Replacing a FiiO E7 battery - simple! (Photos)

I've had a FiiO E7 headphone amp for a few years and it's recently gained a new lease of life -- as an audio interface! However, the OEM battery got a bit long in the tooth, so I set about replacing it. It's much easier than you might think. Click through for photos and step-by-step instructions, plus a list of components to buy. (Warning: magnifying glass and hot glue gun are advantageous!)

I've had a FiiO E7 headphone amp for a few years and it's recently gained a new lease of life -- as an audio interface for my LG G3! Sadly, the has G3 shockingly bad audio quality from its onboard 3.5 mm output - riddled with noise, fuzz/hiss and audible aliasing and distortion. This is likely due to poor design from LG in an effort to power save, combined with a latent bug in Android relating to how it scales audio samples, the latter sounding like it's aliasing audio in a certain range of gain due to it internally resampling or something stupid like that. My old Galaxy S3 LTE running Cyanogenmod 10 (4.2.2) sounded amazing, I wish it hadn't died!

ANYWAY! Recent builds of Android (I'm running 5.1) include a provision for audio-via-USB, enabled by default on most devices, so hooking up a micro-to-mini USB cable between the phone and the E7 gives you blissfully great audio quality.

So, I dug mine out of a cupboard - with a flat battery, of course - and charged it up. Soon after, the battery got fat and decided to push the front of the screen out... Ok, time to replace the battery! Continue reading "Replacing a FiiO E7 battery - simple! (Photos)"

Drumfunk mixes

Over the past decade, I've occasionally put together mixes of tunes I particularly enjoy listening to, and stick them on the net. (Why not.)

A somewhat ad hoc series I called 'Gunpowder Funk' arose from a Drumfunk/choppage/darkbeat mix I did back in 2005. I ended up doing annually for the next three years, culminating in Gunpowder Funk Part 4.

I really like the track selection and the mixing on this (conceited? possibly! but I did all these mixes live, no pre-planning except picking the tracks I wanted to play and putting them in a pile by the decks), there's a lot of serendipitous moments and lovely track blends going on.

Tracklisting for Part 4 below. Click here to download the Gunpowder Funk Part 4 MP3.

01) Fracture & Neptune - Apollo (SUBTLE009)
02) Macc - A8V (BRK07)
03) Fracture & Neptune - Wrong Think (BB1224)
04) Fanu - I Play It Cooler (SUBTLE005)
05) Equinox - Do You Understand Me? (ZIQ134)
06) Fracture & Neptune - Untightled (BRK04)
07) Fanu - For Those Who Dream (LIGHTLESS001)
08) John Rolodex - Amenizm (Part 1) (PI007)
09) Alaska - Ancestral (AM001)
10) Equinox - Breakestral Ting (ZIQ134)
11) Seba & Paradox - Wakeup Call (featuring Robert Manos) (SECOPS006)
12) Fracture & Neptune - Too Doggone Funky (INP011)
13) Fracture & Neptune - Our Sound (SE4001)
14) Fracture & Neptune - Venture (featuring Martin Fieber) (MEDIC3)
15) Seba & Paradox - Time Starts Now (HZN022)
16) Breakage - Prophecy (SW002)
17) Paradox - Incubate (PM018)
18) Alaska - Atka (AM004)
19) Breakage - Panic Room (INP014)
20) dgoHn - Elle (SUBTLE008)
21) Kjell - Cloud Thirty (COL03)
22) Outrage & Aperture - Love Like Blood (featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw) (WA001)
23) Senses - Babylon (BB1218)
23) Dub-One - Volcon (XA010)

Other mixes (including Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) are available online (their tracklistings are embedded in the ID3 comment tag, or available online if you search). (There's also a Bad Company mix (tracks from the Shot Down on Safari album, as the mix which came with the album was so bad), a Current Value mix and an all-classics mix if you're feeling adventurous.)

Some open feedback to Vue Westfield Stratford City

When I was in London in 2012 for the Olympics, I went to watch a couple of films (and paid handsomely) at the (brand new) Westfield Vue cinema. Wasn't too impressed. Here's some feedback I also emailed to them...

[20/08/2012: Vue responded, click through for the reply.]

Have you been to Vue Westfield recently? Any thoughts on whether it's improved, stayed the same or got worse? Let me know in the comments.

Continue reading "Some open feedback to Vue Westfield Stratford City"

Ever listened to Chef Aid and wondered why some of the vocals' sound quality is 'weird'?

I bought Chef Aid: The South Park album years ago. Great album, love it to bits and every so often still listen to it. However Track 18 always bugged me - Chef's vocals alternate between crystal clear studio quality and some dingy, Skypesque highly compressed garble (in reality probably closer to a 64 kbps ISDN codec).

These days I'm a qualified sound engineer and technician but I was always 'into' production, sound quality etc. I picked up on the weirdness of Track 18 from first listen but could never find anyone to ask or discuss it with. However Scott Smitelli outnerded me to the punch (in 2007) and wrote an entire article on his web site - with empirical evidence, good work that man! In his article he explains the differences between the portions of vocals contributed by Isaac Hayes and really goes into quite a lot of depth before coming to his own conclusion as to why the sound is as it is. Kudos to him... Because now when I'm talking to people about this I can just reference his page instead of explaining again from scratch. 😉

His article about the strange audio on Track 18 of Chef Aid is on his web site - go read if you're a fan of the album.

An' tha's yer lot fer now...

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