Just going out for a stroll

[Fretless]

The present situation of lockdowns and a (total) lack of customers means that I have time on my hands and can get out for a breath of fresh air and a wander around the village or a favourite nature-spot, Sometimes I enjoy the chatter of birds and the sounds of the wind and sometimes it's fun to have music as a soundtrack.

As a gear-freak, I have an assortment of old MP3 players and headphones accumulated over the last 20 years and have dug out a few bits and pieces to see if they a) still worked, and b) sounded any good for mobile listening. And a couple of fun things have (re)surfaced.



Sandisk Sansa E280v2:
I had several players from Sandisk - a well-known storage chip manufacturer. From their early-2000's E200 series I still have the E280v2 which has 8Gb of internal storage and a slot for a microSD card. Firing this up again, I was surprised to find it still operational and the battery seems to be in quite good nick. Unfortunately the standard firmware is only designed to play MP3 or WMA files - which was quite normal back then.
However I remembered messing around with some alternative operating software called RockBox which could be applied to a wide range of portable music players and had more extensive capabilities. And that is still available, for free.
Installation isn't too hard and RockBox is a great system offering better SQ, a wide range of codec support and even comes with a selection of simple games. Cool!
Chucked a bunch of WAV files onto a 32Gb card (needs to be FAT32 formatted) and away we go. But what about headphones?


From the primitive era of pre-digital cassette-Walkman listening, one design has stood the test of time - originally marketed in 1984 and still available today - The Koss PortaPro headphone.



Amongst all portable headphones this remains a classic. Great sound for such a small driver with a full and non-fatiguing character, plenty of detail and solid bass. It clamps lightly to the head and doesn't slip under normal circumstances.
Only trouble is that the foam earpads had completely perished so, for now, I've grabbed a couple of pads from a similarly-sized AKG pair and have ordered a replacement set from Japanese brand YAXI - who claim that their pads improve the PortaPro's sonic performance. We'll see.

This combo of Sansa/Rockbox and PortaPro does sound terrific and will make my strolls far more fun, I'm sure.






A note about another neglected player - the Sansa Fuze:



Released as the successor to the E200, the Fuze was smaller, had better sound and could play a wider range of formats. I wore out 2 of these and one was still lying around. However the back of the player is rubberized and that had begun to perish, becoming unpleasantly sticky and rendering it unuseable. Pity, as this could also be RockBoxed and was a fine little MP3 player.

[BadgerBeerIsBest]

unpleasantly sticky and rendering it unuseable.

Hang on that rings a bell, I have come across this before!

Had the same thing happen to a Cyrus Remote that had been in the loft for a few years, I used a solvent uPVC cleaner from Toolstation /Screwfix to bring it back to new.

Thought for a minute when I saw the title of you post that Covid had all become too much and you were doing that Scott's doomed South Pole expedition thing.

[Andy-831]

Yeah that sticky rubber coating thing is a real pain, I have two Squeeze box touch remotes that are both unusable and I notice the Cambridge CXC remote I have has also started to go the same way.

[Fretless]

The YAXI earpads came in over the weekend and I road-tested them with a wander down to the river and back
They do seem to have an effect on the sound of the PortaPro headphones; richer and fuller with sharper in-the-head placement and a wider soundstage.

Also compared them against a set of original series Grado SR80's and was not disappointed, the Grado's are renowned for their punch and crystalline imaging but the tweaked Koss set stood its ground and sounded very competent for the measly asking-price of about 30 quid plus a tenner for the earpads.

[Ithilstone]

Yeap YAXI pads are really good for PortaPRO


btw

However the back of the player is rubberized and that had begun to perish, becoming unpleasantly sticky and rendering it unuseable. Pity, as this could also be RockBoxed and was a fine little MP3 player.

can that rubber layer be removed and exposed surface sprayed with plasti dip? ;]

[Fretless]

Could try carefully scraping it off.

Maybe spraying over the rubber will sort it out. I have a can of Plastidip somewhere.

[TheMadMick]

btw

However the back of the player is rubberized and that had begun to perish, becoming unpleasantly sticky and rendering it unuseable. Pity, as this could also be RockBoxed and was a fine little MP3 player.

can that rubber layer be removed and exposed surface sprayed with plasti dip? ;]
[/quote]

I had a similar experience with the Blusound Vault. When I out it to the dealer (Doug Brady) as unacceptable and a design flaw they fobbed me off the :"out of warranty". That's my last time to Warrington. The "rubber" came off far to easily - so there!!!