Etymotic Research ER-6i Isolator Earphones review

Bought from http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk

I have now had 2 sets

Firstly I have used a white set for over a year and they have been outstanding.
The sound quality really is supreme.
I have actually spent a fair bit of money on replacement earpieces and internal filters, which dirty quickly in use (yuck!)
I was however forced back to the std ipod earphones recently when one of the wires had become internally detached causing a loss of signal to one ear.
This seems quite common , not helped by me wrapping them round my ipod inbetween uses!
The connector jack also has a straight exit so that doesnt help.

Anyway I love them so much I decided to buy another pair.
Going back to the normal ipod earphones just showed me how used to the superior performance I had become. The isolation factor just isnt there with normal earphones so you cant appreciate the finer pieces of your acid jazz (or whatevers your poision :-) ).

This time I bought a black pair.
1. Because the jack is right angled to reduce stress on the cable.
2. The ear pieces are grey so might not look so dirty looking after a few months use.
3. I prefer the black cabling :-)

So yes I would recommend them you won't go back.

For
superior sound quality brings out sounds youve never realised were there (i kid you not)
total noise isolation

Against
Not inexpensive
Not inexpensive replacement tips and filters reqd
A very 'personal' fit in the ear canal , so not to everyone's tastes.

In summary 10/10 , a superb product that defends the belief that quality costs.
Ditch those 'poor' ipod phones and get these .......


This time

N73 fun / M3 brakes / yet more wireless issues

Nokia N73 upgrade firmware
After much searching the web after getting the N73 it soon became apparent that the software is in a state of flux ! and under continuous improvement to sort out the multitude of bugs with it.
Nokia seem really good in this respect (where the R+D process though?) .

However the biggest issue is that phones are labelled with an identity based on the provider NOT just the phone type. And as such an update has to be released for example for the O2 version to get the newer software via the Nokia software suite.
Sadly this doesnt really happen so either your lucky and your provider has updates , or your phone has not been 'branded' and you can get the latest.
What people see as a poor N73 is actually probably the fact that the phones are being handed out with very old software. The phone itself is excellent BUT only with the latest software.

Mine alas is O2 branded. So if you check for an update it says there isnt one (via Nokia).
Sadly given all the issues seem to be getting fixed in the newer version it makes sense to get those updates.........

You can check the phone version by punching *#0000# into the phone.
Long story short I decided to void my warranty , adjust the id of the phone using
Nemesis Service Suite (NSS) which hooks into the phones internal data.
I chose to use a 'generic' number.
After this is set , and the phone reboots you can try again to see if you can get updates.

Success :-) I was able to get access to the 'unbranded' new updates.
I went from
version 2.0628.0.0.1 to version 3.0649.0.0.1 :-)
lots of fixes.
Worth it ? Definitely just consider carefully before you do so.
However if you want to run software reliably you are gonna have to make sure you have the latest firmware.

(Note another option is to get a service centre to upgrade for you, that way you keep the warranty)
If you have an N73 issue the first port of call is your software version......

Now I could at least get onto the fun stuff........


Nokia N73 sat nav , yep couldnt resist getting tom tom6 on the phone.

required
SIRF III Bluetooth GPS receiver from
http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/

receiver is astounding , superb quick startup and lockon. incredibly small and best of all works in the cubby hole under the light switch in the M3 !!!

2GB mem card from
http://www.mobymemory.co.uk/


Installed tom tom , works like a dream.
I also installed the speed camera POI's for the UK.
Sat nav works quickly, and doesnt lag at all.
I even calculated a route to southern france to see how long it would take the N73 's tiny chip. (about 45 secs if you interested :-))

So far i would thoroughly recommend it , even on the N73 its definitely usable. Only thing I need now is a phone holder.



M3 brakes
Well thats a pic of my front and rear brakes above.
After the recent noises I punished them by driving along while applying constant pressure on the brake. Eventually got them to fade , then allowed them to cool down.
Noise seems better but the fundamental problem is that they are f*cked
The cross drillings are so rusty that in some places the holes arent even.
The front discs seem to be OK in terms of pad sweep but as can be seen from the pic t the rears are realling touching in the middle of the swept area.
They work , but in reality it needs new discs and pads.
I guess the lack of miles this car did as a youngster is the reason for this...

Oil service is due in 1800 miles (car around 36700 miles I think)

Goodyear GSD3 tyres continue to shine , I done lots of miles and still very little sign of wear :-)

Alloys are now in poor shape (well in my eyes anyway) , so they will soon be sent off for refurb.


Wireless issues

Well after finally getting my wireless setup stable , it started to play up again recently.
One minute 100% signal , next minute couldnt see it at all!!! mmmmm getting a feeling of deja vu
The reason I suspect , is someone new nearby as gone wireless and theres a conflict.

I tried in vain for hrs again to get a stable signal (remember Ive tried this before and had issues with the DECT phillips home phone).
In the end I have had to drop the linksys router down to standard radio band 20MHZ (i.e. not wide band 40MHZ) on standard channel 12 ( 2.467 GHZ ) , this basically turns my fancy WAG 300N router into a total middle of the road G spec router !
Thats like buying an M3 and using 1 cylinder!

Anyway it works again (connected at 54MBpS).

anyway thats enough for now , more later...

D900 to N73 : N73 profile issues : M3 brakes rumble

Yes well , circumstances arose so that I could move phones and I couldnt resist :-)
Love the Samsung D900 and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone , does what its says on the tin and works as a phone should.
Good battery life , good camera , excellent UI (if a bit diff from nokia style).
Only downside is that you cant assign mp3's as message tones.

Anyways started up the N73 without a SIM (I'm GSM only not 3G), phone goes into 'offline' profile and I get to play with it :-)
Copy stuff across by bluetooth then insert my SIM and reboot........

Bl**dy phone wont change to 'general' profile !!!! At this point Im concerned :-(
Anyway after several hrs on the net scaring myself about the number of issues with the N73 (oops maybe should have looked BEFORE I changed LOL)

Long story short but apparently if you switch the phone on without a SIM present , it can never change profile!! , Its a 'bug' , sorry 'feature . The fix which worked for me was...

hold down green button + 3 + * and at the same time hit the button to switch the phone on.

Once Id had 2 extra arms surgically added I was able to perform this and it worked 'woohoo'

Nokia PC Suite seems really good. Next step is to upgrade the phone software , as nokia seem pretty good at regular updates.

Initial phone impressions

Lovely , bit slow in some menus, lots of unctionality , excellent camera.

TODO : Buy a miniSD card + charger , maybe even bluetooth GPS receiver so I can have phone sat nav ;-)


M3

On the car side , not much other than my brakes now rumble when applying some pressure.
Pads have plenty of life left I think , but discs are pretty poor condition , so maybe need to replace the whole lot.
Mileage is 34500 from memory.

Commuting mileage seems to be around 24MPG.

TODO : Pipex alias and speed issues

more later

photoshop of new M3 E92

Linksys WMP300N further issues / 34k miles / ADSL Pipex speeds

Wireless N issues continued
Ok to recap I bought
Linksys WAG300N-UK ADSL Router
and the
Linksys WMP300N-UK PCI Adapter.

Disabled some devices , updated the driver and changed settings which appeared to work [see my last Blog entry].......

Alas it did not.......

1. Moved house (the reason I went wireless) and could not get a signal at all! Or even worse the router would appear at full signal strength but as soon as I tried to connect it took ages , then it disappeared.
Eventually I brought the router upstairs and placed it on the desk next to the pci antenna.
Unbelievably it still couldnt connect!!!!!!!! WTF
With them almost touching it worked , isnt wireless great???
Anyway long story short I think its the DECT (Phillips) phone that was causing the issue. Changing to a much lower frequency seemed to fix it.

Ok so now its back and running but.........

2. I got at least 3 further BSOD over a period of 4 days. Not to mention the fact the mouse hesitated every 10 seconds (arghhh!) while the CPU usage went 100%
At this point my PC become a waste of money and unusable , enough was enough.
I downloaded a program called ProcessExplorer to troubleshoot.
It seems as if there are way too many Deferred Procedure Calls (DPC's) causing the issue.
Which of course as far as I can fathom is down to the Linksys WMP300N driver (ar5418.sys from memory).

At this point I had wasted far too many hours on this , so 99.9% sure its the PCI driver I decided to uninstall the driver and disable the card.......
and wait for it....
Buy a Belkin G+ MIMO USB Adapter (one of the slower than N spec devices)

The N spec router is compatible with G (and seems to work well) so I kept that , and both support WPA2 128bit.

2 minutes to install and I'm up and running at 54Mbps (300Mbps for the WMP300N, but no good if I cant use it!)
and the machine is back to normal . Hurray :-) , oh but its another 25 quid.
Signal strength is same as N at 'Excellent' , now thats a result......

So in summary

1. Linksys WAG300N-UK ADSL Router. Nice piece of kit. Id buy it.

2. Linksys WMP300N-UK PCI Adapter. Probably good hardware (look at that antenna!) , however let down by a totally unworkable driver (and wireless utility program , if you dont use windows own zero config program)

DO NOT BUY OR INSTALL THIS PCI CARD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES UNTIL LINKSYS HAVE RESOLVED THESE DRIVER ISSUES.

The driver version I had was 26thOct2006 I think.

Hopefully I can go back to using it again once a new version of the driver is released.


E46 M3
Oh and 34k miles on the BMW :-)

ADSL Speedtest results
Moved to new address so Ive been testing the bandwidth using
SpeedTest.net

Given the results there must be plenty of people sharing my dsl 'group'
(Contention Ratio I think its called)
Check out the difference between 9.30 pm and 3 hrs later.
Upload speed seems stable but download is over 10x faster after most folk have gone to bed LOL

e.g.
Day Time Download Upload Latency Server Distance
1/18/2007 9:29 PM GMT 449 kb/s 373 kb/s 59 ms London ~ 50 mi
1/19/2007 12:18 AM GMT 6700 kb/s 377 kb/s 35 ms London ~ 50 mi

Linksys WAG300N-UK ADSL Router and WMP300N-UK PCI wireless issues

As posted on linksys forums to help others who have difficulty........

First off thankyou to all the people who have posted suggestions and help on this board. Its at least been a help to see Im not the only one to have had issues.
In short its taken me at least 7 hrs to get a working connection between card and router.

I hope to post some of my experience here to help others. Many of the suggestions are from other posters....

I bought a
Linksys WAG300N-UK ADSL Router
and the
Linksys WMP300N-UK PCI Adapter recently.



Router setup went fine using a std network cable.
All hell broke loose when I installed the PCI software and card , BSOD , hangs etc but then we all know that :-)

My PC spec

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
ASUS A8N-SLI DELUXE ACPI BIOS Revision 1011
2GB DDR-SDRAM
Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/8010 PCI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] SP2 up to date
NOD32 AV
Spysweeper

This worked for me........

Step 1 : Upgrade Firmware of Router to Version: 1.01.01

downloaded WAG300N_Firmware_Upgrade_Utility.zip from linksys website
Run UpgradeUtility.exe (router connected via a cable)

Step 2 : if PCI card installed then uninstall it via device manager
download STA_WMP300N_EU_1 1 .0.0.15_20061016.zip from linksys website
extract to directory of your choice
reboot pc
should show new hardware detected
select advanced option , and point at the Drivers directory of the software you just unzipped.
DO NOT INSTALL THE LINKSYS SOFTWARE under any circumstances.


Step 3 : Change settings of router to following

Network Name (SSID) : yourSSID (you pick this but dont leave it as 'linksys')
Radio Band : Wide - 40MHz Channel
Wide Channel : 9
Standard Channel : 11 - 2.462GHz

Security Mode : PSK2-Personal
Encryption : AES TKIP or AES
Pre-shared Key : myvalidk (you pick this)
Key Renewal : 3600 seconds

Save changes to router

(Additional step that may help any conflicts)
Step 4 :
Disable current network card (and disconnect the cable) you used to setup router (right click 'disable')
It can be turned back on at any time if you wish.


At this point you should try and connect using the wireless connection.
I could only achieve 300Mbps with no security or the settings above.
Changing to other security types showed a speed of 58Mbps
HOWEVER I have a sneaking suspicion that the displayed speed value isnt of any real use !

I still get the odd 2 sec temporary hang (which coincides with a 100% CPU spike ;-)) but no BSOD or total lockup.

Hopefully this is of use.
Previously I tried other drivers and fixes described on here but none got me a working / stable connection with no lockups and reboots reqd.

Remember this is for a UK card and Router.

For now its working 4 hrs uptime and stable.....will post again if it fails.
In fact if its doesnt work after this then its going back to the shop.

HTH
JohnO

[UPDATE 6th Jan 2006]
Looked to be going so well then at 5hrs uptime the machine crashed!!!!

'IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL' (remember windows xp has various settings which you can toggle on how it deals with a major problem. The most useful thing to do is turn off the auto reboot so you can write down the error....)
(Found in My Computer , right click 'Properties' , Advanced tab , Startup and Recovery, uncheck 'Reboot Automatically')

Now Ive seen this before in XP so I had a look in Device Manager to see what IRQ 's were being used/shared
In fact my Linksys PCI card was sharing 16 with a 1394 (Firewire) chipset.
Now sharing IRQ's is something Windows XP does for you automatically (when ACPI is on) and usually its fine.(In fact the you cannot assign IRQ' manually I would have to move the card to another free PCI slot to get another IRQ)
Anyways Im not using the Firewire so I disabled it in Device Manager.

In summary , disabling devices is a workaround and NOT a long term solution , its quite clear that the Linksys stuff needs some further driver updates.
However , I no longer get any freeze ups (however short) , the connection is solid at 300Mbps and to date its been running a total of 24 hrs without a dropped connection or XP hang.

So fat so good , fingers tightly crossed........