Powerful stuff

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my purchase of the Firestone Audio Fubar IV DAC/headphone amp, and the new lease of life it had given to my digital music setup. I won't repeat myself here, but needless to say I was (and very much still am) incredibly impressed with its performance. I also mentioned in that post that I was considering getting the matching add-on power supply for the Fubar - called The Supplier.

Several Firestone Audio customers were reporting good things on internet forums about the performance gains that the dedicated power supply brought to their original components. This is something that I've always been a little sceptical about, because electricity is electricity, right? Surely it doesn't matter where it comes from, as long as it comes from somewhere. However, I was thinking that the "wall wart" mains adapter that shipped with the Fubar IV looked a bit cheap in comparison to the quality of the unit itself, and with it being a European unit it shipped with a 2-pin plug. This meant I had to use a 2-pin to 3-pin adapter as well. I figured that this combination probably wasn't the best source of power for a component that was all about audio detail and fidelity.

Anyway, it came to my attention that Firestone Audio's website were doing another of their crazy price drops on The Supplier (you need to keep an eye on the site, because these deals are worth looking out for) and it was reduced from 115 Euros to 75 Euros. Taking into account currency conversion and shipping charges, that still meant £25 off the price from any UK dealer. Needless to say, this was the nudge I'd been looking for, and I went and ordered one. I figured that for that relatively modest outlay, I could take a risk and it would be an interesting experiment. If all else failed, there was always eBay!

There was a bit of a delay taking delivery of The Supplier. A combination of popular demand and the Icelandic volcano meant I had to wait three weeks to get my hands on my new purchase. However, the lovely people at Firestone more than made up for this by also sending me their newly-released FRX-001 dedicated audio rack that they've designed exclusively for their components for me to review.

The first thing that I noticed on opening up the box for The Supplier was that again the mains cable was a 2-pin European one, with an adapter to turn it into a UK 3-pin. No matter though. Wanting to really give The Supplier a chance to shine I declined to use this option. The Supplier has a standard figure-of-8 mains socket on its rear, so I simply grabbed a UK-plug figure-of-8 cable that I had lying around and plugged this in instead. I then unplugged the Fubar's original mains lead and hooked up the output of The Supplier to the input on the Fubar, and we were up and running.

With my Grado SR80i's plugged into the Fubar, I decided to leave the system playing some tunes on repeat to give it all a chance to warm up and "settle in". I've absolutely no idea if this actually makes a difference or not, but I thought I'd give it a try. Certainly when I first got the Fubar IV it became better over time, gaining some warmth and clarity as it got run in, so I figured I'd give The Supplier the same benefit.

Itching to try it out, later that day I settled down for my first proper listen. I'd anticipated flicking through a few well-known tracks to test things out. In actual fact, I ended up listening right through four of my favourite albums all the way through from start to finish. I was loving the music so much, I just kept going. The sound was just so natural - warm, yet detailed. Not in the slightest fatiguing. Most of all, enjoyable!

With a more critical head on, the next day I decided to be a bit more analytical. I did some straight A-B swapout testing of The Supplier. Listen to a track with Fubar alone, then listen again with the Supplier. I tried a range of music - electronica, acoustic, rock, classical. All had a definite improvement in clarity and dynamics when listened to with The Supplier. The improvement is, I will admit, subtle - but it's definitely an improvement.

Onto more aesthetic matters, I've now also got my two Firestone components at home in their new dedicated Firestone rack, as you can see in the main photo. Cleverly, the rack has a system of rubber stoppers on the underside of each shelf which stops the components from sliding around when plugging in headphones and the like. The fact that my little head-fi system looks so amazing on its new miniature rack is just the icing on the cake. Superb stuff.

Frankly, this little setup is brilliant on so many levels. It brings genuine hi-fi quality to the world of digital audio convenience, it's relatively cheap and amazingly small. I love it!

Supply and demand

So now we're on to my third post about the HTC Desire and it's pricing - and let me tell you, things have certainly NOT improved.

My analysis of the situation (if it counts for anything) is that the networks have just realised exactly how popular this phone is going to be, and before you can say "KER-CHING!" all the price plans - on all the networks - have gone through the roof.

Would you like an example of this? Remember how I said that you could get the Desire for £10 per month if you were prepared to pay £164 up front for it? And then it changed to £15 per month and £226 up front? So now what do you think it could have gone up to? Have a look at this then...

So if you want to spend £25 a month on your HTC Desire, then T-Mobile would like to charge you £380 up front for the privilege! £980 over 2 years! Bearing in mind you can buy the Desire SIM-free and unlocked for about £375, this is not what I would call a VERY GOOD DEAL.

Anyway, my enquiries with Vodafone came to nothing as well - they wanted £30 per month (so these rumours of £15 per month over 18 months were somewhat exaggerated) and even threatening to leave Virgin didn't get me a deal better than £20 per month and £100 up front.

Upshot of all this then? Erm... well, it would appear that my financial wizardry has all come utterly unstuck over the last couple of weeks. To my mind, the HTC Desire can really only compete as an "iPhone killer" if it is substantially cheaper. If the prices put it into the same territory as the mighty iPhone, then it's going to have a hard time. Sorry, I did try to save you some money. Honest.

All change

So it took T-Mobile less that 24 hours to render my last post about the HTC Desire almost entirely useless - they've changed all their price plans.

So now the entry level tariff is £15 a month, not £10, and the handset price has taken a hefty hike. Instead of £164, it's now £226. So my previous calculations are all wrong. If you want an 18-month contract at £15 per month, the total cost to you is now £496. If you're prepared to put up with the phone for 2 years, then you can have 300 voice minutes instead of 100 and only pay £191 for the phone (total cost £551). These prices, needless to say, are still substantially lower than the iPhone, but they're not quite as marked as they were.

To throw another spanner into the works, I've had some quality time with the Desire's rival sibling, the HTC Legend - and let me tell you, that phone is quite something. Although the specs aren't quite as high as on the Desire, the interface and OS are identical and the big plus point is the beautiful aluminium construction. Add in the fact that it's smaller, more pocketable and cheaper, and there really is now a genuine contest for my affections. It is, however, exclusive to Vodafone, and only on a 24 month contract. It is only £20 per month though, and with a free handset (total cost: £480 for 100 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited internet).

From reading a few forums, people have been getting some very good deals on both phones by dealing with Vodafone's web relations team directly (getting hold of them is a bit of a convoluted process) so if I can secure either the Legend or the Desire for less than the standard prices, then I'll be ordering immediately. I'm awaiting their phone call any time now...

Paranoid Android

As you will already know, I've wanted an iPhone ever since they were first announced. I'm a massive Apple fan, but I've never managed to take the iPhone plunge - and the main reason is that the cost has always been an insurmountable obstacle. I've had mobile phones for the last ten years, and I've never - NEVER - paid more than £15 a month for them. I've had Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson handsets, so I'm not particularly brand-loyal. I just can't bring myself to spend £30 a month (or more) on what is, essentially, just a phone.

However, I was starting to come round to the (fairly obvious) idea that if I wanted the Jesusphone, I'd just have to suck it up and pay the money - there's really no way round it. I was doing the sums to see how the different plans and upfront handset costs compared in terms of total cost over the life of the contract. The way things stand at present is that all three UK carriers (O2, Vodafone and Orange) offer their cheapest total package for £30 a month, on an 18-month contract. The handset cost for all three is £99, bringing the total to £639. For that princely sum, O2 offer you 100 minutes and unlimited texts, Vodafone give you 75 minutes and 250 texts, and Orange can let you have 150 minutes and 250 texts. Depending on how you like to use your phone (if you're a texter or a talker) then the choice is really between O2 and Orange (Vodafone don't seem very competitive in this price bracket).

If, however, you're looking at the smallest possible monthly outlay, then you need to be looking at O2, as they are the only ones who offer a £25 per month deal. But this is over 24 months, and the handset cost goes up to £149, bringing the total cost of ownership to a massive £749. Doesn't really seem cost effective to scrimp on that extra fiver a month does it?!

All of these calculations are based on getting the 8GB iPhone 3G, not the 3GS. Clearly if you want the better phone, then you're looking at between another £100-150 on top. You might think that you could do without the 3GS and live with the 3G, but bearing in mind the announcement about iPhoneOS 4.0 this week, and the fact that the 3G won't support a lot of the new features, then that more basic phone suddenly doesn't look like so much of a bargain.

So - you have a lot of decisions to make: how much you want your monthly outlay to be, whether you're getting the necessary amount of minutes and texts and how much you're prepared to spend upfront on the handset. For me personally, the £30 18-month contract on O2 would be the sufficient for me, as I don't make many voice calls but I do text a lot. However, knowing what we now do about OS4.0, I'd have to get the 3GS and not the 3G - so total cost £738. Of course, there's a new iPhone in the pipeline due to surface in about June or July, so it would probably be prudent to wait until then. Perhaps the 3GS price will become the entry level model and the price will drop, or perhaps the new handset will have some great new design or features that make it a must-have. So what's a potential iPhone purchaser to do, bearing in mind all these factors?

Let me tell you my current thinking - don't get an iPhone at all. Get an Android phone instead.

The new HTC Desire is a phone that matches the iPhone on a lot of levels, and in some ways surpasses it. It may not be made by the mighty Apple, but having done the research it seems just as good if not better. For a start the screen on the Desire is a 3.7" 800x480 pixel AMOLED. Compare that to the iPhone's 3.5" 480x320 TFT. The Desire's camera is 5MP as opposed to the iPhone's 3MP. The Desire is packing a faster processor and more RAM than the iPhone. Other than that, they both have accelerometers, digital compasses and assisted GPS and are both the same size and weight. Hmm, iPhone - you're suddenly not looking so clever.

Software-wise, the Android operating system is open-source, customisable and supports true application multitasking out of the box.

However, where the iPhone is, of course, a winner is in regards to its App Store. Yes, there's an Android Market, but at the moment it's really not in the same league as Apple's. But, as it currently stands, all my regularly used apps - Wordpress, Evernote, Shazam, eBay, Last.fm, Spotify, Facebook - are already available on Android, with the only exception - Dropbox - being on its way in the coming weeks. What you lose in apps, you make up for in Google integration. As a heavy user of Google's products - gMail, calendar, contacts, reader, Picasa, Youtube, maps - this is a definite bonus. And with the Android Market expected to increase massively over the next 12 months, I can see the gap between the two offerings becoming much narrower.

And that brings me on to the price - what's all this talk of Android? Why bother? All things being equal, just get the bloody iPhone. But things are most certainly NOT equal.

If I want my 100 voice minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited internet (as offered by O2) then T-Mobile have quite the tempting offer. The upfront handset cost for the HTC Desire is £164, and then the monthly tariff is either £15 over 18 months, or £10 a month over 24. Total cost over 18 months £434, or £404 over 24 months.

Let me reiterate: 100 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited internet, 18-month contract. Total cost of ownership for an iPhone 3GS on O2 = £738. HTC Desire on T-Mobile = £434. £164 for the handset upfront as opposed to £249. £15 a month instead of £30. A saving of £304 in total.

As the youth of today like to say - NO BRAINER. Android here I come.

A complete package

I decided that my Sony in-ear headphones were getting a bit long in the tooth (eight years of living in my ears is quite enough), and I was hunting for decent replacements. I was considering the widely-praised Sennheiser CX 300-II Precisions, but, at £40, they were right at the top of my price range so I was trying to find something cheaper.

However, when I discovered that they were under £15 at Amazon, I really didn't need an excuse, so promptly ordered a set. If they were 5-star award-winning earbuds at £40, then their new lower price was the icing on the cake.

This post isn't necessarily about the Sennheisers themselves though. Needless to say that they are very good, and a significant step up from my existing Sonys. But the real reason that I wanted to write about them is the incredibly innovative packaging that they came in. When I ordered from Amazon, I noticed they were listed as being in "Eco packaging" but I didn't really understand what this meant.

Essentially, the headphones are packaged purely in cardboard. There's none of the VERY annoying plastic blister packaging that these things usually come in. Every single part of the box is corrugated, recycled cardboard. Every last bit. Not a piece of plastic in sight. This in itself is laudable, but the really clever bit is the way it all fits together. Even the hanger to display it in a shop is an integral cardboard part. It's a brilliant concept, and one that could do with being adopted by a number of other manufacturers.

I love good, attractive, well-designed packaging so long as it's not excessive. Obviously I'm a big fan of Apple's boxes and containers. Similarly, I've been very impressed with Nintendo's efforts of late. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But for small, cheap items like headphones, why bother with all the unnecessary oversized plastic? It's probably conceived as a way of adding to the perceived value of the product, but for me that doesn't really work. Personally, I'm far more inclined to think favourably about a purchase if I've been impressed by a clever or innovative design. A superb idea, and one that deserves some recognition I think.

Mac software essentials

Once I'd taken delivery of my new iMac, I had the task of setting it all up the way I wanted it. Fortunately, being a Mac, that is all very easy. When you first switch it on, it asks you if you've got a Time Machine backup that you'd like to use to restore your previous data. Obviously I had been using Time Machine, so pointed it in the right direction. It then asks exactly what you want restored - music, photos, applications etc. I decided to just go for my personal data, as I was aware that I had clogged up my old machine with no end of applications that I had only ever used once before deciding they weren't for me.

Everything restored just the way I wanted it, but then I had the task of putting back just the applications I REALLY wanted, and this was quite a useful decision-making process. So what did I install? Here's my round up - and you'll be pleased to know it's all free!

The first thing I went for was trusty old Firefox. I prefer it over Safari for a number of reasons - I like the plugins you can get for it, particularly Xmarks, favicon support and its Google search defaults to the UK site. Small things, but for me it gives it the edge.

The next essential app is Skype. It's even better now I have a Mac with an iSight camera, as obviously I can now do video chat. All my friends have an account, and not only does it do voice and video chat, it's also a very decent instant messaging program. Add in the fact that I've also got it installed on my iPod Touch and mobile phone, it's an absolute must-have.

Next up, Dropbox. I realise that you can just use it direct from the web interface, but the Mac app adds so much more. I've got it set up to automatically synchronise with my Documents folder, so I know I've always got an up-to-date copy on Dropbox if I ever need a file, and the drag-and-drop nature of the desktop app means it's all much simpler than the web uploader.

I'm going to bundle these two together, as they are very similar in their functionality - Perian and Flip4Mac. In actual fact, there's nothing that you need to do with them once they're installed, but they give you access to all the different web video codecs that you're likely to come across. Flip4Mac handles WMV files within the Quicktime player, and Perian does the rest.

On a similar video-based theme, the VLC player is very handy for playing any truculent videos that don't like the Quicktime player. Not only that, it's essential to get my next app choice to work properly. Which brings me on to...

Handbrake! A fabulous piece of free software, it allows you to rip DVDs to a variety of formats and sizes. It works in conjunction with the VLC player, so make sure you've got that installed if you want to use Handbrake. There are a lot of settings to play with if you're so inclined, or just go for the presets.

If you're a Twitterer like me, then a Twitter client is a must-have rather than constantly visiting the website. My client of choice is Twitterrific, which is free if you can put up with the occasional advert. It's slick and unobtrusive, and there's a matching iPhone/iTouch app too.

One of the finest ideas in a long time, Spotify is quite something. Internet-based free music, supported by the occasional advert (or ad-free if you want to pay a subscription). I think it's brilliant. Great for discovering new music before committing to a purchase, and I really like the iTunes-like interface.

If you like to dabble in a bit of BitTorrent, you can do a lot worse than this very fine client app, Transmission. Small but perfectly formed, it does everything you need to do without any bloat or unnecessary features.

Should you need to FTP anything, then Filezilla is a great fully-featured free application for doing just that. Not much more to say really. Easy to use, does everything it needs to including secure FTP if you require it.

And finally, if you just can't help yourself and you find yourself installing stuff that you later discover you don't want then you need to get rid. You could just drag it to the trash, but that's not very sophisticated. AppCleaner will also get rid of all the associated files and folders leaving you crud-free. Splendid.

So there you go - all tried-and-tested, top notch free applications. So are there any that I've missed? Your suggestions in the comments if you will...

FUBAR!

As I've previously mentioned, I got a very nice pair of Grado SR80i headphones for Christmas and they're quite superb. I had the idea a while back (inspired by this CNET article) to get together some kind of "head-fi" setup using my Airport Express as a source. I've gone into some detail about how the iPhone Remote app works with the Airport Express to stream music around your house, and I had been using the Grados plugged straight into the 3.5mm jack on the AE.

Me being me, of course, I knew that there were gains to be had by using an offboard DAC instead of the cheap one built into the AE so I went about researching my options. There was the "two-box" approach, involving a separate DAC in turn feeding a separate headphone amplifier, or there was the "integrated" option if I could find a combined DAC/headphone amp that I liked the look of and could afford. My preferred route was to have everything in one box - tidier, less faff, no worrying about system matching - so after much internet surfing I came across the Fubar IV, made by Firestone Audio. It has digital inputs for optical (which the Airport Express uses), coaxial and USB. I discovered that the manufacturers were offering a hefty discount (125 euros instead of 225) in their post-Christmas sale and all the reviews of the unit were glowing, so I went for it.

Just a few minutes after taking delivery, I had the Fubar IV hooked up via an optical lead from my Airport Express, with my SR80i's plugged into the headphone socket. With the iPod Touch Remote app controlling my iTunes Lossless library, I was listening to quite amazing sound, far more in keeping with the quality of the Grados than I had been experiencing direct from the Airport Express. Most impressive!

I headed over to the What HiFi forums - where I had heard about the Fubar IV in the first place - and posted a brief review. Excerpt below:

"It's a good warm, round sound from solid bass through to well-defined treble. It does show up poor recordings, but with a well-produced album it's giving some excellent results. I've been noticing lots of extra details that I'd never really heard before, even in albums I know really well. The separation of different parts is superb, and it's very easy to pick out an instrument and follow it through a track - but at the same time there's a really nice cohesiveness to the sound overall. I'm used to listening to my music through my separates hi-fi, but I can honestly say that this little set-up is blowing it out of the water!"

Firestone Audio also sell a dedicated power supply for the Fubar, called The Supplier, which is supposed to bring further musical gains. I dare say that once some more funds become available, I shall be investing in one of those too! All round, it's a brilliant little setup, and ideal for people whom a full separates system isn't practical or realistic. I was dubious about whether "head-fi" could really be "hi-fi" but I have to say - I'm converted.