The fully automatic mode is a bit over zealous when it comes to cropping, but you can go into Home mode and adjust it to do minimal cropping, so you know you’re going to get the entire image. You can crop manually before you scan, and the software automatically finds the images in slides and negatives for you, which makes things quicker.
On low DPI settings, it is pretty fast, especially compared to the 1st scanner we had back in around 1996-ish. If you crank it up to 4800 DPI, it can be a lot slower, but you’ll want to be scanning stuff of very high quality for this setting.
When you aren’t doing negatives or slides, you can store the plastic holder in behind the white doodad inside, so you don’t clutter up your desk, or lose it.
As with pretty much all scanners, dust is a problem. Especially for stuff like slides. You will need to keep the slide clean, the glass in the scanner clean, and the strip in the lid where the light comes through, to avoid excess dots and wiggly things in your pictures.
You can scan up to 6 negative images at once, or 4 regular slides. It will not handle anything bigger than 35 mm film though. Although I think Epson have scanners that will do big film.
So yep, the image quality is great, and if you want a nice light weight, and not overly expensive scanner, then this is a good choice. They will work with Macs (— Mac OS X Leopard & up with the installation CD. The Puma driver from their web site didn’t work in Tiger — ) and Windows as well. (Probably Windows XP.) You can buy these at Office Works for about $196.

Kramer (Tools) VP-501N VGA to composite and S-Video scan converter.
This device is a more expensive version of what the cheapo Digitech thing above does. And it was pretty cr*p in all honesty. Seeing as the purpose of my new computer was to connect it to my TV like a game console, and the fizzing video card has no video out socket, these are the required kinds of devices to convert the output from the VGA socket into a regular composite video signal. Although, you can also use S-Video too.
There are pretty much no reviews of this device out there, so I will try to go into detail about how it works and how good the output is.
The PAL output was once again disappointingly jerky. There was no option to set the refresh rate to 50 Hz on your computer, so of course, the device itself must convert it. And it isn’t up to par. It’s semi-fine for NTSC, which is almost the same as the 60 Hz output from the computer, but not suitable when you’re just dropping frames to achieve the PAL rendition. Prior to getting any of my scan converters, I hadn’t seen any sample videos from any of them, so it was very hard to judge what they were going to be like. The image quality on the VP-501N is really good though. You could read the small text in Windows at 1024 × 768 pixels with ease.
If you’d read my News Page, you may have already seen me mention a bit about a Shinybow converter too. Well, it was just as bad as the Digitech one, if not more so. And it was supposed to be sold primarily as a NTSC to PAL and PAL to NTSC converter, yet it still had the ugly frame dropping issue. Plus you couldn’t adjust the brightness either.
What you get in the box with the VP-501N, is the actual converter and the power supply. You will need to provide your own VGA cord (more money wasted there) and if you’re buying from America, you will need to be aware of the power supply pin difference. (The power supply does handle 240 V and comes with a European set of pins as well.) In any case, I used my transformer for American appliances.
There are 4 memory selections to remember your settings and you can adjust brightness, saturation, contrast and flicker reduction. You can also over scan, under scan, and “freeze” an image, as well as scaling & centring both the input and output. It will support up to 1600 × 1200 pixels, and can also handle a component video input too. The controls were awkward and time consuming to use as well. Stretching an image did not enlarge it centrally, but from one side, so you had to go and re-centre it every time you wanted to stretch.
As for the price, you’ll be looking at around $509.60 from America, depending on the exchange rate, and from $755 up to $828 here in Australia. Ouch, what a rip-off!
One of the major problems with the converter though, is that the scaling feature is nowhere near good enough. You could zoom in and over scan the image to way-too-big sizes, but there was no possible way to fit the entire screen image on your TV, no matter what you adjusted. So who tested these things?! Not only that, but the zoom mode had a glitch that caused this to happen.
So it would obviously seem that you would need to spend in the thousands of dollars to get something decent, and really for me, I think I will just have to try and get another video card, because all these consumer level scan converters are just not worth the money, and I’ve chucked over $200 down the drain on them already. This one is going straight back to B & H for a refund. Do not bother with it.

Philips 29PT3323 colour television
This is my telly! Back in July-ish 1997, I got a 34 cm Panasonic TV when I was still at school. It was pretty brilliant, and fairly easy to move too. Eventually I wanted something a bit closer to the size of arcade monitors, so in 2005 I decided to go for a 68 cm size TV. Unlike the little Panasonic one, this one has stereo audio, which is pretty much standard these days. Plus it has a totally flat CRT. (Well, on the part you view anyway!)
As it was only ever intended for my game consoles, I never gave it an antenna to watch anything that was transmitted from the TV stations, and by 2011 or so, I’d given up watching anything that was broadcast anyway. I did however connect it to another TV via a long cord to try out the built in teletext decoder though. That was pretty neat, since I’d never seen teletext stuff before. It did manage to show a little bit of teletext information from an old video I used to record Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, but not much more than the time and date were displayed. Apparently you need more like Super VHS quality to get the teletext information without it being too corrupted.
There are plenty of inputs on this TV — 3 sets of regular composite connections, S-Video and component as well, so long as it’s interlaced. The interlacing on this TV seems quite a lot more noticeable than the little Panasonic one, and often gave the impression it was showing both fields at once, rather than one after the other. Perhaps the phosphor retains the image longer. I dunno. Anyway, the component input is pretty nice quality, with no wobbliness in the pixels, like you get on the composite input, especially around the edges of vibrant magenta and red colours. Unfortunately I haven’t used it in ages.

Click to see a test pattern sent from my MacBook.

On the right side is a headphone socket, and there are video and audio outputs as well at the back.
For consoles like my Mega Drive and Atari 2600, for which I only have RF connections, you can choose what channel you want to assign by automatic or manual tuning. The TV will also show the frequency of the signal too.
Having the contrast set too high, I think it was, may cause the colours to change based on the overall brightness of the picture, so you need to keep it lower than about 70%. You can also expand “letterbox” style video to fill the entire screen, but personally I don’t like tampering with the aspect ratio.
You can set personal picture and sound adjustments, plus there’s “personal zapping” to allow you to store your favourite channels too. But seeing as there were only ever 6 channels that you could receive in the pre-digital transmission days, there probably isn’t much point to it.
As well as the standard PAL system, the TV can also show NTSC and 60 Hz PAL too. From memory, if you have it set to a channel that doesn’t exist, instead of hearing the static sound, it will just remain silent, but you do see the static on the screen.
In terms of weight, this thing is heavy! It comes in at about 44 kg, so you need about 3 people to move it. At least it isn’t easy to steal.
Since a couple of years ago, mine’s developed a bit of a minor, intermittent fault, which I’m intending to get fixed. The thing is, it doesn’t show up all that often. It will just turn off and then back on again, but fairly rapidly. Like a lot of cathode ray tubes, it will degauss itself when you first turn the TV on. This is useful if you’ve moved it or changed the orientation in the room. (Because the magnetic field of the Earth can affect it apparently.) The warm up time is probably about 10 seconds, when it hasn’t been used in a while, and you get no picture until it has. You can also tell the difference between a 50 Hz and 60 Hz signal by the vertical size of the on screen display. In 60 Hz, it’s stretched more.
The remote control is pretty decent, and it has sensible direction buttons to work your way through the menus.
Yep, so it’s pretty good. The original price was around $500 if I remember correctly.

Gefen (TV) GTV-HDMI-2-COMPSVIDSN HDMI to composite & S-Video scaler / converter.
My Gefen HDMI To Composite Scaler has arrived! And about 5 days earlier than I thought too!
Short of getting an older video card, there wasn’t much choice left in doing what I wanted, in terms of getting the video out from my new PC to my TV, and it looks like FINALLY, this Gefen dealie is the answer!
The picture size on the underscan setting is just right! You may lose about 3 pixels off the right side of the screen, but honestly, that isn’t a big deal at all. So huzzah for being better than the Kramer converter in that respect. Now about the PAL output: It’s actually quite good! A little stuttery here and there, but nowhere near as bad as that Digitech doodad or the Shinybow one I got. In fact with this one, I would recommend ignoring the NTSC mode all together, as it wasn’t a great deal better, and you get an extra 96 vertical pixels with PAL anyhow. As for Virtua Fighter 5, it was equally as sensational! (The 2007+ models of XBOX 360s seem to have the HDMI socket, so I was in luck.)
If you want things to be ultra smooth though, you can set Windows to run in 720 × 576 pixels at 50 Hz “natively” with the scaler. Programs seem to work fine with it too, such as Oblivion, MAME and 3D Mark. This is the setting I’ll be sticking to now, after I saw how much nicer it is. And as this is the visible TV resolution anyway, it’s the ideal choice. I found that with some stuff, MAME included, you will need to disable the V-sync setting for your video card, (in my case, in the nVidia Control Panel,) because I encountered audio stuttering. Obviously some applications want to run at 60 Hz or higher and don’t like to have to run at a lower frame rate. The trade off though is some minor tearing, but if you can tolerate that, you’ll benefit from perfect sound and pretty smooth animation. 3D Mark though, will run fine at 50 Hz, at least the version I quickly tested.
As for the the XBOX 360, you need to set it to just plain stereo out, or you will get a buzzing noise, because the Gefen converter won’t support the Dolby output, or whatever it was. Also, in terms of V.F. 5, it seemed to set itself into 50 Hz and run the game anyway, so I dunno why it forced the 60 Hz option on you through the regular composite output. Unless it changed to 60 Hz at start up, and the converter just output it as 50 Hz, which was probably more likely. But anyway, it worked! And it was pretty smooth too. Also, I had to put the display mode to 640 × 480 pixels and then all was good, as the screen didn’t seem to be scaled down vertically to match the aspect ratio like it was supposed to have done. Anyhoo, check out these Virtua Fighter 5 screen shots I got with the scaler.
With my new PC, I had some issues using the standard 640 × 480 pixel mode; it gave a picture, but it was squished up horizontally. I found one solution to the problem in getting my video card to run at 1600 × 1200 pixels, and then scale the lower resolution image up. It works in the nVidia Control Panel. I dunno if ATI / AMD video cards have the same setting though. It’s basically a choice to let your GPU resize images to your “native” resolution, rather than what it thinks is the monitor doing it. My Power Mac G5 on the other hand, gave no troubles running in the 640 × 480 pixel mode.
Mmm, and since I don’t have anything that can capture PAL at 60 Hz properly, this seems to have become the alternative that I’ve long been looking for in terms of V.F. 5! And I got to keep the 4:3 aspect ratio, so I didn’t have big black borders. HDMI is a bit of a c**t with the 4:3 aspect in higher resolutions it would seem. Or the XBOX 360 is anyway. As for the computer use, that was fine, and you got the resolutions it said it would support. (Up to 1600 × 1200 pixels, as well as 1920 × 1080 pixels.) Using it with my DVI connection on my monitor, you could have both running at once, but the TV became primary. I set the refresh rate to 60 Hz, because it was set to 75 Hz, and at 1st I thought that was giving it troubles, but maybe not. I played some Seinfeld and that seemed pretty smooth and watchable. So yay for that!
The Gefen scaler doesn’t support HDCP though, so keep that in mind. But I think only movies really use that.
The scaler also has 2 audio output sockets, because the HDMI tranfers audio as well as video. In terms of using it with my new PC, Windows seemed to detect the scaler as an audio output device, even though it was plugged into my video card. In any case, you could reset the SoundBlaster Audigy to the default sound device, and still get audio out of it instead, because there was no audio out otherwise. (Of course with the XBOX 360, you just use the audio which comes through from the HDMI connection.)
The image quality is great as well, just like the Kramer scan converter, and it’s certainly better than my nVidia GeForce 7600 GT. If you’ve seen some video cards’ TV outputs in the past, and thought they were a bit blurry, well this is way better than that. There doesn’t appear to be any strange delays in the picture either; it all comes through in real-time. If you’d like to see a sample of this connected directly to my Canopus ADVC-110, you can view it here. I personally feel that you’re not going to get much better quality than this for a composite connection. This has only been compressed once, to DV quality video, and reduced to 16 bit colour for the sample image, but you can still see how sharp it is. There’s some minor colour distortion there, but it rivals just about every game console I have, and definitely out-does any other video card / adaptors for my computers.
The power supply accepts 100 to 240 V, and actually came with an Aussie set of pins! Hooray! Except they were 90° out of whack like that kooky one I got for a portable hard drive. Anyway, I’m using an extension cord rather than plugging directly into my power board, so it isn’t a big deal. There were also American, British and possibly a European set of pins in the bag as well.
As far as the price goes, you’ll be looking at around $270 from America, $502.20 from England, and $459 from Australia. So, I think I can safely say at last that this is my recommended choice. And being able to use it with my XBOX 360 to capture stuff from V.F. 5 is like a nice little 2-in-1 bonus.

Apple Mini DVI To Video Adaptor
Here’s another handy video related gadget! This is for my MacBook, and it allows you to use the mini DVI socket to connect into your television by either composite or S-Video. Mac OS X will detect it as another display, but with settings for a TV, such as whether you want PAL or NTSC, and over scan or normal modes. You can also set which monitor is primary, or have a duplicate image, like you can do in Windows as well. The output quality is fairly good, and probably a bit sharper than most video cards. I did notice a bit of jerkiness in playing DVDs, even with the frame rate being the same.
The plug is a bit tight in the mini DVI socket, so you need to be firm, but not too rough with it.
You can pick these up for about $30 now.



Audio-Technica ATH-ANC9 Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones
I got these headphones to try and help me sleep better, if I woke up before I should. That was the primary intention. They do work to some extent, but unfortunately, the sounds annoying me still got through, which is probably a disappointing issue with all noise-cancelling headphones on the whole, it would seem. Anyhow, these require 1 AAA size battery for use, and it slides into the right hand side speaker area. One of these should last up to 35 hours. Rechargeable ones may be less. There are 3 modes of use, “AirPlane”, “Office” & “Study.” Office being the best for me. At one stage, when I walked out into the kitchen, the sound from the fridge was cancelled entirely. I didn’t even realise it was making any noise until I took the headphones off. Closer noises can be more noticeable though. You can usually test noise cancelling headphones in shops, like JB Hi-Fi, so make sure you get an idea of what they’re like, like I did, before you buy any.
If you have a compatible PMP, you can use the 4 connection plug to make use of the little button and microphone which is one on of the included cords. As for me, I’m just using the regular 3.5 mm male phono plug to the same-plug-on-the-other-end cord. This is one handy feature if you only want the noise cancelling, and nothing else. As for how they sound with music, they are noticeably bass-y, especially after using little “bud” type ones for years. Even my little Sennheiser ones which I thought had quite a lot more bass, sound significantly different to these.
The power switch is easy to get on, but quite tight to turn off again. The mode changing button is more sensitive and there’s what appears to be a RGB L.E.D. to tell you what mode you’re on.
As you can tell in the picture, the speakers rotate for storage. There are also 4 microphones in total to give a more accurate noise reduction. If you’re in a quiet area, all you can hear is like a static-y sound. But a bit more like rain. You should be aware of this if you’re listening to music. For those of you who already have soundproofed studios and theatres, these headphones may actually introduce more noise in these situations.
You’ll want to make sure these sit well forward on the top of your head as well, as they can feel a bit heavy, and like they’re going to slide off. Without the battery, they weigh 220 g. As I said, I’ve only used little in-ear headphones for ages, so going back to this type makes the weight stand out.
You’ll be looking at $229 for these, and I got mine from MiniDisc Australia.
UPDATE 1: I had to send these back after they developed a strange tapping noise in the right speaker. I’m currently waiting for a new pair to come back.
• I got a replacement pair, and so far, they’re working better. The switch isn’t as stiff either.
• UPDATE 2: The 2nd pair have screwed up now too. (It only took 6 days!) They had an almost identical fault, with more of a crackling noise. It came up so loud in the right speaker, that it woke me up! These have now gone back to be exchanged for something else. (PSB M4U 2 headphones, which I shall also talk about.) So yeah, I no longer have these, and that’s quite sad, because I did really like them when they were working fine. Gets a mediocre star because of the noise issue. (And this noise was present both with and without them being plugged in, since you can use them on their own.)

PSB Speakers M4U 2 Active Noise Cancelling Headphones.
I got these as a replacement for the ones above. PSB are a Canadian speaker company, and these are their first line of headphones. PSB don’t mention their noise cancelling level, but you’re looking at about 18 dB from what I’ve read in someone’s test. The sound quality is good, but don’t let the over hyped reviews out there make you think you’ll be going “WOW!” when you put them on. They don’t seem to sound much better than my $60 Sennheiser headphones. As for sounding like big speakers, well they don’t really. You’re totally aware that you’re wearing them on your head.
With my S9, they sound the best, but on my Sharp audio system, they seem to develop a LOT of static, which is disappointing, because that never happened with my Audio Technica ones or any other non-noise cancelling headphones. So I’ll test what they’re like at some stage, directly connected to my sound card.
UPDATE: Yeah, MUCH quieter with the direct connection to my sound card.
Unlike the A.T. headphones, the PSB ones take 2 AAA batteries. You lift up the left speaker cover with something like a screwdriver, and the cover flips up, and can be fully removed. Then it just clips back on.
Once the battery level starts to get a bit low, the LED in the switch will be yellow, which gives you about 4 hours more use before they’re completely dead. (With normal batteries. With rechargeable ones, you’re looking at more like 1 hour at the most.) However, if you turn the headphones on in this state, you will get a raucous stuttering sound, like “dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut,” really rapidly. Make sure you turn them off if this happens, and replace the batteries. If the juice runs out WHILE you have them on, the sound / music will fade away into a static sounding distortion.
Some people said they weigh quite a bit, but I didn’t find them to be cripplingly heavy. I guess after my “regular” Sennheiser ones they are a bit more weighty. You do need to open up the size adjustment pretty far — the Canadians must have small heads or something. PSB also make a model with no electronic noise cancelling, the M4U 1, so be aware before you buy any old thing! The price is less than Bose’s QC 25 model, and the noise cancelling is probably around the same. Personally, if it hadn’t been for the extra “sound effects” of my Audio Technica headphones, I’d’ve stuck with them over these. I think they were a little better, and not as noisy on the noise cancelling “static” sound. And like the A.T. ones, and probably all the rest, you don’t HAVE to have music playing. You can just use them on their own to cut down the noise around you, if you’re like at work in the office, or on the train or whatever. Plus you can remove the cord then too.
You get replacement ear pads with the PSB headphones, plus a choice of cords. If you have a mobile ’phone, (heaven spare us) you can use the optional one which has a microphone built in. You also have the choice of plugging the cord into the left or right side. Dunno what would happen if you plugged 2 things in at once. Heh heh — don’t go trying that!
Like the A.T. headphones, these apparently have quadruple microphones also, to give better noise cancelling performance from 2 places on each side.
The power switch is much easier to move than the one on the A.T. headphones, and it has 3 positions: Off, on with amplification, and on with noise cancelling too. As for the 2 “on” modes, expect plenty more amplification. I can run my S9 and computer on much lower volume levels with these headphones.
As far as prices are concerned, you’re looking at $369 from MiniDisc Australia, $417.10-ish from England & about $301.60 from Canada. (The exchange rate is almost identical now.) They’re available in black, white and a very attractive red as well.
Be aware that on this current design, the plastic on the head band will crack, until PSB can come up with a better plastic or implementing a new way of making them flex. I had to get a replacement pair because of this. Opening up the adjustment parts on each side only makes things worse, because the speakers close in together even further, which increases the amount of stress on the top plastic.
• I’m onto my 3rd pair now, after the 2nd ones had uneven noise cancelling. Luckily I got superb service from QualiFi, the Australian distributor.
• Because of the poorly made construction of these, I’m going to say “don’t bother.” The head band will end up cracking eventually, and you’ll be lucky to get 1½ years out of them at best. They may sound good, but if they just fall off your head, there’s no point. Plus for that much money, you should expect something a lot better. Mine are now held together with a piece of brass for the time being.
• These died when I was attempting to add more metal to hold them together.

Cowon X9
See my additional instructions!
When my Cowon S9’s headphones socket died, I needed some kind of solution to that. I considered BlueTooth headphones, and may have gone on that route if I was more sure about the delay issue that affects pretty much all BlueTooth related stuff. The other option was another PMP. Sadly, Cowon no longer make the excellent S9, and the closest thing to it, is the X9. I was initially disappointed (and still am) by the GUI, LCD and type of touch screen on this, and sent it back for a refund, from the excellent MiniDisc Australia. It was certainly no reflection on their superb customer service.
I spent more days trying to find another alternative, but saw nothing remotely in the same league. I did take a shining to the Samsung YP-P3, which is quite similar in what it can do, to the S9, and with an even better looking GUI. Samsung have given this player the finger as well, unfortunately. Grudgingly, I decided to get the X9 again, although through Amazon, and in white with 32 GB of storage space this time, instead of 16, since you get short changed in that department, like flash memory units and hard drives. In the 32 GB rendition, you get 30.7 GB of real space, which is better than a supposed 32 GB flash memory unit I got once.
I’m going to be honest, and say that compared to the S9, this is a disappointing slide downwards from Cowon. No L.E.D. display, resistive touch screen, which is erratic and requires quite a firm touch, (or better yet a stylus,) and an interface that looks like they designed it with only 15 minutes to spare. The Typist function actually has some irritating glitches, which seems to have been over-looked. If you change to entering numbers, there’s no way back to the letters! There is also no way to use the capital letters either. The S9 did not have this problem.
The positive features though, are the same kind of file support as the S9, a larger screen, even though it’s the same 272 × 480 pixel resolution, and a battery life of 110 hours, which if true, pretty much wizzes all over any other player out there. (Cowon claim a 600 hour standby time as well, if you don’t want to turn it right off.) The only thing I found, is that on initial charging, it never says when the battery is full. (On my 2nd X9, it did say it was done on the 1st charge up.)
Start up time is a few seconds at the most, not including the time you have to hold the power button for.
The hold feature on this is really bizarre, especially with music. If you let the display turn off by not touching anything for the amount of time you have set, nothing will turn it back on, except for the power button, and it’s like this whether you have it set to hold mode or not! Changing the volume and tracks happens invisibly without the display coming back on. With the S9, a press of anything turns the display back on. Then again, it has a sliding switch for the power button.
When you first watch videos, there is an annoying scan the player does of your files, to show preview images in a section you may or may not even use. And after you pause a video, and want to return to the file listing, you have to press the listing symbol twice to do so, to skip over the image preview thing, which can be a real pain. If you don’t let it finish faffing about with the preview image making though, it can end up at a non-relevant location, when you go back to your file listing. Nowhere near the video you were just watching. This is notorious at happening as well, when you add and remove videos from the player. It can be a wise idea to completely delete the “Video DB” directory, and let the player “rebuild” it if you’ve changed your video line up. You will have to wait while it makes the previews, but it should only happen once up until you change your video line-up again.
Like the S9, you just copy your files over to the appropriate directories, and they should play, so long as you follow the limitations of the hardware. So, nothing higher than High level Monkey’s Audio compression, and no insanely huge videos.
One advantage over the S9, is the micro SD card slot, which allows you to add more storage space. And of course, change your file line up when you want to, by swapping whatever ones you have. This will show up as an extra removable drive when you plug the X9 into your computer. So you could probably even use it like a card reader, if you don’t have a dedicated one.
Like the S9, you must eject this in Mac OS X or you run the high risk of corrupting the file system. The instructions for both players mention this. Windows doesn’t seem to cripple it in this way for whatever reason. So for the sake of charging the battery, you may be better to use a dedicated (and regulated) PSU with a USB socket.
The 1 & 2 numbers on the main screen represent the 2 “screen pages.” Not everything will fit otherwise. You can once again run simple Macromedia / Adobe Flash animations, and utilities. I expect that anything for the S9 will work on this as well. You can also make your own GUI for it with UCI files, which I know very little about.
All in all, I would recommend that you consider this player a good deal before you decide to get fickle, like me. A lot of you will no doubt buy iPods from Apple, but remember that these do not have a wide range of audio formats supported, they’re tied into iTunes, (or other 3rd party programs,) have no MSC transfer mode, and apparently questionable audio quality compared to what Cowon is offering. I’ve never used one though to confirm that claim. On the other hand, the X9 feels rushed, and is not impressive, especially when you’ve had the S9 prior to it, like I did.
I’m also not a Google fan by any means, so if you want to avoid the Android OS, this player does not have that on it. I’m not sure if you would say it has a “proper” OS on this at all. I think the ASIC in it runs the Flash interface natively, as well as the supported file types.

Sennheiser PXC 480 noise cancelling headphones
(Sometime around the 19th of June, 2018.)
(The picture shows these with my replacement cord and replacement ear pads.)
These are my 3rd brand of noise cancelling headphones, and my 6th pair of such a type in about 3 years & 3 days! (I also had to get my regular non-noise-bustin’ Sennhesier ones replaced under warranty too!) I hope that doesn’t shatter your hopes! After 2 pairs of Audio-Technica headphones failed electronically, 1 pair of PSB Speakers headphones had uneven noise cancelling and 2 pairs had cracked head-bands, I’m now onto these. Generally a decent pair of noise cancelling headphones are expensive, so you do want them to last a long while!
“Active” types of these headphones work by inverting the incoming audio waveforms, so that it cancels itself out. Good pairs will usually have 2 microphones on each side to provide a more accurate cancellation. Usually you will hear a soft static like noise, but these ones aren’t really that noticeable. Sitting by my computer, I can just hear the fan running, which is currently at 3309 RPM. If you press just a little bit on the sides of the headphones to make them tighter, the noise almost completely goes away. The first time I tried noise cancelling headphones @ JB Hi-Fi, I described it as like my ears going into another quiter room, while you still stood there. If you’ve never used a pair, that’s kind of what it’s like.
“How do they compare to ear plugs?” I hear you asking. (Or perhaps I can’t hear you! ) Well, a good pair of ear plugs will block out more noise usually. Especially higher frequencies. & yes you can wear ear plugs in combination with the headphones. They don’t need to know how deaf you are.
Unlike the PSB Speakers M4U2 headphones, these ones don’t buzz when you plug them in, if they’re turned on first. The PSB ones would make a buzzing noise if you even touched the plug with your fingers, and you could even hear flickering lights and other stuff interfering with them. It wasn’t bad, but they seemed very sensitive to possibly magnetic fields or something.
This model does not have any BlueTooth connecting ability. If you’re one of those people who’s nuts about everything being cordless, these are not for you. But Sennheiser do make other models which feature it. But keep in mind it uses more juice. And on top of that, you actually need a device which supports it. In my place, only my Cowon S9 has this. I don’t know if it would work with my Macs in this manner either. My main PC certainly has no BlueTooth feature, or any of my other audio systems. I dunno if it even existed when some of them were made anyhow. Plus, because of the low speed data rate, audio is compressed on transfer, AND you may suffer with delays as well. Some computers may need extra software to transfer audio in this fashion too; it’s not really something I know much about.
I am a bit concerned that the speaker balance is a little bit out on these too, with the right side speaker being predominately louder. Sounds of course should normally seem to be in the centre of your brain if the speakers are at equal volume levels. This is easier to adjust on my computer, but my X9 does have a way of changing the balance too in the settings.
One thing you’re not overly aware of with these headphones, is when they’re turned on. The Audio-Technica and PSB ones had L.E.D.s glowing at all times. These ones have a very small strip of 5 of them underneath, which only come on when you use the switch. They go off again pretty quickly and then stay off.
One of the annoying aspects is the cord, which has 2 problems. Firstly, the stupid 4 “part” plug. Usually headphones plugs have a 3.5 mm stereo phono plug, which has 3 connections. This one has 4, because heaven forbid that they don’t accomodate to all the iPod & Android using sheep, and don’t stick to a standardised plug that’s used on everything else. The end result is that certain sockets cause drop-outs if the correct one of these plug “rings” doesn’t connect properly. The 2nd issue, is the switch, up near your ear. This has some kind of function for the previously mentioned, fizzing devices I don’t even have, but in fact connects the 2 parts of the plug together. So, what I did, was tape it down with sticky tape, so the button is always pressed. The sodding thing also keeps snagging on my clothes and on the desk as well, which makes it a real nuisance. It’s not something you would expect on such an expensive pair of headphones really. PSB did this better and provided 2 cords.
The battery charge time is supposed to be about 50 hours I think, and the 5 L.E.D.s on the right speaker represent 10 hours of charge each. What is also odd, is the choice to use a USB connection to recharge the internal battery. Something which headphones are not related to. So, you actually need to provide your own power supply at extra cost. That’s right, there is no included charger! But it does have the cord, which has some kind of customised looking plug on one end.
Compared with the PSB headphones, these are also much lighter, which is better on your neck.
These cost $303.15 from Britain through Amazon, but exchange rates may alter that price.
• 22nd of November 2020 Update: Almost 2½ years later, & the cord on this is really banged up. Slices and bits falling off all over the place. Whatever the substance is that coats the cord, it’s some kind of soft, dark green rubbery looking stuff. With daily use for that period of time, it’s really worn, and now covered by probably 40 cm worth of packing & sticky tape. So for $26, I’ve ordered a compatible, unofficial replacement cord from eBay. (Which doesn’t seem to have that bl**dy annoying switch!) Hopefully it’ll last longer. I need some replacement ear pads for them too, ’cos these ones are peeling & tearing. I’ve had to stitch the rips up about 4 or 5 times. So there you are, if you’re thinking of getting these headphones and using them on a regular basis, these are the issues you’ll be facing, unless you’re the kind of person who replaces their headphones every year and doesn’t mind blowing over $300 a time.
• 4th of May 2022: I ordered some replacement ear pads last night for these. (For about $17.) Unlike PSB, who give you a free replacement pair, Sennheiser don’t. Anyway, mine really peeled and have started tearing apart. The stitches and sticky tape just aren’t keeping them together any longer! So yeah, if you get more than about 4 years out of the original pads, I’d be surprised. Especially if you use them daily.
• 13th of May 2022: My ear pads turned up today, and I would say that they definitely cut more noise out than knackered ones, where you could see the interior foam. Getting them on is a bit of an effort, and you should be patient and careful.
• 13th of June, 2022: Dang. One month after I got the new ear pads, and this morning I woke up to a ringing kind of feedback noise in the right speaker. This never happened before with these, so perhaps their time is up. I was really hoping & praying to get 10 years out of them at least. I figured the head band would die 1st. There are still a few people selling this model on eBay, but they’re not much cheaper than 4 years ago. That said, at least they still function in the “off” setting of the switch. So they’re still usable as non-noise cancelling headphones. Last night they seemed to be working great too. I’ll see what happens tonight and mention the results here.
• 26th of November, 2022: The “brooooo!” kind of noise happened again, but only while I’ve been in bed. It may be related to something being too close to the outer microphone.

Sharp EL-6073 Memo Master 100
I got this pocket sized electronic organiser back in about 1993. In fact I have the EL-6072 version as well, but this one has some new features. With 1888 bytes of memory, it sounds like sod all, but you can fit quite a few ’phone numbers, names & appointments in here. There are 3 main modes: Telephone, Schedule & Calculator. You can also use the numbers stored in the telephone mode as constants for calculations. Stuff like metric conversions, pi & even approximate currency conversions as suggested by the instructions.
The required battery is a 3 volt CR-2016 button type, and replacing it will pretty much guarantee that the memory is corrupted. So keep that in mind! Another thing that’s of note about both of these organisers, is that their LCDs seem to get damaged. Whether this is something to do with the jolt of putting in a new, fully charged battery, or what, I dunno. Some of the segments now no longer come on fully, which makes the 7 segment numbers on the bottom row more difficult to determine.
In case you have one, and don’t have the instructions, the reset method, is to press the reset button on the back, and then press SHIFT. Release it & then press ENTER. It should then tell you the reset was successful.
Unlike the EL-6072 model, this one now has a fax and remark feature as well. Plus there are 2 telephone sections, which I’m not sure if the other one had. (Telephone 1 & 2.) You could put business numbers in one perhaps, and personal ones in the other.
Entering letters requires you to press each button up to 3 times to get the letter you want, and if you want the same letter again, you need to press the CM button, which acts as a forward movement. Pressing ÷ acts as the numerical change function, so you can enter numbers into the top line. There are also 8 symbols, which are $, ¥, , :, (, ), #, and *. You can also use full stops and spaces. The calculator will accept up to 12 digits, which is rather good, and the instructions mention some techniques for more advanced calculations too. For instance: (4³)². You just press 4 × = = × = & you get 4096.