Some time ago, a good friend, Bing Ru, asked me to help him fix his headphones and I ended up with the post HERE!

Well it kind of broke. And being the extreme perfectionist at jobs, I was determined to make sure it does not happen again. (I can already hear people calling bull and… You’re right!)

Okay on to the star of the day the brand new re-cabled PMX-200 with a tightly braided cable to relief stress… blah blah blah *insert crazy marketing here*. For those thinking of asking me to make one you’ll have to try very hard because two hours of braiding wasn’t exactly the most fun moments of my life.

The PMX-200 in all it’s glory. Look! there’s even a bright light pointing at the wrong spot!

Pardon the black plug I couldn’t find a silver one at home. Damn I just blew my perfectionist cover.

Plugging this baby into a random amp I acquired while looking for broken things to fix, I was impressed with this thing I called junk months ago. Bringing on the song Reflections Of My Life by Marmalade, I was somehow amazed at how good the guitars and drums sounded even though the only change I introduced was to re-cable it once again. One of the most comfortable sounding earphones I’ve heard. Not bright at all but with great highs, I felt at ease when listening to them. But then again the PMX-200 generally only costs 120 bucks so there ARE shortcomings such as a terrible isolation and completely uncomfortable design.

Mentioning the newly acquired amplifier, it was actually from an acquaintance whom I once modified a pair of MS-1s for. He realised that his amp was broken when the indicator light started flashing on and of and together with it the music faded and came back on with the rhythm. Being an extremely nice guy, he asked if I wanted to take a look at it. Me, inquisitive as a five year old, decided that I would go over to his place and pick the amp up for a check.

Upon reaching home, I immediately went with my electrical instincts and decided that the power supply was somewhat screwed. And yes! I was right about it. the supposedly 24 volt power supply was just showing over 12 volts. Well that was fast. But now where in the world was I going to find a spare 24 volt power supply at home where everything has internal transformers! After desperately searching for half an hour, I took the less obvious path of powering the amp with batteries. What kind of batteries you would ask. My answer to you is of course STRAWBERRIES, TEDDY BEARS and RHINOS!

And a rubber duckie!

Unfortunately one of this heavyweights was not enough. It only provided half of the required voltage but the power on this little pack is monstrous! enough to power flight.

Hey wait.

Sigh.

Moving on, I quickly got to work and made a little splitter connected to the power connector of the amp with random banana jacks and battery connectors I had.

I’ve never been good at art but this is me trying to draw a heart around my teddy! Never mind count it as a failed attempt.

As some people say, I get distracted easily. Wait. Did I just get distracted? Plugging in the batteries, the entire set up looked ridiculous. Perhaps because of my obsession with capacitors.

Family portrait of the Rig family.

Solo picture of Amplifier Rig.

PMX-200 playfully covers Amplifier’s face in a fun shot.

Turning the amplifier on, I was horrified by the huge amount of hiss this fat boy gave to my in ears. Turning the music on, there goes my clarity and when the bass kicked it it was resonant and mild. At least there is something to listen to if my taste changes.

On a completely different note, TODAY IS WORLD KIDS COLOURING DAY! Someone help me change it to rainbow… Oh never mind just imagine it’s already rainbow.

RAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!

I’ve been asked ever so often about why I spend so much just to listen to music. Well, I believe artists want us to hear a song in a certain way and many of the details in the song cannot be easily heard with inferior sound producing equipment. Therefore to get the most of out the songs and to enjoy music at it’s best, a good quality sound system is required.

Just the other day, I modified an iPod for it to be able to output sound of a higher quality.

Theory

The capacitor and inductors used in the iPod are of inferior quality causing a degradation of the sound signal coming from the DAC(Digital to Analog Converter/Sound chip). Removing this capacitors and inductors would enable one to use their own external capacitors in place of the low quality iPod ones.

Capacitor and inductor of either the left or the right channel.

Under the magnifying glass.

Practical

Using Mundorf  Silver/Gold wires and under a magnifying glass, I rewired the iPod’s circuit board so that the DAC would output a direct signal to the line out.

Modified iPod stripped down.

Bigger picture.

In order not to destroy my earphones, I have to use external capacitors to remove the DC offset created by removing the internal iPod capacitors. I integrated them into the dock connector used to connect my iPod to my amplifier.

My new toy arrived just two days ago on Wednesday and I just HAD to go down to Plaza Singapura immediately to collect it when I knew it was in.

Lets have a look at what it was originally.

Westone UM1

On 21/09/2009, I headed to ACE Hearing at The Carlton Hotel to get my ear impressions made. An impression is basically a mould of your ear.

How my left ear looks like inside out.

Alien-like eh?

I then headed to Stereo Electronics at Plaza Singapura to get my UM1s sent to a company in China called Unique Melody for 200 bucks. And exactly a month later…

They broke my UM1s!

But then that was what I asked for.

Frequency response chart provided by Unique Melody.

A close up.

My new hearing aid. (Actually it makes me kind of deaf)

I then reused the cables to improve the ever crappy sounding Sony Ericsson stock in ear earphones.

They still sound rather bad after recabling.

Here’s a song that has continuously played in my head after listening to it for the first time.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Here’s more how-to guides from me.

Thanks to Bing Ru getting his wires snagged all over the place, I managed to get one with a broken jack from him.

Rewiring is actually a rather simple job. Easier than making the mini USB in my earlier post.

First, look around the headphones for screws and access points such as this.

Secondly, unscrew the panel and take it apart like this.

Third step. Remove the circuit board and de-solder the main cables making sure not to damage the board.

Next, Solder on the new wires taking care not to short any of them.

After you’re done, insert the sleeve and make sure you mark the other end of the wires correctly. Then put the casing back on.

After you’re done. Solder the other end of the wire to the respective points on the headphone jack. Screw the jack shut and test it. Be sure to test the left and right channels to ensure that they are not reversed.

The end result is this!

Finally a last thank you to Bing Ru for passing me the PMX200 to play with.

Now that we know how to make your own iPod cables, Let learn how to make it look nicer rather than something like this.

Today(night) I am going to show you how to make use of that useless but pretty box to make a docking station similar to this.

There’s just one little catch. It’s going to look nicer!

Step one,

Get your dock adaptor and draw out a shape that your adaptor will sit on nicely. Like this.

Be sure not to cut the hole to far to the side of the box as it will make you curse and swear when you realise the bottom part of the box is not able to fit in anymore. (Well, I did.)

Step two,

Cut this outline out in the box. and try to fit the dock adaptor in the hole.

You can sell the extra piece to the karang guni man if you would like to

Step three,

Use either hot glue or tape to hold the dock adaptor down. (I chose hot glue)

You’ll see why later.

Step four,

Plug your iPod through the hole in the dock adaptor and put it in it’s natural standing position. Then, proceed to secure it down.

This is why I chose hot glue!

Step five,

Test it out if it works. If yes, cut a small V at the edge of the box so as to run the wire through. If no, rip your hair out. I mean, remove the hot glue and repeat step four unless your iPod was not connected in step four. If the latter is the case, please give your empty head a good hard knock.

Well now, wire the cable through the little v and voilà! There you have a beautiful looking docking station rather than leaving your iPod scratching around on the table!

My, my, look at the time! That might somehow explain my erratic behavior in the day time. Hope you have fun reading! Good night and au revoir!

As we all know, this is one of the better ways to get rich. I myself has found this topic very interesting with many possibilities. Maybe the only regret I would have this life would be the lack of time to start one.

As some of you know, I have been becoming rather rich in quite a few games by making use of the market and easily earning money from it. World of Warcraft was a very good example. I literally flipped the markets I was making use of. Recently, Runescape is another game with many quick money earning opportunities. In real life, there are many ways to earn money quickly and rather easily if one bothers to do some research. Some of the people closer to me would already know about the property and aviation plans I have for the future. Although the startup cost would consume much capital, the returns are quite remarkable.

Recently, my audio craze has also earned me quite a few dollars the way Singapore buys raw materials and convert it into useful things. Working for other people is not the only way to earn some pocket money. Being a trader seems to be working a lot better for me.

Have you at one point ever thought that iPod cables at the Apple stores were extremely EXTREMELY expensive? Or that you can’t bring yourself to take the leap of faith to buy those amazingly cheap cables you saw at a Made-In-China shop? OR, just never liked how the iPod cables looked?

Here’s a solution – D.I.Y. or Do it YOURSELF/MYSELF/OWNSELF

Dun Don’t chiu you dun like HATE bad england English?

Well, this is just my version so I do not need to bring too many cables around to school every day. It’s the love story of the dock and the port.

The extra wires popping out are actually my audio wires.

What you need :

1. iPod Dock – $4.80

This can be bought from KOBA Electronics at People’s Park Centre, Chinatown.

2. Mini USB Port – $1.50

This can be bought from Sim Lim Tower, Bugis. You can easily find it in the stores with a million tiny components… Erm… Wait you have to go through the million components to find it but don’t worry, they’re labeled.

3. Thin Wires Of Almost Any Kind - $1 per meter?

Of course insulated unless you want a major shorting in your dock and when I say thin, I mean THIN. Here’s why.

HOLY CRAP! Look at those PUNY pins! For a comparison grab your nearest gadget with a mini USB!

Lets get started!

First open up your dock to another HOLY CRAP! Look at the millions of pins at the back of the dock! Well before you panic, you only need FOUR out of the THIRTY pins. Mainly, pin 16, 23, 25 and 27.

Notice the two red circles and the pin number from one to thirty.

Pins one to thirty are labeled above, you do the math… Counting’s not exactly math… Right? Once you are positive of the correct pins, use a pair of pliers and slowly remove the extra pins. Give ’em a yank to get the little buggers out. Once you are done, use the pliers to slowly bend the pins away from each other to reduce the chances of shorting two pins.

Something like this would do well. Notice that the ones in this picture are not the correct pins. These three pins are for making an audio line out for iPods.

Now… Put that aside and take a look at your mini USB. Flip it such that the pins are on top and facing you like this.

The pins are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 from the left to the right. We will not be using pin 2.

Here’s which is connected to which.

16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,

1                                        5          4          3

Basically, pin 16 connected to 1 is the ground.

Pin 23 connected to 5 is the power, 5 volts.

Pin 25 connected to 4 is the negative USB data.

Pin 27 connected to 3 is the positive USB data.

Once you are done killing braincells and possibly cooking your hands with a soldering iron, it’s time to secure the entire thing onto the dock case. I would use hot glue to glue the entire thing down onto the case and the rest is quite intuitive. Finally, close the case with a nice satisfying SNAP!

Oh and err… Don’t forget to TEST it!

Here’s something to do while you’re bloody bored during the school holidays.

Have a click –> Let me Google that for you.

Here’s a little peek at some of the lighter things in life.

Catch your favorite bus anywhere you want!

OH MY GOD?! FREE BREAD!

Singapore Youth Flying Club’s beloved construction worker.

Look close enough and realise that there’s MOULD?!

Best stuff I have ever placed into my mouth.

Guess the animal contest!

This has been a rather short and shallow post brought to you by the Talkative Introvert.