Just Push Play

Preview
Music is my life. Without music, my life would be empty. To me, 'Music' is the next big thing that sustain me besides 'Love' and 'Food'. Music brings me ideas, relaxation, joy, excitement, love, faith, stories, jokes, sorrow. Music is too divine to be defined. Life would be a mistake without music.

Music I like:
Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Rock & Roll, Progressive Rock, Psychedelic Rock, R&B/Soul, Jazz, Country, Pop, Love Songs, Classical...
Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Elvis Presley, ABBA, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Bon Jovi, Queen, Air Supply...

Turn on my iTunes, flip through the nice Album Covers, click on one of the many 320 kbps songs, adjust the Creative Xmod external sound card, blast on the Altec Lansing 5021 speakers, and boom!, my ears are on heaven again..

E for Ears
I had problems with my ears last week. While i was talking on phone, the wax suddenly obstruct my external meatus, making all the voices in the air sounds super dull, and my own voice sound super deep and loud. I tried to use the cotton swab to clear it, but in vain. So, i flipped through my ENT text book and also checked on internet- "How to Remove Ear Wax". I guess many of you people are having a super hard wax inside you ear unknowingly. If you have those symptoms, you're one of the suspect.
Symptoms:
1. Water will be logged inside the ear often during bath, which will be gone by itself after few minutes.
2. You are not hearing the sound of a turning fan clearly, or the loud echo of water splashing in the toilet.

The most commonly practiced home remedy is this:
1. Drop a few drops of ear-drop or baby oil using something like an eye-dropper into the ear, your ear will instantly feel obstructed as the wax is swollen now.
2. Lie down for 20 mins with the ear facing upwards. After a few hours, the ears sound will clear by itself.
3. Repeat the procedure 3 times a day for 2-3 days, this will soften the wax and make it easily removable.
4. Use a bulb syringe/ normal syringe, fill in warm water, and spray into the ear through the ear canal.
5. The impacted ear wax should come out with the water.
6. If symptoms persist, consult the ENT doctor for suction, which is the most effective way.

For me, i tried hard to use the syringing way but still can't make my ears clear, so i went to Attavat hospital and got suction from Dr. MCH. It was fast and simple and effective. So now, my ears are prepared for another baby that i bought.

The new gadget
Yesterday, the Creative X-Fi Xmod USB External Sound Card has arrived by parcel. The price ain't cheap at all, cost my bloody Rs 4600. I'd researched and reviewed extensively for the past 3 months on this product and other USB sound cards, and i'm super convinced with this one. It claims to:
"Restore the details and vibrant that your music lost during mp3 compression."
"Enjoy all your music and movies in surround sound on any stereo speakers or headphones."
"Start using in an instant, truly plug-n-play, no installation needed. It works for PC and Mac and any external music devices eg iPod."
I do not chose other USB sound card because they take up plenty of hard disk space during installation, and they suck up CPU while working, and there's many drivers problems and lagging in sounds.
Besides, i never go for a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound card because i'm only using a 2.1, and i don't think i'll ever use a 5.1 in the future.
In addition, i do not chose those with EAX gaming support ones because they'll cost at least twice the price, plus those with true external hardware acceleration ones only works for desktop PCs, the laptop ones are just host-based acceleration, which means it uses ur PC's RAM and CPU to produce the EAX sounds effects.


Why?
Why do i need a sound card since i already has a high-end speakers? Let me give you a simple illustration:
Imagine the mp3 files in your computer is the raw ingredients. The better the raw materials, the better the food. So, the higher bit rate the mp3 file is, the better its quality. I never compromise on the famously widespread but poor 128 kbps songs. My songs are usually 320 kbps, which means one song will cost me more than 10 MB instead of the normal 4 MB of the 128kbps. The lowest bit rate i can tolerate is 192, and to me there're only very little difference between 192 and 320. As an audiophile wannabe, still i can't differentiate between 320 kbps and lossless FLAC or WAV format, plus my iPod does not support the lossless formats, so, i guess i'll stick with every mp3 above 192 kbps.

Now, take speakers as the chef, the one who produce the food. A skilled chef will keep every details and originality of the food that he prepares, the same applies to speakers. A good speaker will produce no noise when turned on, no distortion of bass, gives you a clear treble and crisp highs.

But even if the ingredients and chefs are top class, there's still a missing link - the process of the food. Be it cleaning, scaling, cutting, marinating, mixing, processing of food is as important, so does a sound card. Nowadays, every laptop and desktop come with a integrated sound card, which main job is to - produce sound. Almost everyone will be satisfied as long as there's sound coming from their laptop, no matter it's good or bad. But to someone like me who take music seriously and pamper my ears a lot, i will not settle for anything less than "excellent". Even with high bit rate mp3 files and high end speakers, i still find the musics a bit dull and flat and lack immersion and width.

So, i opt for this product from Creative and the results is Wow!! The 24-bit Crystalizer really does make a difference to my ears. It restores all the details that before this i'd mostly unheard of. It makes the bass deeper and more powerful, the cymbals more crispy and clear, and the wailing guitar solos more intriguing. The music just sounded much more livelier,and have more energy, wihtout it, everything sounds so flat and detailess. I dunno whether it sounds as good as studio quality, but it has definitely improved the way my ear conceive the sound, and to me they sound better than CD quality. All my songs DO sound better. Listening to music now become more pleasure and enjoyable. When listening to live performance and classicals, i turn on the X-Fi CMSS3D, and instantly, i feel like i'm in the concert hall, Mozart playing right in front of me. While watching movies, every gun shots and explosions sounds much more real-life and heart thumping. Gaming sounds more 3D as well, and i can better identify the directions the enemies are coming from. Besides, being a completely stand-alone device, i can also play my iPod through the sound card to the speakers without opening my laptop, which is really convenient.


In a nutshell
I really love the sound produced by my laptop now. The ingredients, the processing of food, and the production of food are all taken care well. I'm still in the process of rebuilding my whole music library, learning bout classic artists and songs, at the same time re-download the songs in high quality forms. It takes months to slowly rebuild my treasure, but at the same time my knowledge on music grows, as well as my perception of sounds. Rock On!!