around. Btw, I also plug my Samsung MP3 Player. The idea is to copy some music file from it. But eventually it starts to charge the device itself (damned, charging from battery to battery?). My Nokia E7 “screams” by showing a warning message that the connected device is consuming a lot of power (or similar warning – sorry, forget the detail).

I plug my MAYA EX5 USB sound card. Nokia E7 recognizes the device, but it says ‘limited function’. I think because MAYA EX5 uses non-standard USB audio device (it’s multi channel which is not common in USB audio peripherals). Since I think it needs special driver, then the Nokia E7 couldn’t redirect the sound into this sound card. So, we remove this from our list.

Then I find out a standard USB sound card, the ASUS Xonar U1 USB. This sound card is quite nice, with adequate headphone output quality. Nokia E7 recognizes this device with no problem and suddenly the music is redirected into the ASUS Xonar U1. I plug my headphone then start to enjoy the music.

FYI, the ASUS Xonar U1 used on this and shown on the photo below has been modded completely, especially on the capacitor side with Black Gate and Elna Cerafine. Click the link to find out the modification detail. The sound has improved in quite significant margin.

Below is the Nokia E7 connected to the heavily modded ASUS Xonar U1 via “USB On-The-Go” feature.

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Tags: DAC, E7, MP3, Nokia, sound card, usb, USB On-The-Go, WAV
Posted in DIY Audio, IT/Gadget | Comments (5)

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
Posted in DIY Audio, Indonesia | Comments (16)