Another Look at the Edirol R-09HR
I had the good fortune to use the Edirol R-09HR wav/mp3 recorder for some time (firmware 2.0). Of course this machine has been reviewed earlier so i will not repeat the previous conclusions but i have some interesting findings that i did not read about before. First the volume of the built in speaker is low. Putting the volume at 100 does not really make it better. You have to put the speaker against your ear to hear anything. Headphones on the other hand can be set very loud. So don’t expect to fill the room with sound with this speaker. You have to find some amplified speakers to do that.
When you change the batteries some of the settings resetted themselves, at least on my machine. The file naming was reset to the default instead of the date as the filename. But the second time i changed the battery my settings were preserved. Strange but since i did not use the machine for some time, the internal? battery or capacitor ran out of power? But i could be wrong.The first time i started using the recorder i had to set the time. The second time when chancing the batteries i was not asked to set the time.
The remote control worked nicely, but i got some problems with the reception. Earlier (in some review video during a convention) it was mentioned this remote worked by radio. Well it does not. It used a infrared LED. So you really need a good line of sight to control the recorder from a distance.
Lastly this recorder can not stand “up”. The bottom is too rounded and the recorder will fall over when you try to set it upright. Too bad, but that’s probably why Roland is selling this thing.
Overal i am very impressed with the responsiveness, menu usability and built quality. It is worth each and every penny.
Western Digital’s Smartware is unremovable
I have been selling media for some time now which is stored on a hard drive. I was using Western Digital’s Passport serie hard drives because they are small, look nice and i never had problems with them. This week (6 oct 09) i bought another drive. It was the latest model (500 GB, model WDBAAA500AWT-EESN).
When i plugged it in (windows) for the first time two screens popped up. One screen was the “cannot find a driver” -screen. And they other was the “Smartware screen”. And in the windows explorer screen 2! new devices were installed. The hard drive itself and a new CD drive…???. After some digging around i found out that this “Smartware” automatically installs the CD drive everytime! you plug it into your computer. And it is NOT REMOVABLE!!! Shame on you Western Digital 
So since i cant remove this annoying smartware i cannot use the drive… Thanks WD….. Goodbye WD…
So be warned and buy the older models!!!!!
Read some more :
A Harinam Contraption for the Megavox
How about this? Carrying the Megavox, or any other portable soundset, with an internal battery will always be troublesome due to its weight. Especially long harinams or Ratha Yatras take a toll on the carrier of the sound set. You could put the sound set on a wheeled cart, or in my case on your back to make it more comfortable. I still haven’t decided what is a more convenient; a cart or a back carrier…
But i set out to mount the sound set on the back. I needed a sturdy rucksack or something else to serve as a basis. I decided that a baby carrier (with a metal racking) would be the best for my purposes. I bought a second hand baby carrier (Hema Rugdrager) and took it apart so i was left with only the backside. Sorry for the baby 
The Ingredients
- 1 Megavox or any sound set (35 mm hole)
- 1 baby carrier
- 35 mm tubing
- 1 extra 12V lead-gel batterij
- wiring, switch + plugs
- nuts & bolts and metal plates
- two creative hands and lots of tools
Creating the contraption
The Megavox has a standard speaker mount hole of 35 mm, so i needed a tube of 35 mm to mount on the baby carrier. I found this in a local vacuum cleaner shop. They sell tubing of 35 mm width and 500mm long. I bought 2 pieces that fitted together and attached it to the baby carrier. Since the tubing would need to hold the weight of the megavox (6.9 kg incl battery) i made sure it was connected securely. The bottom end rests on the baby carrier and is secured by a bolt. The upper part was fixed with one large bolt and a metal screw. The tube was fixed in a slight angle compared to the baby carrier. In that way the weight will be properly balanced when the sound set is mounted on top. (Something that proved to be very necessary!).
On the bottom of the baby carrier i fixed a metal plate. On top of this “platform” will be the battery compartment mounted. The Megavox has an internal battery, but i decided to take it out to decrease the weight and to stabilize the contraption. I’m adding also a 2nd battery to increase the playing time, and this battery does not fit in the megavox. The weight of both batteries (3+ kg) will be a counterweight to the megavox on top. From some scrap metal i made a metal housing for the batteries and mounted a battery switch. Electric wiring was put inside the tube up to the megavox. Here you can see the wires from the tube and from the megavox. I did not drill a hole in the megavox. When the screws from the metal battery retainer are removed (see our battery replacement article) you can use these holes for the wiring.
I removed the internal battery from the megavox. To keep all the wires original and intact i connected the extra wire to the internal battery wire as you can see from the photos. This extra wire leads outside of the megavox and has a plug to connect to the carrier down to the battery compartment. Since i did not change any of the original wiring i can charge both batteries simply by using the battery switch. When i don’t use the carrier i can reinstall the internal battery and remove the extra wiring easily to restore it. In that way i don’t mess with the 6-year warranty that comes with the megavox.
The first time i put on the carrier i still had the internal battery inside the megavox. It was very unstable and i tended to tumble over with the megavox. Since the megavox is mounted on the tube using only the speaker stand mount hole i was afraid that it might pop out. So i secured the megavox with a big bolt. For this i needed to drill a hole in the base of the megavox. This is the only adjustment i had to make. I don’t think it will void the warranty.
After the first try i decided to take the internal battery out. With the batteries on the bottom of the carrier the contraption was more stable. The carrier needs to be strapped tightly around the waists and upper back to improve the stability. The whole weight will be held by the waists, as it should, so your back will be spared. After tightening it to my back i tried it again. It has quite some weight but i think it will OK. Although it looks quite silly i think it will serve its purpose on queensday. I don’t think this is suited for a smaller harinam! The megavox might also be too loud for that. We don’t want the police to stop us!
Field tests @ Queensday harinam
During Queensday i had the opportunity to test my contraption. As you can see from the photos the contraption worked very well. I discovered a design flaw. The battery switch is mounted on the outside of the casing. So a few smart people pushed the switch to turn the sound off. So next time i will remove the switch or cover it properly. Secondly some drunk guy try to stop me during harinam. He grabbed the contraption by the metal tubing. I must say that he could have easily pulled me down to the street since the contraption is already heavy (around 12 kg). So better not be around angry and drunk people
I walked around with this thing for 3-4 hours and it was a heavy toll on my back. Be sure to share the burden and ask others to also carry it around for some time. The following three days i had some serious back problems. But then again, i am quite a thin guy.
And also be sure to wear earplugs!!!! The megavox is very close to your poor ears..
The Harinam Sound @ Dublin Ratha Yatra – 13 sep 2009
I was happy to attend the Ratha Yatra Festival in Dublin last sunday the 13th of Sep. I visited Dublin for a “tourist” tour and was suprised to find out a Ratha Yatra was planned. Amazing mercy from Krishna. The Ratha Yatra Festival in Dublin starts at Parnell Square and ends at the Park @ Stephens Green. The festival was wonderful with Mahavisnu Swami and many others. I made some photos, particulary from the soundsystem they used. The sound was not placed on the festival cart but was placed on a stroller. It was running on a 12V big battery. They used a 12V – 220 V converter to power a powered speaker and probably a wireless system. The singer was using a wireless headset so i presumed it was also mounted on the stroller.
Overall it looked like a nice contraption. The sound was clear but since it was mounted on a cart and very close to the ground the sound did not travel far. The music party moved sometimes quite far from the cart and then you could not hear the chanting anymore. Also people who were pulling the cart were not singing that much because of that. I suggest that the Dublin Rath organization could place the sound system on top of the cart in the future. In that way everybody can hear the chanting and will sing along. The big cart has enough place to store the soundsystem so that is no obstacle. Or they might consider buying the Megavox portable sound system!!!
Cannot find us???
Looking for us? That’s right…. I can’t either……
www.krishnageeks.com or krishnageeks.com. They both dont work anymore. Not that it matters a lot because not many visit this site. But now my links in Google are not redirected properly. Bummer. But good news. I am messing around with the DNS settings so it should be fixed in the coming 24 hours. Take care till then.
