Gizmos Grabowski

Grandad's First MP3 Player

As my dad watched my daughter washing his car last sunny Saturday, he notice she was listening to music. Those white earbud headphones dangled their thin cord to a pocket in her shorts.

He asked me what she was listening to, so we showed him the iPod. "This 4GB model," I explained, "holds about 60 CDs worth of music."

My dad didn't think he had that much music to listen to, but the idea intrigued him. "I could use something like that when I drive my tractor [up north on his small farm]."

I knew exactly which one to get him. I'd been eyeing Sony's relatively new NWZ-S615F digital media player, because I liked its diminutive size and -- most important -- tactile controls.

While I wish that Japanese companies would learn from Apple's naming scheme, I am glad Sony ignored Apple's drive to reduce the hardware parts count by eliminating buttons that you can feel before you press. (My Zen Micro MP3 player suffers from that, too: just feeling for a control causes it to be activated.)

The Sony has distinct buttons for volume, play/pause, back, and options. A four-way controller surrounds the mildly protruding play/pause button.

I went comparison shopping on the Web, and found that most places charged the same price for the 2GB model -- $100 at London Drugs, Sears, Staples, and so on. FutureShop doesn't carry it, but BestBuy.ca had it for $10 cheaper than the rest.

I bought it for him, and set up the options. Likes and dislikes:

Likes

-- nice size (thin and not too small), with rubberized backing.
-- controllers work blind.
-- screen is small but very clear, bright, and colorful!
-- 33 hours playback of music; charges through the computer's USB port.
-- plays back MP4 videos, which can be downloaded from Google Video and others.
-- drag and drop to load it with any kind of file.
-- user interface has a beautiful design.

Dislikes

-- manual does not explain everything.
-- includes a plastic base that doesn't keep the player upright.
-- the Skip-to-next-track function is vague to me.
-- doesn't have an accelerometer for automatically rotating pictures and videos between portrait and landscape.
-- lacks the ability to erase files.

If I didn't already have a suitable MP3 player (ie, my three year old Zen Micro), then I'd get this one for myself, but I'd get the 8GB model. (2GB is sufficient for my dad.)

Downloaders are the Record Company's Friends

The Government of Canada commissioned a study by two professors on the effects of music downloading on the Canadian music industry.

(Recall that downloading is legal in Canada, but the record companies want the Canadian government to make it illegal. Only uploading is currently illegal.)

The study found that downloaders are more likely to buy CDs than non-downloaders. I am guessing there are a couple of reasons for this:

-- downloaders are more into music than are non-downloaders.
-- downloaders treat the Internet like I used to treat radio: a way of figuring out which albums are worth buying.

I used to tape the radio. The most significant tape I made in Dec 1974: of the about 24 songs recorded from the radio, I ended up buying the albums for about 20 of them. (I would have bought the other four, but I couldn't figure out who the artist was.)

In the end, there is no difference between listening to a song for free on radio and listening for free after downloading. In both cases, the musician gets noticed and he gets paid: by the radio station, or else by the royalty tax we Canadians pay on recording devices and media.

Phillips Noise-reducing Headphones

On a flight to Europe earlier this month, I took along several mini-size noise-reducing headphones, including a new set from Phillips. Model SHE592 is down to $25 at BestBuy in Canada.

These look like so many other in-ear headphones, which already lower airplane noise, because (1) they act like ear plugs; and (2) the sound is very close to the ear drum.

But these new ones from Phillips have a small box near the plug-end that contains a AAA battery, noise-reducing circuitry, and the on-off switch.

I found they worked very well, although I was sitting in a quieter location away from the engines. It was important to jam the headphones well into my ears, to block out the most sound. These headphone don't block 100% of the plane noise, but more than any other I've tried. (I haven't tried the heavily-advertised Bose headphones, but at $300 I'm not going to try.)

The only drawback to these is that small box with the circuitry. It makes it hard to bundle up the headphones compactly. (Over-the-ear headphones are large enough to contain the circuitry inside the ear pads, but then they are overall much larger than these in-ear ones.)

Downloading ECM Albums from Amazon MP3

Kevin C. Tofel of jkOnTheRun asks, Amazon opens beta of DRM-free music store. Are you buying?

Yup.

Where else am I going to get MP3-pure jazz records by ECM (the name of Manfred Eicher's famous record label, his initials spelled backwards) for $5.99?

At Amazon.com's MP3 Downloads section, I searched for "ECM," then sorted the list from cheapest to most expensive. I picked out likely candidates, and then narrowed them down by listening to clips. This is what I got:

-- Gary Peacock: Tales of Another
-- Jan Garbarek Group: Photo with Blue Sky, White Cloud, Windows, and a Red Roof
-- John Ambercrombie: Current Events

Downloading was a bit of pain, and at times I was not sure if it was happening. First I had to download and install a special MP3 download applet. Another pain: I had to pay for each album individually. Then, after I paid for each album, Amazon queued one track a time for downloading, even when buying entire albums.

Amazingly, the purchase and download process worked with the Opera Web browser I use.

Eventually, all 19 tracks downloaded, but not to the folder I want; the Amazon MP3 downloader app creates its own folder, \(loginname)\Music\Amazon MP3.

Other annoyance: Amazon tries to be helpful and automatically add the track info to Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's MediaPlayer. I want neither, since I use the Quintessence Music Player, and so I don't even have MediaPlayer set up on my new HP TX1200 convertible notebook computer. But that didn't matter: each time a track was downloaded, the Media Player setup program appeared, and I had to cancel it. 19 times in a row.

So now I am listening to them at the best time to listen to jazz: in the late evening.

Which brings up another matter: Vista is cruddy for playing back music and movies. Frequently, there are audible "blips," the equivalent of a record player's clicks and pops. (Happens during DVDs, too.) "Cruddy" is the correct term. Shame on you, Microsoft, for creating the un-Wow.

Belkin Overpriced by 2.6x

In an earlier post, I wrote about the $20 mini-fm transmitter I got from Wal-mart, for playing back music from my MP3 player over the car stereo.

Today I was surprised to see the same-looking item at Staples, but priced at $52 -- and with the Belkin logo. The only difference was the style of power connector (round, instead of rectangular).

I am guessing that Belkin sourced it from an OEM in China, and had them apply the logo. And then they and/or Staples Canada marked up the price by 2.6x.

Review: Morph MP3 to Air

When we got a new car with a CD player, we had a problem: how to playback music without the cassette adapter we'd been using for eight years. A local car stereo shop offered to sell a mini-FM transmitter for $100.

Too much! I told my son, going on a band trip to California, to be on the lookout for something cheaper. He returned with a $30 unit, one of the first on the market. It worked well for 3 years, but then the audio connector began to fail, with one channel cutting out intermittently. Time for a new one.

In an earlier post, I noted that Best Buy sells these for $60 or more, while Wal-Mart sells 'em starting at $20. I decided on the $20 model to see if there was a tangible difference. It's the Morph brand Mp3 To Air.

One drawback to the old one was that it was limited to broadcasting on four frequencies. Today's models cover all FM frequencies, as does the one I bought.

In the plastic packaging, it came with:

- tuner unit
- USB cord
- car charger

The USB cord connects to your computer (for home use) or to the car charger. Or, it can use two AAA batteries.

The unit works well enough, but has some problems:

- the power and tuner buttons are outdented (stick out), so they sometimes get hit accidentally, and then the unit turns off or changes stations
- it is supposed to turn on automatically when the MP3 player is turned on, but this function doesn't work
- to save batteries, it turns itself off after a minute of no signal. Problem is that it's not running on batteries and turning off just means I have to turn it on again.
- it comes with a built-in digital thermometer (why?) that's wildly inaccurate.

Despite these drawbacks, it was worth saving $50 for a rather basic function.

Photo here.

Review: Roku SoundBridge Radio R1000

So I bought the Roku Internet radio that I discovered at BestBuy in Langley (BC Canada) for about $100 cheaper than the equivalent some 20 minutes away across the border in the USA. Usually, the pricing is the other way around.

I love it, and I hate it.

What's to Hate

With its integrated subwoofer, the Roku SoundBridge Radio R1000 is too large for a modest bedside table. It towers, and it just barely fits mine.

The bass from the subwoofer can be unpleasant when listening to news radio. The unit has no tone controls. It does sound good for music, so all that would be needed is a way to reduce the bass for talk radio.

It is difficult to set up. If you needed your nephew to set up your home wireless network, you won't be able to listen to Internet radio stations. In that case, you can listen to AM, FM, and music from the integrated SD card reader.

What's that? Don't know how to place music onto SD cards? Then it's just AM/FM for you.

Oh, and the AM doesn't work on my unit. Roku product support hasn't responded yet to my request to get the AM working.

Neither does FM work, because it didn't come with an FM antenna and we tend not to listen to FM anymore and I can't be bothered digging out an FM antenna and the required adapter unit.

If you cannot figure out how to configure the unit for Internet stations, then you certainly aren't going to be streaming music from your downstairs computer, because that setup is even more complex. Roku did a good job in simplifying accessing the Internet with a household appliance, but there are some complex issues that cannot be simplified, like entering your wifi network's password. (The R1000 won't work in most hotel rooms, because most hotels require you to go through a browser-based screen to agree to their conditions and payment schemes, and this radio cannot handle that.)

(I'll describe the setup process in another posting.)

The problem with making complexity simple is that it results in simple complexity. For example, did you know that pressing the Pause button on the remote control snoozes the unit? Would you guess that pressing Play turns off the alarm? Assuming you can find the remote early in the morning.

Internet radio is fickle. Too many listeners and the station can't be listened to. Local ISP problems, and the broadcast is intermittent; it's very frustrating to listen to talk radio when there are 10-to-20-second gaps every minute or two, due to the radio reconnecting to the station. And yesterday evening, it lost its connection with my in-home wifi, so I needed to reboot the radio.

The extra software is not included on a CD with the radio. You need to download it.

It lacks an AUX port, so you cannot connect other devices to its speakers, such as an iPod or CD player.

The final problem on my list: choice. On our old clock-radio, my wife and I listen to a single AM station for falling asleep to and waking up to (AM980 CKNW). TV's 500-channel universe is a pittance. Now, there are some five thousand radio stations to listen to. Oh dear, which to choose? (There's Whispering, the all-solo-piano station.) Listening to one station a day would take 14 years to get through them all.

Our current list is short:

- Deutsche Welle (German Public Radio) English broadcast
- BBC news
- Radio Paradise (the most popular station for Roku listeners).

Give me good old AM radio, even if it crackles.

What's To Love

Once the R1000 is set up, it is simple to use. That is, as simple as it can be, given that the unit is the equivalent of a computer armed with a clock-radio interface. There are six preset buttons: press a button to listen to a radio station. The unit is loaded with the URLs of least 100 Internet stations. (More can be added, but not easily.)

Come across a station you like? Hold down one of the preset buttons until you hear the beep, and the station (no matter what its URL is) is assigned. An A-B-C button makes each preset button handle three station, for a total of 18 presets.

There are two alarms, and they are easier to set our than old clock-radio for one reason: I can move time backwards. No more moving the alarm time ahead 23.5 hours just to wake up a half-hour earlier! You can wake up to one of three alarm sounds, or to a preset station.

The time display is deadly accurate, because it is updated from the Internet. I like knowing accurate time.

The unit autodims at night; I can set the level of dimming. It took me a while to figure out how to dim the time display when the unit is off: press the <- button on the remote; it remembers this setting. Can also turn off the display completely when the unit is off.

Roku isn't leaving users in the dust. They update the firmware with new features every so often. For example, v3 added many more stations and genres. But firmware updates might be another technological hurdle for the non-technical person.

For the geek, however, the R1000 is a delight. The unit can be controlled from your computer, and there are APIs for extending its functions. For example, there is software that lets you control it from your handheld PC (Windows CE only, so far, but a Palm version is under development).

The company just launched rokuradio.com, a "social" site for instantly updating the most popular stations, searching for stations, currently-heard tracks, etc.

Although the R1000's built-in speakers sound great, you can hook it up to your stereo through its headphone jack. Roku has a cheaper SoundBridge unit that provides just the Internet and music streaming features to your stereo.

The R1000 works with wireless Internet only; it lacks the ethernet connector for wired connections. However, we have the unit in the exact opposite corner from my wifi base station, and it has few connection problems going through the 50 feet of walls, floor, and furnishings.

Summary

The R1000 is an all-in-one music station (US$299):

+ AM.
+ FM.
+ Music in several formats from SD cards.
+ Music streamed from Internet radio stations.
+ Music streamed from subscription services, like Napster.
+ Music streamed from your computer's hard disk using the free Firefly server or iTunes.

As my daughter said, we need one in every room of the house! The recent $100 price drop makes it more affordable.

(The company's URL is not roku.com but www.rokulabs.com.)

iPhone Compatible Headphones -- I Got 'Em

I don't have an iPhone, but I understand the problem users have with existing headphones. The iPhone has a silly design error, where the headphone connector is recessed. Many headphone have connectors are too thick to plug in.

The problem doesn't affect just headphones, but also cables for connecting external speakers, stereo sets, and mini FM transmitters (for car use).

The Palm TX has the same silly design error. I have found two solutions:

1. In some cases, I have been able to carve off (with a knife) some of the plastic surrounding the cable's plug. That gives sufficient clearance that the connector now fits.

2. Or, use the problem as an excuse to buy new headphones whose connector clears the obstruction.

A4Tech MK-650-B Headphones

I am always on the search for low-cost, but good sounding headphones. My favorite has been a set by Phillips, which, I noticed this week, now cost half-as-much (around $20) as when I bought them. They do a better job in blocking out noise on airplanes than do "noise reducing" headphones that cost much more -- and they take up much less room in the carry-on luggage.

These sorts of headphones block external noise by being shoved into the ear canal, so are sometimes called canalphones.

Anyhow, last week in Wal-mart, I saw a pair that looked pretty nice and were just $18, so I splurged. Made by A4Tech (image here, mine are black and silver), these sound amazing, along with a bass that's so strong I need to use the music player's equalizer to cut the bass by 6dB. Take that, Bose!

They feel nice, because parts are made of metal. Real steel!

Finally, the connector plug is narrow enough that it fits my Palm TX, and will probably work with the iPhone.

It is, however, possible to buy ones that are too cheap. London Drugs had a set of canalphones from Maxell for $10. Dreadful sound: no low end whatsoever! It did come with a nice little travel pouch. I gave it to my wife for listening to movies on airplanes.

Zune

While in BestBuy in Bellingham (WA USA) yesterday, I finally got to see the Zune (not available in Canada, thankfully). Boy, they sure are ugly. I now see why the brown color was especially panned. Ugly and big looking. In an era where slim defines all things electronic, the Zune is a design disaster.

The reason we were in the USA for a little cross-border shopping was to pick up a wireless network adapter for my son's Xbox 360. "Should have been built-in," my 20-year-old son grumbled. I agree. But then Microsoft couldn't even figure out how to make the power supply tiny and the Xbox unit quiet. This is supposed to be in the family room, but is as noisy as an out-of-warranty dishwasher? "That's innovation," Microsoft would say as explanation.

Anyhow, the wifi adapter is US$100 in the USA, $130 in Canada.

With taxes, the wifi adapter is US$107 in the USA, CDN$147 in Canada.

It felt good saving $40. Especially when the Canada Customs officer decided to split the $107 in "returning goods" between the two of us, and ignored the Canadian taxes owing.

Using a Camera for Music Playback

A reader asks,

I haven't used the NV3, but I do know several people with Samsung cameras, and they've been pretty pleased with them. I do have to ask about the MP3 player function, though. I haven't had a camera with that, but I'm very interested in buying a camera/MP3 combo. I'm concerned about running out of memory, though. Should I buy two memory cards, one for pictures and one for music? Or can I fit a nice number of songs on the card and still have room for pics? Does the NV3 offer features comparable to most MP3 players, and how is the playback quality of the music?

Q: I'm concerned about running out of memory, though.

A: This is no longer a problem these days, what with 2GB memory cards going for $40.

Q: Should I buy two memory cards, one for pictures and one for music?

A: You can, but then you would have to switch cards each time you want to take a picture, and I am cautious about how the card slot mechanism holds up to repeated use.

Q: Or can I fit a nice number of songs on the card and still have room for pics?

A: Yes. A typical CD takes up about 64MB as MP3 files, so a 2GB card holds the equivalent of 32CDs. As for photos, the 2GB card holds around 1000 photographs, depending on resolution and quality settings. So you can easily have both types of files on a single memory card. You can erase music files as the card fills up.

Q: Does the NV3 offer features comparable to most MP3 players, and how is the playback quality of the music?

A: Given all that I've written, I prefer individual devices: a Zen Micro for MP3s, a camera for taking pictures, and a Palm TX for organization -- each is small enough to take all three on trips. That's because each is optimized for its function.

Disky "Borrows" My Idea

Some months ago, I got the idea of selling dedicated MP3 players. With prices plummeting, you could sell a CD on a 64MB music player for less than the store price of the CD.

Today on Mobile Magazine, I read that Disky has taken my idea and commercialized it: a two-hour (128MB) MP3 player for US$26 that comes with Disky's selection of music. The playlist is "static," meaning it can't be changed.

Time to start sending me the quarterly royalty cheques.