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Monday, July 5, 2010

Oh, get to f...

9:53 PM / Technology / No Comments

Well, I got less than twenty-four hours' usage out of my new headphones before they started malfunctioning. I'm starting to think I'm cursed.

I spent most of yesterday playing DRAGON AGE: AWAKENING (it's a lot of fun, provided you don't mind more of the same) and trying out various movies with the Roccat Kave headphones. I was, on the whole, pretty impressed by the quality and the spatialisation, even if it wasn't a patch on a dedicated 5.1 setup. (My main reason for buying a pair of 5.1 speakers is that my brother does a lot of work in the same room as me and often needs me to turn down my volume so he can concentrate. Otherwise, I'd just use my speakers all the time.)

This morning, however, when I popped them on, I was treated to noticeable crackling and popping. At first I thought my sound card was the culprit, and I tried everything I could think of to eliminate the problem, including disabling it and re-enabling the on-board card. Eventually, I started pulling out the various jacks, one at a time, to see whether only a certain channel was affected. It was only when I pulled out all three jacks at once that I realised the problem persisted even when there was no connection between the headphones and the sound card. The Roccat Kaves use a USB connection for power, and it was only when I unplugged that (i.e. cutting off power completely) that the crackling subsided. A quick Google search revealed that I am not alone in experiencing this problem with these headphones. Because of that, I'll be returning them for a refund rather than a replacement.

Happy birthday to me.

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