Brainwavz Beta VS Superlux HD 381 F

At first I was looking for replacement for my broken craptastic Superlux HD381F that had served me for a year plus. Hence, I visited a modest shop yet this shop sells decent varieties of audiophile gadgets than most other bigger shop in town. My original intention was to find a conventional type of earphone instead of IEM or the "hybrid" type, like Superlux HD391F. However, I was a bit disenchanted due to the fact that only few options available to try for the normal earphone type as I was expecting able to try the famous YUIN pk1 or the fancy Sennheiser MX980 but... No demo unit available for both series. So if you guys know where I can found a shop that generous enough to have them as demo unit, please do let me know ;) Then I tried the Blox... Forgotten which type but the look was similar to Sennheiser MX400. Unfortunately, found out that it's too warm for me. After that I decided to try the iem type. After almost trying 20iems and make the shop keeper irritated... :P I have shortlisted 2 iems that catch my ear and yet having good price performance ratio. They are: Sunrise and the Brainwavz Beta. Finally I decided to buy the Brainwavz Beta instead since the design is more comfortable for my ear although the Sunrise outperform in term of sound clarity. And yet the price was only a third of it hehehe The impression: As my IEM database and knowledge are very limited, I only can compare against Superlux HD381F. Bass: First thing that I missed from HD381F was the bass quality. It's not that Beta has bad bass... But compared to the HD381f, it is less deep. Hopefully it's because it hasn't fully burned in yet :P as I only listen to it for less than 10hrs when I wrote this article. Vocal/middle: this one I prefer the Beta as it is less forward or more laid back :P probably it is only my personal preference Treble: some of the forum mentioned that this Beta is harsh. But for me it's still reasonable although in some songs I still could find sibilance... However, I can hear the high frequency "detail" or "ambient" that I wasn't able to hear by using HD381f. Sound stage: It's impressive! In my opinion, HD381f only can beat Beta in term of sound stage if plugged into amp. Direct head to head, certainly Beta beats HD381f. Probably it is because due to less forward vocal characteristic. Clarity: Both almost similar in my ear Detail: As I mentioned earlier, I can hear more ambiance sound in Beta. Conclusion: Both Superlux HD381F and Brainwavz Beta are craptastic IEM! They both no doubt offer fascinating bang for the buck. And although they share the same "weird" hybrid design, their sound character are different. Hence, both serve different purpose. If you look for forward vocal characteristic, just grab the HD381F but if you prefer the laid back vocal, then the Beta will make you happy. In addition the Beta gives more "ambiance" sound, but lack of deep bass. Hence, there is no absolute winner here. They both have their own superiority and inferiority. My suggestion for those who confused to decide which one suitable your taste, buy both and trust your own ear as their combined prices still arguably cheaper than one other "branded" iems with similar performance :)

Valentine

Valentine day for me have a different meaning. It's not about chocolate... not about pinky stuff... not about love... or even romantic things... I was started my professional career on IT world on Valentine.
So today is my 6 years anniversary of my "relationship" with IT world.

And this time I would like to share about one of the reason why I choose IT as my major. It is because computer is honest, as what you type is what you get otherwise it is a bug/defect :P

However, for the past 6 years, I met more than enough people which are more suitable to have career in politics instead of IT.
But don't get me wrong, it's not only higher position that tends to be having authority to do such a thing... even the staff level also... weird isn't it?

Let's make IT world better place... by making it back to where it is supposed to be honest like computer program without bug/defect.

Happy Valentine!

Cooking Hack

Happy Chinese New Year All!
This time I have the opportunity to "celebrate" the Chinese New Year in Singapore. A country with most of its population are Chinese.
At first, I thought it is going to be glorious to be here during the CNY because the people here are more enthusiast which makes there's something to be consider. Since most of the people here were celebrating the event, most of the food courts / hawkers or even supermarkets are close.

Some experience to help my parents running the small restaurant when they're still alive, certainly helps me a lot :)
So during this opportunity I would like to share one of the cooking hack :)
Cooking hack is basically finding the substitute ingredients due to some certain reasons... it could be because of the unavailability... or even because you're too stingy to buy it hihihi...

This time as my sample I would like to introduce my family "tomato sauce" recipe. This simple sauce is quite easy to make and useful for some cooking, such as: steak and egg foo young.
The original required ingredients are: bottled tomato sauce, sugar, vinegar, margarine and for additional ingredient: cornstarch.

Here, actually I could find all of the ingredients. However, due to the packaging which are really big, I didn't buy the sugar and vinegar. And I also forgot to buy
margarine and cornstarch :P

So I started to "scavenge" my refrigerator to find something that can be useful for substituting the ingredients that I didn't have.

First, for margarine is a bit easy, I could use one or two tea spoons of olive oil to make the sauce a bit "greasy".

For the sugar and vinegar, however, it's a bit difficult. Actually, lime could be used as alternative to replace the vinegar. But unfortunately it's not available in the refrigerator.
So I start to look at the available canned soft drinks. Ahaa... there's a lime tea... It contains the lime and sugar... however I believe the taste will be weird because of it also contains tea :P
Then I started to look around again, and found a perfect substitute... which is lime soda drink :P It contains lime and sugar... you don't have to worry about the soda... which is actually only carbon dioxide... so when you boil the carbonated drink... the carbon dioxide gas will be evaporate :)

Finally, for the cornstarch... I couldn't find the alternative... But it won't effect the taste of the sauce... just adding extra "sticky" feel to the sauce... so we can skip this one :)

Maybe the substitute ingredients sounds weird... but trust me the taste is not that different... hehehe...

That's all...

Have fun trying to do some cooking hack but do it with your own risk! hahaha...

Pollution Indicator

As some of you may have noticed that since last few weeks I've an opportunity to be assigned in one of the most well developed country in Asia, Singapore.

One of the thing that I am amazed from this country is the public transportation. It's really well managed and convenient and also relatively cheap. You can go to anywhere of this island with few dollars only.

And in this opportunity, I would like to share how it is compared to my beloved pathetic country... but I will make the comparison in the different way... as usual :P

In my point of view this well organized transportation... made this country is way less polluted if we compared to Jakarta.
Hey, it's not just a nonsense assumption which has no proof... It doesn't require us to be a scientist with all of the fancy laboratory equipment to prove this...
We can use our own body part to help this experiment. I'm not kidding... If you're confused... let me give you a hint... nose...
Yeah we can use our nose-s#it to assess the air quality... we can see the color of it... hihihi...
If it's brown or even black... which I usually had while in Jakarta... I think the air pollution is quite high...
But while I'm here... although I used public transportation all of the time and walk more than 10K steps daily average... my mucus's color always white to bright-yellow... which can be interpreted as a good air condition... hihihi...

I want to give you some picture of the specimen to help giving the illustration... but... currently it's still in the process of the specimen gathering... hopefully next month it will be sufficient hahaha... kidding :P

Farewell...

This post is especially dedicated for appreciation to my friends who I used to hang out with while working here in Bali.

• Care(ne)les(s) the parsimonious -> I never thought that there is a living creature here in earth who has stingy level in the same league as I am :P To illustrate how cheap he is, one day when he bought us some “bright moon” we thought that he was ordered by the leader (*kindly refer to the leader) to do this.
  He is also a tempe addict; this should explain his parsimony level :D. Additionally, because of “the overdose”, his Y chromosome already gives the impression to start mutating; developing another “leg” so it looks like it will turn into X chromosome xixixix
  


• Deky the lucky -> for a person who nearly almost never wins a lottery or draw games like me... I certainly envy to you! :D
  


• Darwee (as pronounced from the OZ guy in the TV)-> not much for this new comer, so this time I would like to remind you that you haven’t gave the ritual offerings to the senior members! :P
  


• Laurensia(l) the leader -> hail to the leader... sometimes we obey your order because you’re right... but often we obey merely because we still want to be in one piece :P But this leader is not that bad when it comes to food. She always shares food, also her experiment on new recipes. It is too often until sometimes we think that she’s doing this kind of experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_North_Korea#Testing_deadly_poisons
  


• Yunianto the g*y -> c’mon it’s time to move on and forget the past even though we all know that you’re having traumatic experience with your previous love and she’s obviously still haunting like North Korean homing missile, but you can’t use it for a reason to be a g*y :D
  


• Nita the brown (take it as a compliment since I'm not saying black) -> pursue those bule-bule what are you waiting for?! One of our friend admitted that you have “the quality” so good luck! :D
  


• Unay the kupret -> you should rename the bank where you’re working to its antonym... to represent your characteristic :P
  


• Albert the boxer (Chris John)-> I would like to apologize that when we’re in the same badminton team, I couldn’t glorify and bring your badminton career as successful as your boxing career :P
  


• Tiar the silent and Devy the Manohara --> silent which also means vibrates in the cell-phone... hope that both of you vibrate all of the time... xixixi... wait, don’t get me wrong... what I mean is the vibration of love in the new family :P
  


• Selly the ukdw-er -> we graduated from the same university, but that doesn’t mean we have the same quality... I mean she’s better than me for sure :P
  


• Edo the broker -> if I have enough money to spend to be invested in the stock market, surely I will contact you :P
  


• Vera the adventurer -> she really passionate on nature, dunno maybe she’s born in wildlife or zoo... :P and she’s really masculine... that the only feminine side that I could see from her was when she cooked us pancakes hehehe... but the pancake she created was surprisingly delicious... :P
  


• Jenal the overpaid -> he always think that he’s overpaid... and I hope that he’s getting promoted to be manager soon so he become more overpaid... hehehe... and I could give you one tip: Be less useful! It will help you to get promoted and make sure that M*R*N club is expanding! Hahaha... kidding :D
  


• Hartoyo the panda -> thank you for the suggestion on the freakology and those mean and evil books that really worth reading :P
  


• EP the hobbit -> just use your OZ PR or maybe some of our colleagues in Bandung can introduce you to “someone” :D
  


• MarKus the -> congratulation and happy working in OZ! Finally you can ripe what you have sow on that “torturing” project... :P
  


• Merisca and Defeng -> hope both of you start a family soon... and happily ever after... and of course without any “violence in the house ladder” a.k.a KDRT hihihi...
  


• ToHa the PhD -> just keep up your uniqueness... and I hope your first child is look more like his/her mother than look like you... kidding :P
  


• Deddy the deviationist -> hope you can go back to the right path... :P
  

Once again thank you for being like a family to me. I will tell you guys how awesome you are to my child and grandchildren... nah... you guys aren’t that good :P

Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
Richard Bach

Trip to memory lane of 2010

Since today is the first day of 2011, I would like to say my greetings to all of you: Happy new year!

Well, this time I would like to share a list of some achievement during the year 2010. Mostly were my 2010 resolution that nearly almost everything were achieved. And yes 2010 was really a great year for me :) Although everything didn't run very smooth... but that's life... shit happen hehehe :P

It is not a show-off list, but merely because I want to list all of the blessing that already given to me :) I guess this should be useful to make me thankful, especially when I was down. And hopefully it will help me out to stop complaining about anything... as mentioned by some of my friends :P

1. Passed the IELTS with band score more than I need :)
   


2. Car-driving license. Maybe for other "normal" people it is just a simple thing. For me, however, it is a great achievement because I had to experience horrible car accident which took both of my parents. The "trauma" was haunting me and discourage me for almost 6 years. But the year 2010 I finally can manage the trauma and get the car driving license :)
   


3. Mortgage.
   I can finally have enough saving to start getting a mortgage for a house. Although I have to pay the bill until the next decade :P and it is considered small... isn't located on the urban area... but I hope this should be a good investment :P
   


4. Opportunity to work in abroad :)
   End of this year... I got a new job offer which give me a chance to have a training in abroad. And it was scheduled for 4 months starting January 2011. To be honest I'm quite excited, but also sad, since I have to leave this awesome island, Bali :P But I guess sometimes we have to make sacrifice for something that we pursue :)
   

I guess that's all of list that I think it will craft some memory in my life :)
Once again happy new year 2011! Let it be a prosperous and joyful year to all of us :)

We never know... we can only do our best... and hope for the best...

Following to my last post... my mind was still juggling with something that related to the phrase: what goes around comes around.
Coincidentally, when I was watching a show during my trip to Thailand... the show also uses this karma or ripe and show thing for its theme...

In this opportunity I would like to share some of my thinking... which extend a bit further concerning to the idiom... and probably a bit out-side of the box ... :P
It is mentioned in my previous post that the ripe could be happening directly or in the future... our kids can ripe something what we sow....
Because of this, I believe that our act now is determining our descendant’s faith...
Since we couldn't determine when and where we're born also we never know what kind of family when we're born.
We could be born either in rich or poor family... we could be born in either harmonic or non harmonic family... we can be born in peaceful period or even during wars...

However, one thing for sure is that we have the opportunity to create what kind of family that we are going build... and this means that we take part of our children faith... because we are the one who take part to prepare what kind family where they are born in this world... :)

I also believe that this starts with choosing the right spouse to spend our life with... and let’s hope that we are not choosing and having the right person... since it’s not only for accompanying the rest of our life but also for our descendant...
We never know... we can only do our best... and hope for the best... :)

*what the hell on earth I’m writing such a thing?... maybe lack of sleep made me loosing myself a little bit... :P