audiosplitz

Sony Ericsson MH100 Wireless Stereo Bluetooth Headset

March 21, 2015

This is one vestige of my last experience with Sony Ericsson, a brand since evolved and simplified to just Sony. I had actually gotten this headset packed in with the purchase of my humble Sony Ericsson Aino (U10i).

Sony Ericsson MH100 - one solid Bluetooth receiver

It was quite a welcome change as all my previous Sony Ericsson phones came with a pair of wired earphones that connected not by the conventional 3.5mm jack but by that really annoying proprietary FastPort that came fitted with Sony Ericsson phones from 2005 - 2010.

The FastPort is dead. Long live the 3.5mm jack

You may be wondering why I would write about a relic of the past in this day and age. I say tribute should be paid to quality and the MH100 certainly served me well. Long after my Aino faded into oblivion like most other handphones, the MH100 remained my audio receiver of choice.

Design

The MH100 Bluetooth receiver brings back memories of Sony's stylish Minidisc remotes. There is a solid clip at the rear that easily grips onto your shirt. The right edge comes adorned with the standard and essential Play/Pause, Back and Forward buttons. The left one is a touch panel for your finger to slide up or down to adjust the volume of the audio playback. Smack above the LED panel, there's a self-explanatory call button.

The intriguing part of the device is the LED panel. It doesn't actually display any text but just 4 distinct lights. By holding the switch at the base, the lights start illuminating upwards signalling the powering up and finally blink to indicate how much power there is left in the unit. Keeping it simple, 4 green lights show full power and 1 blinking red shows a dire need to charge. You get the idea.

Light 'Em Up

Features

Pairing the MH100 with the Aino is child's play. Turn on the Bluetooth on the Aino and activate the MH100 and boom, they connect and you can already start playing music. The pairing experience with other devices is trickier. When testing with the Samsung Galaxy SII, you need to activate your mobile's Bluetooth. You then reset the MH100 by pressing the power and call buttons together for 5 seconds. The LEDs will then start flashing blue and green like crazy and during this period, find the device on the phone and select it. The LEDs stop flashing and hey presto, you're paired.

Performance

The audio quality of the supplied HPM-78 in-ears is decent enough. Putting things in perspective, they are decent enough to whip the default iPhone/Samsung earpieces into submission. Nothing less from what is demanded from a Sony. The bass is tight and controlled such that the listening experience on the train does not leave you begging for heavier sound. The vocals of Diamanda Galas on Erasure's Rock Me Gently come through well enough, not crystal clear nor overly shrill. but enough for one to appreciate the track. Overall, not for music aficionados who demand studio quality audio but certainly meets the expectations for frequent train/bus commutes to work.

The range of the MH100 is around 10 metres. No problem if you like to walk around your room when gathering your thoughts at the thumping of an Armin Van Buuren track.

Charging is via the Sony Ericsson FastPort. You can either connect directly to the FastPort cable or by docking it on the Aino cradle. The charging process ain't too long. 2.5 hours does the trick.

Looks so good when docked with the Aino, doesn't it?

Players

Classic Walkman - Sony WM-FX511

January 31, 2015

In 2015 where streamed music becomes the norm and CDs fade into oblivion, it's good to take a look back into the not so distant past at the default format used by music lovers around the world - the cassette.

Or rather, let's look at the definitive music players that preceded the iPod generation.

The Walkman, introduced by Akio Morita in 1979, was a revolution selling hundreds of millions of units to the masses. It transformed the stereo system in your living room into a personalised and portable experience that you could bring anywhere with you.

I was one of the folks captivated by the experience. The Walkman was an indispensible part of my life. I had owned many units - in 1992, a WM-FX50 unit with a bulging left rear meant to take in either a chewing gum Ni-MH battery or a normal AA. In 1996, I owned a top of the range WM-GX508 recorder where I could delight in recording the top hits from BBC's UK top 20, albeit in crappy sound quality. Good as the hardware was, I was not quite satisfied. In 1997, I migrated to my final cassette Walkman unit - the WM-FX511.

Sceptical as it may sound, I was actually salivating over this unit.

Now, we take for granted skipping tracks and pristine, skip-free music from our iPhones or Galaxy S phones. Back then, things were very different, especially taking into consideration the limitations of the cassette format. Skipping tracks for cassette players was quite a rarity. Every cassette user in those days who wanted to repeat their favourite song would often have to go through the incredibly frustrating time of rewinding the cassette in a trial and error manner. You could practically pluck out the tape and throw it at the wall if you were impatient. You could wind the tape for 20 seconds only to find you missed the start of the desired track by 3 minutes of playback time, to end up in the middle of one of the (often than not) mediocre filler songs that the artist stuffed into the album.

When Sony came out with their AMS (Automatic Music Search) -branded technology, the FX511 became the first unit I had to allow skipping of tracks. This was based on the primitive way of detecting the interval between tracks - a short silence of 2 or 3 seconds. I was jumping for joy as I was a hardcore user of cassettes. I mean screw the CD users. Let's emphasize that again - I was a hardcore cassette fanatic, not because the format was fantastic, but purely because I had a ton of recordings I had already made that could actually leverage on this method of skipping tracks.

While the experience was not 100% consistent, and scoff as you may, it felt pretty darn good to skip and repeat tracks on cassettes finally. I mean like after so many years of incredulous frustration of rewind > play > fastforward > play > listen to filler music for 30 seconds > start of track

It was good while it lasted...

at least until 1999 where I jumped ship to being a hardcore Minidisc user :)

Grado

Grado SR60i - Retro styling

December 31, 2013

With the abundance of Beats, Monster and Bose headsets in the markets these days, it is no surprise that there are some solid cans that maintain a relatively low profile. The Grado SR60i is one of these. While it has won several awards within the audiophile community, somehow, shops are still plentiful with the mainstream brands. As 2013 comes to an end, let's look at the evergreen SR60i.

Design

I won't go into a comparison of the SR60i vs the SR60, though there some reviews detailing the aesthetic differences. The SR60i in itself is a retro looking device. It won't look out of place from a 1970s setting. The headphones sport a diameter housing of 65mm. They are fitted with foam pads, not unlike (but slightly higher grade than) those generic pads you find with your airplane headsets. The sufficiently thick cord has a length that extends to around 6 feet (1.8m or so), ideal for home setups. The feel of the headset is rather flimsy and plasticky though admittedly this is one of their entry grade units.

Features

Unlike the mainstream brands which present a very elaborate packaging, Grado's box is very simple and reminiscent of the times prior to when Apple made all manufacturers take a closer look at packagings. There's just a simple cardboard box with the cans, a certificate of authenticity and that's basically it. Plain. Simple. Basically, nothing pretentious.

In terms of add ons, you can opt to replace the thrown-in cushions with a bowl pad for your ears. The existing pads, when used, are placed flat against the ears and can get a little hot and uncomfortable with extended usage. While I have not tested the bowl pads, this would potentially be a great option to provide extended usage with greater ear comfort.

Performance

The performance is exactly why people buy this unit for. Listening to Armin Van Buuren's Save My Night pounding on my eardrums is an incredibly satisfying experience. The audio is well balanced. The bass is not over the top but delivers on the rhythmic thumping. At the same time, there is sufficient clarity in the detail to come through the beats.

Overall
Grado Labs clearly has a winner in its SR60i model. However, this has been said and done. What you need to do now is to get a pair yourself. Buy one or borrow one. Unless you have a top of the range set of headphones, this model will certainly allow you to re-experience your music collection.

Players

Sony MZ-E90 - Compact Beauty

December 01, 2013

On a whim, I've decided to republish the material I had put online in May 2003.

Can you believe it?

That is like 10 years ago.

I was still a poor student in the middle of my university days. Now, I am paper pusher attempting to put a few pennies into the pocket.

To make things simple, I'm copying and pasting my unadulterated post from then. Has my writing style changed much? You be the judge. Ok, here goes folks:

May 2003
For the record, my model is one of the best designed players to emerge. Mine is a white model with a bluish-green arrow in the centre. It is simply beautiful when you see it!

	Sony MZ-E90
Dimensions	78.4 x 13.5 x 71.5 mm
Batt Life:	Playback
Ni-MH	21 hr
AA Batt	31 hr
Both	56 hr
Weight	70g (113g pocket weight)

I visited Japan in April 2001 so I managed to view the beauty of the country. Of course, I had to visit the electronic districts as well...it is after all the land of technology! So off I went to see those abundant 7 story blocks littered around Tokyo which contain everything electronic you can think of. Computer hardware, software, Playstations, DVD Systems and of course MDs!

So at one of these 7 story blocks, one could see all these fascinating MDs which you cannot find in Singapore. Sharp, Sony and Panasonic are definitely dominating the market there. I got myself some of the BIT CLUB MD discs which are the 'designer' discs 'cos they look a lot better than those that are simply coloured.

Anyway, I noticed that a certain MD player was going for ¥15900 which translated to about $240. That was a relative bargain considering its price in Singapore. And so, I got myself the E90.

I was stunned when I felt the model. It was feather light compared to all other models I'd previously owned! It was also so compact and slim that I was wondering when I got the box if there was really an MD inside. The Sony MZ-E90 is a true technological marvel. The battery life of the model was also far better than all my previous MDs. Of course, one has to consider that it was just a player whereas my other models were all recorders.

Aiwa

1998 in MiniDiscs - The good times

October 13, 2013

Earlier this February, Sony stopped producing MiniDisc players.

Yet another incredibly sad moment, I must say. MDs were a part and parcel of my life in the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

I never made it a point to transition the music device from my humble but reliable cassette player, Sony Walkman WM-FX511, to the CD player. Somehow, CD players felt rather large. No matter how good manufacturers made them, the size of these music devices were always limited by the size of the storage media, the Compact Disc. Sony and Panasonic made some really slim and elegant players but somehow, big was still the word that came to mind.

Instead, jumping directly to the MiniDisc format seemed to be ideal. It seemed to hold quite some potential for the future. As incredulous as this comment may seem in 2013, you have to understand how things functioned in 1998.

MD portables actually being portable
In 1998, Sony and Sharp were the dominant players in portable recorders. Sony had released the Sony MZ-R55, the first genuine disc sized recorder. All their previous releases were rectangular blocks so a square-sized, MD-shaped contraption represented quite a welcome change. Sharp was just a little earlier in coming up with MD-sized units such as the MD-MS701 in 1997 and looked set to continue the trend with their MS721/722 models released in '98. All this pointed to increasingly MiniDisc-sized recorders and players. The smaller they get, the more attractive they get. Sounds the same for every tech device for that matter (TVs excluded).

Affordability
MD portables were getting increasingly more affordable. If recollection serves well, Sony's MZ-R50 / R30 models were in the region of SGD500 - 600+. The new portables from Sony and Sharp were hitting the upper 400/lower 500 levels. As with all technology, once increasingly established, prices drop due to ease of manufacturing, increasing parts availability, consumer acceptance, etc.

Digital Love
At this point in time, what could allow digital playback for a recording enthusiast? I'm the kind to actually listen to radio and actually record music from there with a trusty cassette deck. CDs certainly couldn't perform this function. There were Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) formats but DAT was not very consumer-ish and DCC didn't really represent a threat to MiniDiscs. Somehow, the association for DCC was with Philips only and MD seemed to be taking off with Sony, Sharp, Panasonic all joining the fray. So MDs for digital recording/playback? Why not?

MP3 begins
MP3s were only just starting out and MP3 players were very 'underground' should I say? People were just starting to figure out how to download Cher's Believe ie. where to get the the music, how to download the music, how to listen to the music. Not many were thinking of what portable device could play MP3s. Furthermore, memory prices were crazy. One of the first players, the Diamond Rio PMP300, was just introduced with 32MB of storage. That was insane. With this capacity, realistically we were looking at 3 or 4 songs max? That said, MP3s and their players were really not a viable option in 1998.

So with this, why not jump on the MD bandwagon? It was quite a straightforward decision. This was the beginning of wonderful memories with using MiniDiscs, at least until an equally attractive and compact proposition in the form of the iPod mini popped out in 2004. However, for five to six long years, the MiniDisc was a wonderful format for recording.