1) A/V receiver with a standard AUX input.
2) Apple Airport Express ( “n” network recommended)
3) ITunes 7.x (windows or mac)
4) 1/8″ ( 3.5MM ) mini stereo male to dual RCA male CABLE
5) IPhone/IPod touch
6) IRemote app for IPhone/IPod Touch

I have a THX certified 7.1 channel A/V Receiver, Onkyo TX-SR706. I think its the best sub 1000$ receiver out there today. Follow these steps to setup up audio server of sort with your existing ITunes Library using the airtunes feature of your Airport express.

1) Connect the cable mentioned above from the stereo output of AirPort Express to the AUX input.

2) Open your ITunes Library and look for at the bottom right corner. You’ll have two options. One being “computer” and the other “<your wifi network name>”. Select the option for wifi network. This means, the sound is now going to stream onto your router.

3) Check your A/V remote control to change the “mode” to AUX. It should now be able to receive sound signals from the RCA cable.

Voila, crystal clear sound on your A/V receiver! Depending on the quality of your receiver you can change into different listening presets. On my receiver, I mostly listen to Neural THX 7.1 as it distributes some tracks with an insane accuracy through all channels. I listened to Nora Jones, Within Temptation, Karunesh and even the latest Slumdog Millionaire — beats me. Most audiophiles would still stick to true Stereo sound. I would agree to some extent. Some of other other sound environments I like is the “Orchestra” (terrific soundstage) “Unplugged” (crystal clear voice), “Dolby PL II Music” (5.1 simulation from your stereo channel)

Now, it doesn’t end here. What if you have your PC/Mac hooked in another room, typically your bedroom and don’t want to run around to change the playlists or songs? If you have an IPhone/IPod touch, you can get a free remote application that allows you to remotely control your entire ITunes Library on your device! Not only that, you can control it from two different sources, say your gf using your laptop doesn’t like the song, she could use ITunes to skip the list and you on the other end at the same time are skipping back with your IPhone app.

Want to listen to Radio? I love Pandora and I think it’s the next best thing to mp3 in the music industry. But I hate to open the browser everytime. I use PandoraJam, a desktop app (mac/pc) that, hold your breath — streams your sound to airtunes. And it records radio on the fly too. Can’t ask for more.

So now, you can listen to radio and mp3/aac collection from a single source (ITunes Library) or Pandora — all wirelessly, for free from your existing devices at home rather than spending hundreds of dollors on custom Audio Servers (including Apple TV)

Just bought the Bose Lifestyle 35 series out of an impulse. In spite of a lot of flak from the reviews on it’s exorbitant price and performance as compared to the audiophile brands & components, I thought using ti for a while is not a bad idea (‘the Bose sound’) specially if it comes for a 18 month interest free and a 600$ discounted offer

[Update after 30 days] I returned it. Bose is hyped, wasn’t worth the money

Read more here on my tech blog.

Headphone, Earphones. Earplugs Reviews – Choosing the right one.

1) Decide what you want first! - Don’t succumb to the thought of headphones as mundane two piece ear set! Explore, research and experiment on the different kinds of melodies your ears can accept. Where do you use it most? Work, Travel, Leisure, Gym, Home? Ask yourself.

2) Comfort – How comfortable it is to wear? Do they have collapsible, adjustable, foldable headrests? Do they have foam made of superior quality? Do they come up flexibility of fitting all sizes of ears? Are there replaceable parts?

3) Soundscape – Eat this. You can simulate a virtual 360 degrees soundscape with a normal pair of earplugs! The reproduction of bass, mid range and highs shouldn’t be abnormally generated but as close to real sound. Besides some of the high end headphones come with in built DSP and sound processing.

4) Noise Canceling - Ever since Bose introduced their 300$ Noise Canceling headphones, many major players in the market plunged with their own products. I wouldn’t recommend going for the complete noise canceling headphones unless you fly two times a week and you want exclusively for that purpose. But having a reasonable noise canceling (anything > 25 db is decent) helps. Do you want your colleague in your next cubicle to get disturbed by your favorite Black Sabbath tune? Or do you want to get lost in trance in the busiest new york subway

5) Proprietary technologies, mid range tweeters and bass enhancers – There is a whole bunch of stuff I want to write here. But I don’t want to end up with so much of geeky stuff for now, the bottomline is – look for companies claiming for their home grown technologies and read about them on their websites. Don’t forget to download their technical specification and research papers.

6) Resale Value – This is important! Specially for people like me who buy and sell stuff in ebay so often. Today there isn’t any headphone in the world that I cannot afford simply because I know it could be sold off for a reasonable depreciation after you enjoy it
The least time any equipment has been with me is 3 days! (bose earplugs) and the max being 2 years and I have had absolutely no problem finding a seller.

You might be surprised, I haven’t mentioned cost here! When you want the best, there is something you shouldn’t be too picky about unless of course there is this one brand which sells 5 times more than the rest in it’s class. NEVER compromise purely on the cost
if quality is your prime initiative.

I have used nearly 14 headphones, earplugs and earphones in the last 4 years. It was Sony MDR earplug to begin with. They were good, small and introduced the whole new concept of in-your-ear earphones, with reasonable noise canceling. Then came in Sennheiser series, one of the best makers in this segment (the other being Grado). HD212 Pro, HD595, HD 280 Pro and a few others which lasted long. My current favorite is the 280 Pro – lightweight, powerful, brilliant acoustics, powerful bass and pretty good noise canceling. I haven’t tried my hands at Grado yet. Bose Triport series are neat with crisp sound and extremely stylish, light-weight design. However it couldn’t satiate my decibel levels in accurate bass reproduction. Sony does have some good headphones but do not come with high fidelity headphones with light weight designs that are durable. Besides Sony has lost it’s touch after the advent of Walkman. They have too many products and want to satisfy every segment than define their class.

As for earplugs, I’ve tried a lot of em, including the newly released 99$ Bose earphones. Unfortunately these don’t even come close to what they promise. I sold them in less than 3 days on ebay. The critically acclaimed ER-6 isolator was on my shelves for more than 2 years , I just sold them off after yearning for more in-your-ear-bass. I would recommend these highly to anyone who wants high fidelity, top of the line quality with very good noise canceling experience. Again, getting the right sound, right balance between style and acoustics is an art an finally I found my ideal match with the latest 100$ V-moda vibe earplugs. They simply blow you away! The kind of bass reproduction and virtual soundstage that these sexy beasts reproduce is unparalleled by any of it’s class.

My current possessions -
- V-moda vibe – for everyday listening on ipod, on the move, laptop and at work
- HD 280 pro – Sometimes at work, at nights when I’m mostly active with spirits awakening within and mostly when I want to watch a movie without disturbing others
- Bose Companion 5 – for my laptop/computer speakers. They are simply the best you can get in it’s class. Brilliant sound reproduction and surround effects with small speakers sets. Unfortunately I can’t use em much as I disturb my roommates

My wishlist –
Bang & Olufsen (2500$ – 20,000$) – These are incredibly sophisticated, ultra high fidelity audiophile sound components. I once visited their store and got myself a demo and I was blown away. If you think Bose Lifestyle series are top of the line, think of Bang & Olufsen – they are 5-10 times better.
Bose lifestyle series - This would be my first home theatre once I move into my own place
Denon Receivers – Has to be coupled with the best home theatre

There are a bunch of more high end speakers but I’m not diving into them right now as I need to think of a home first!

If you’re planning to buy some good quality headsets or earphones, drop in line, I’d love to know if I can help you!

Although not an accomplished acoustic aesthetic by then, I gathered enough decibels of quality to catch up in my music. CD Players were expensive then and I never had one. I still managed to get ‘CD recorded’ songs of ar rahman on a Cobalt Tape (Rs 80/-), paying another Rs 100/- for Recording.

It was a pristine collection.

Time flies. Engineering doors opened, I never had a computer till 3rd semester and when It was time to buy a computer (a modest P-II AMD 350 MHz, 64MB Ram), my hunt for good speakers has begun. I didn’t want to settle in for the substandard 200/- box speakers which cry after sometime. Neither did I have the pocket money to invest in thousands. My choice, then, was Mercury 2.1. A decent sounding subwoofer speakers. It was good and the movies & games had big impact in my hostel room.
Graduating from Tape to mp3s was a Big thing! Months passed and soon after a year, I got bored with these speakers. My acoustic buds was yearning for more as at this point I had a keen understanding of the mid highs and rich bass which the Mercury Speakers weren’t delivering.

Creative was on my list next but again they were the mercedes in their segment. Spending few thousand Rupees was taxing. Remember, this was early 2000 and smarty pants still made phone calls on a Saturday, in a STD Booth – “Dad, can you please send me thousand rupees more this month?”.

(Life is so different now, I tell you)

I still didn’t garner pocket money enough to blow up on speakers overnight. Here comes another opportunity, like an orgasm in the middle of a lunch break. This guy (who is not even my friend) drops in, just days before our 5th semester exams.

“Hey, I need an urgent favour from you man”.
“Hey, what’s the problem man?”, I said.
“I have this friend and she screwed up her project work, we hardly have 4 days now and we need to rewrite the whole thing. You seem to be good in Java, can you help?”

“Dude, I haven’t even begun my Algorithms & Design, I might flunk”, I hesitated to help him as it was virtually impossible.
“Please man, do something the team will flunk miserably, ladki ka mamla hai yaar ”
“Hmm but I don’t even know her man, this is too much. How do you expect me to help, sacrificing my own”, I tried to politely refuse.

He was really desperate, I could see that. “Don’t worry she is willing to pay you. Quote your price buddy”

I was shocked! “Pay me, but why? I’m not a professional programmer and I don’t think I like this idea of taking money for programming”. He started convincing me, “Relax man, if you make it happen you really deserve this, why should you feel embarrassed? It’s your hard work man, You’ve earned it”

I still couldn’t believe it and was not convinced if it was a good idea.

“Is 3000 rupees fine for you?”
“Well, I can buy my Creative speaker for 2500/- with that” (This was my thought in my mind, I was selfish, definitely)
“Hmmm … I dont know man, you’re tempting me”.

The next thing I remember was, he opened a floppy disk, inserted in my comp and was unzipping his project files …..
As for the rest of the story, I rewrote the entire app in the next 3 days, in fact I wrote a diff app for them which suspiciously looked like the Title of their Project – “Java Graphics Tool”. I basically did a rehash of the JDK example toolkit and added my own stuff in it!

3000 bucks for 3 days. I had my creative on the same day. Bonus – a creative soundcard.

Sometimes it is indeed true, if you really really desire for something genuinely, you’ll get it.
The next two years I was hooked into Creative line of Products. I moved onto their 4.1 series. I upgraded my Sound Card to a 24 bit. Your ordinary sound card would be 16 bit and they process sound with a sampling rate of 48Khz and a 24 bit is many many times (in theory) better and has a sampling rate of 96KHz. I was also a compulsive DSP Effects collector. My winamp was loaded with a bunch of DSP plugins and I would make my ordinary 2.1 or 4.1 speakers set into a virtual hall with an array of sound immersions. The soundstage was much better with these plugins and of course, It was bloody good to catch a movie on my speakers.

People ask me why I wasn’t running after girls in college. Now you know what I was doing . I was happy with my speakers.

I graduated from Engineering and bought my first 5.1 Creative series. It was intense, powerful and as I had my own room and house this time

I’ll talk more about technology and the science behind sound and soundcards in my next post. The story so far ends in India and I landed in the UK in 2003 and what one do if they had desires which has no boundaries of financial obligations?

To be continued ….

(a metamorphosis from a bargain speaker buyer to an experimental audiophile with a catalog of sound apparatus from Bose Triport to the 120$ earplugs)

Ever since I got my eardrums succumb to the bass thundering earphones of Aiwa, back in 1997, I knew I wanted something more than a 40/- pair of cheap sounding plastic headphones. Don’t be surprised with my story, what I’m talking now is a good 10 years back when you were a teenager just about crossing the line of a ‘minor’ when internet was still a fantasy and you haven’t heard of shopping malls; When back home in India guys at 17/18 didn’t have much pocket money apart from the 20 rupee movie tickets and an occasional restaurant on your birthday with friends.

I had an old walkman with me which no longer sounded good. The aiwa earphones were, I think around 150 Rupees. Damn expensive! I had to think so many times

But wait , I didn’t give up. Sometimes you have the urge to make it happen and you
know you WANT IT. Trust me, you will get it. I set my targets straight. With a little bit of
research I figured out that a pair of Aiwa earphones would actually sound much better with the 3 band graphic equalizer Aiwa Walkman, it was then one of the best walkmans, better sound than Sony. But that costed a whopping 1200/- Ruppes then. Something which I cannot even dream of owning at 18. Forget asking my dad, I wanted to buy it on my own rather than give a thousand explanations to our folks. They will never understand us at that age anyways (Neither do we)

I still didn’t give up.

I wanted it and I wanted it bad. I just finished writing all my entrance exams for my State, Karnataka CET and the rest of the bunch which I probably wrote in my sleep. I had a good 4 months to spare with me before I get admission into any engineering college.Luckily, I came across a friend who used to be a ‘Home tutor’ then. Figured out that a lot of ‘rich’ kids in Hyderabad use to have home Tutors. They needed tutors for Maths and Sciences, typically for grades 6-9. I pitched in. It was pretty easy. You just have to enroll at a larger ‘institute’ which specializes in Home Tutors. They will place the ad on a Sunday Daily and based on the responses, the manager will give me a few addresses to contact them. It’s that simple. No credentials except for referrals and your college Id .

Here on, we use our cerebral hemispheres to a good extent. Here comes ME, with the most homely face I can ever camouflage (Basically I need to impress the Mom as Dad’s usually are busy with their business). Once they like me I have to enact a DukhBhariKahani on why I am doing this, how I’m a man of (Man? I was a kid then) self respect , with parents far away and paying my fees being a tutor. (I make sure I’m not wearing Jeans & a printed Tshirt just to make sure I don’t look rich myself)

This story sells well with the 35 yr old moms, even if it sounds cliched, And here comes the icing on the pizza (why does it have to be a cake always?Anyways).

I make an offer they cannot reject.

If they tell my manager that they’re happy with me, they have to pay him roughly 1000/- per month and my manager would take the first month as commission from me. The best way is, I offer them 800/- rupees and she just have to tell him that she doesn’t like me. After that, I vanish away from my manager and the rest is history.

So, there goes. Not one but I managed to take 3 home tuitions, (& convince three lovely moms with almost similar stories. Well actually each time I changed the location of where my parents stayed). I taught 3 times a day, making nearly 3000 bucks a month at age 18 (This was back in 1998) and when I bought my first brand new Aiwa Walkman with a earphones, it was one of the ‘earned’ moments of my life. Better than a first kiss. Well, actually not that better … but you get the drift, right?

I taught for 2 months and stopped. No prizes for guessing how I ended up with another story before leaving.

I still have that Walkman with me and remember those days (and the lovely Moms too. Sad that none of the boys had elder sisters). I used to run around all evening and night in my Kinetic Honda when others of my age were just lazying around. Unfortunately no one uses the walkman now, not even my brother. It’s lying all alone back home, probably in a cabinet made of dust. Poor thing. No one needs it anymore.There are Discmans, Ipods and the small n cute mp3 players. People have forgotten about good ol walkmans so easily even when they breathed life into ours for many years.

Alas, for me, my obsession with Sound just began!

To be continued …

(How I bought my first pair of 2.1 Surround sound Speakers in 3rd semester Engineering)

4 years, 6 personal laptops, 2 company laptops and I finally decided to merge them all. Bidding goodbye to my current sony vaio, (relax, those are the pics for my auction on ebay) for a price more than I initially bought for. (Actually this is the third time I’m selling a laptop on ebay for a higher price)

PC is out | Mac is in, definitely in

I must be a little late to the mac world, thanks to my PC friendly companies . Seeing the techies crunch their code on the beautiful mac book pros in meetings, conferences I had to peek in to see whats in store. I’m not disappointed! As they say, once you switch to the Apple world of products, its very difficult not to be committed to the brand. I’m almost in the verge of buying the IPhone in July from Cingular which would complete my Apple suite for now.

MacBook, OS X 10.4.9 – First impressions: -

- ‘Front Row’ with the bluetooth Remote is just the thing I wanted for ages. I can now control my music, movies, ITunes Radio from anywhere in the room. This is an entertainment center, laptop is taking a nap. Sit back and Enjoy.
- The mighty mouse is a true a beauty. Just one click and it’s actually the whole face of the mouse. Touch sensors on the surface detect where you’ve clicked and respond. You can even squeeze it if you want and configure the functions
- The UI is better than any windows you’ve seen (inc Vista). The font type and screen contrast is brilliant.Come,Fall in Love
- The OS ships with a lot of software.utils.* From photo editors, ITunes, DVD ripper, player to email clients, Its all in there.I just made the above comic strip with a live pic of mine in less than 5 mins; amazing integration of their apps!
- Building it’s core from Unix, you get the same stability and security of a Unix platform. Did you ever realize you never have to purchase a Anti Spyware, Internet Suecurity, AntiVirus for Mac? Think about it, most of these products are made for Windows
- Its blazing fast. I have a 2 Gig, 4MB L2 Cache and 667Mhx Bus speed and the startup, shutdown, sleep times are just so short compared to Windows. Apps load faster, my eclipse IDE is slick n faster.

Actually it gives you a feeling of rebirth. Own it for once. You’ll know

Why Macbook and not Macbook Pro? Well …- Macbook Pro doesnt come in sizes smaller than 15.4″. I really need a 13″ laptop which is the ideal size for my travel and work.
- Pro is almost 60% expensive than macbook just for the .23 Mhz clock speed and higher end graphics card! Yes, both have the same Intel Core 2 Duo processors, I could fit 2GB Ram on both, its got dvd burner, Internal webcam, bluetooth, wifi and everything you can ask for. A mere alluminium form factor with better graphics card wasn’t worth the money for now.
- Intel is releasing it’s new processor this Summer and the next version of Mac Os X – Leopard is around the corner.
- Next 6 months should see significant changes both in hardware and I dont intend to keep this macbook for more than a 8 months; will buy the new macbook pro 13″ version with the above. That def, is worth it.

For an educational discounted Macbook (1199$ instead of 1299$), additional 1GB Ram on Ebay – it turns out to be quite a steal. [Anyone can get an educational discount by going through Apple’s educational store online, just say you are a student in some university and you can buy one, trust me – they don’t even check for laters!) .

As of now, the experience with the mac has been rather interesting, I like the hardware, no doubt but the OS needs some learning/unlearning phase, specially if you’re primarily a Windows guy. Managed to install all my developer Tools – JDK 5, Firefox, eclipse, tomcat, ant, mysql, postgresql and it works great with much better performance. I do miss some great stuff on Windows which still aren’t available on Mac. Surprising that Google never released any of it’s software for the mac yet. Not even google talk, that sucks.

For now, It’s like a honeymoon.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT

Hearing my trip to US, I had to sell away *everything* I have (no, you’re mistaken, not for buying the ticket but to buy everything fresh. Been a habit of mine ever since I got hooked to ebay). I got the Canon SD400 in the US, an impressive, pocketable, slim 5 MP camera. The reviews everywhere were good. I liked it initially coz of its sheer size and good colors. The best feature was the macro mode which allowed me to shoot really close. Take a look at this. Probably my best macro pic to date

8 months! Thats a lot of time to keep a gadget. The next list was Canon S80 an impressive successor to S50 I had earlier and now boasts of a 8 Mp and wide angle lens in built. Just about to click “BuyItNow” on ebay just when my mind was bending (begging actually) to go for an SLR.

I knew my interest in photography was dying and I had to do something; apart from reading having the right equipement and output always encourages you. Well here it is, my first SLR and what better than the stunner – Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (350D)! I love this, the way people say it, an SLR is an SLR, no comparison to any of your high end digital cameras. With my interests in portraits, candid, human elements, abstract, B/W shots and macro photography … I think Ive got the best companion for a long time to come!

Ever wondered why we un(sub)consciously try to pick the same brand again and again? Be it cigarettes, the mobile phone, laptop or your fav food chain.There’s something that connects them with *us*.

I have had a crush on Sony Vaio laptops, Bose accoustics ever since I’ve laid my hands on one of their products couple of years back. Im always optimistic about their next design becasue of the faith in their ideas, their connectivity with what we want. Ive chaged 3 sony vaios and my current one is my fav! I love it.

Today, I was hanging on in the Bose Factory outlet and checking out their newer products. One complaint I always had was they never released a good speaker system for PCs. Although they did which was 150$ but was a cheapo.
Today I witnessed a marvel.No Im not talking bout the Wave Radio or Lifestyle series. They have been talked a lot.
Im talking about the Companion 3 Multimedia speakers for PC. I used to a fan of Creative and of late Logitech 5.1 speakers which have the THX certification. But these guys come with a size. Massie woofer! Big satellites, wires dangling around … nah. messy.

Welcome to Bose. 2.1 surround speakers. each satellite is a little longer than your middle finger and less deeper than your shortest finger.
Thw woofer? Well just a lil bigger than your palm and you can very well pack it in your draw! 8 inches by 8″.

Effect – Almost equivalent .. and rich quality bass and highs.

I loved it and bought it instantly. (although I was having a logitech 5300E THX 5.1, at home!)They are a bit expensive but heck what! SIZE DOES MATTER. For people like me who want quality but dont have a house to host a lifestyle hometheatre, what more can you ask for!

Bose is the GOD of Product Design.

IPod, take a break .. would love to see bose’s version of mp3 player some day. A question -

“Would you like to see an ipod player by bose which beats apple’s product design?”