September 11th, 2008 SkyHorse 
The v-moda vibe duo
It happened again, of course. The Ferrari of the headphones predictably crashed after 5 weeks of regular use, a new record even for them. This being the 3rd pair of v-moda headphones that stopped working I wrote a polite little message along with my request for warranty forms saying I did not want another pair but a full refund.
The reply was both expected (“no we do not give refunds”) and surprising, as they accepted there was a design flaw in the vibe DUO model and actually re-engineered the jack area in a 45 degree angle (it was straight originally) and since then they had to problems with them.
Here’s their original reply:
Unfortunatley our refund policy only covers headphones that are purchased directly from our website within 30 days. Due to a large number of defective DUOS, we re-designed the plug near the jack and have not had problems since. Here is some more info:
As we take our customers’ feedback very seriously, we wanted to let you know about new features that will improve the durability of our earphones.
We recently identified the plug of our Vibe Duo headphones as a point that has caused a higher-than-acceptable return rate by V-MODA’s strict quality control standards. In light of this discovery we have completely reengineered our plug to a sleek, durable design that has proven to withstand the rigorous wear presented by daily use. Using a 45-degree flexible design, the reengineered plug allows an optimal range of motion while maintaining a sturdy metallic core fused to a 24-carat gold-plated plug.
This new plug will be incorporated into all VIBE and VIBE Duo products and will be available soon at shop.V-MODA.com. The updated products will remain compatible with the Apple iPhone, the iPod, an array of smartphones and all other portable music players.
We firmly stand behind V-MODA’s One-Year Premier Warranty on all of our products. If you are experiencing problems with a V-MODA product, please consult our warranty page for detailed instructions on our warranty program. Should you need to contact us, please visit our contact page or email us at support@v-moda.com. Our customer service team is here to promptly serve you with any questions you have regarding our products.
Thanks for being a part of the V-MODA culture.
Rock on,
I guess I will give them *one* last chance and will be posting my broken set this week… another £5 and 4 weeks wait…
Tags:
apple,
headphones,
iphone,
v-modaRelated posts:
Posted in Hardware | 3 Comments »
June 30th, 2008 SkyHorse Just as my previous post reviewing the v-moda headphones for the iPhone started to get some hits I discover early in the morning that they stopped working, again.
They behaved exactly as I predicted by breaking down 2 months after I got them. This time it cost £5.10 to send them back with international “Signed for”.
The stats:
Number of times sent back: 2
Number of days with a working pair: 151
Number of days without a working pair: 56
TCO so far: £80.20 and they’re worth every penny.
Tags:
headphones,
iphone,
v-modaRelated posts:
Posted in Hardware | 1 Comment »
April 28th, 2008 SkyHorse I finally got my headphones back from warranty. And as with all things in life, you only appreciate them when you don’t have them. I’ve been using my standard iPhone headphones which not only look naff with their all-white-look-at-me-I’ve-got-an-iPod style but also have the same terrible sound you get from standard headphones.
The v-moda vibe duo, on the other hand, are the Maserati of the headphones world: furious, stunning looks and awesome sound. They have great a sound-reducing capability and very good bass, which means you can turn the volume down and enjoy more of the music’s richness.
This makes the journey on the Underground a much more pleasant experience for you and for your fellow passengers who don’t have to listen to your loud music any more.
But as we all know Maserati’s also have a downside: they predictably break down too fast too soon. From the enquires I’ve made to my fellow iPhone fans I discovered I wasn’t alone. Quite the opposite, every single one of them had already sent back theirs for replacement, which gives the v-moda an empirical failure rate of 100%.
After sending mine back 3 weeks ago I sadly found out after a trip to the Apple Store that the v-moda are the only in-ear headphones for the iPhone available in the market. Sure you can get loads of headphones that *work* on the iPhone but nothing with a built-in microphone or a control button. On the up side, the one-year warranty means you can send them back (remember to keep your receipt) and you can expect to receive a replacement within 3 to 4 weeks.
What is a guy to do… stick to the reliable white vw or keep sending the maserati for repair… can someone else (Sony, hello??) please make a decent and reliable pair?
If you buy one, remember to budget for an extra £20 per year on top of their retail price of £70, as that’s how much it costs to send them back 4 times (every 2 to 3 months).
They do have great sound, maybe I’ll just buy another pair to use in the 4 weeks I have to wait for them to come back ;)
Tags:
apple,
headphones,
iphone,
v-modaRelated posts:
Posted in Hardware | 1 Comment »
September 23rd, 2007 SkyHorse 
I’ve bough myself a Sony SRS-BTM30 (nice little speakers with built-in bluetooth stereo receiver) thinking Apple, as it boasts bluetooth on all their peripherals, would obviously support this (MS already does for a long time). I was of course very very wrong.
There are several forums and threads with half-baked solutions mostly around the a2dpcast and jackd and all require multiple geniuses to make it all work, with a high probability of frustration to find the CPU usage at 100% or, worse, long latency in sound (terrible for films), or many other problems.
I decided to just wait for the Jaguar update, which already has built-in support for a2dp, and simply use a wired connection to my speakers.
But today I found exactly what I was looking for: a very very easy to use solution that actually has almost no latency (still not perfect for films, but you can easily fix that with the audio synchronization compensation option in the VLC media player).
Credit goes to ‘asae’ who posted this originally on David Connolly’s blog:
First, 2 files needed,
a. a2dpcastAudioDevice.tgz: http://www.coolatoola.com/a2dpcastAudioDevice.tgz
b. the updated a2dpcast: http://www.coolatoola.com/a2dpcast-0.3.zip
Then run terminal from Application/Utilities/terminal and install the kernel extension for the audio device (replace DOWNLOAD_DIR with the path to where your browser downloads stuff to) – you need your admin password to do sudo:
1. cd /
2. sudo tar -zxpf DOWNLOAD_DIR/a2dpcastAudioDevice.tgz –same-owner
3. sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AudioReflectorDriver.kext
Copy a2dpcast to /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin (replace A2DPEXTRACTDIR with the path to where your extracted the downloaded a2dpcast-0.3.zip) – you need your admin password to do sudo:
1. sudo cp A2DPEXTRACTDIR/a2dpcast-0.3/a2dpcast /usr/local/bin
Run a2dpcast with your Bluetooth address. To find your address go to bluetooth preferences (system preferences) and click on the speakers in question , it should have a line saying ‘address’:
1. a2dpcast aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff 27
Keep a2dpcast running, leave the terminal open, then run whatever program that you want, the sound will be streamed automatically to your headset. Again, do not close the terminal until you have enough enjoying your bluetooth headset ;)
If the sound breaks all of the sudden, or if you have any interference, try reducing the encoding rate from 32 to 16 by running this instead:
1. a2dpcast aa-bb-cc-dd-ee-ff 27 16
Tags:
a2dp,
bluetooth,
Hardware,
mac,
wirelessRelated posts:
Posted in Hardware | 2 Comments »
January 7th, 2007 SkyHorse 
Sooner or later if you live in a country with the visa-waiver program with the US (i.e. most EU countries and a few more) your passport will be issued with a always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison. Not to mention the “special†customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage!
1) RFID-tagged passports have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the chip is embedded in the back.
2) Sorry, “accidentally†leaving your passport in the jeans you just put in the washer won’t work. You’re more likely to ruin the passport itself than the chip.
3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave – the chip could burst into flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled burnt passport?
4) The best approach? Hammer time! Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.
Based on http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=9
Tags:
hacking,
Hardware,
passport,
RFID,
TravelRelated posts:
Posted in hacking, Hardware, Travel | No Comments »
