The iBall Laser Precise
I finally got my iBall laser precise mouse !. I took it as a risk as I hadn’t read any reviews of it yet, But I’m a fully satisfied dude today, and I want anyone else who might be considering buying it to read this!.showstopp3r is also doing a post on this too!
First of all, given the adequate cash, all of us would like to buy Logitech g5’s or MX 518’s or Razer Diamondback’s…razer’s are not available at all here, and the Logitech’s cost an arm and a leg!(and possibly a kidney too). The choices for a precision mouse in the under 1k range is rather limited to the Microsoft wheel mouse optical. Not any more!
The iBall laser has a 1600 CPI sensor (CPI= Counts per Inch). First , I had my doubts about CPI, fearing that it might be something iBall cooked up to get to the glorious 1600 figure,(like the PMPO ratings we have on speakers)but found the mention of cpi in toms hardware saying that cpi is what actually matters! It’s also got six buttons, which includes a task hotkey and IE forward/backward (also assignable to other keys) buttons. The build quality of it is okay, but the mice feet don’t seem to be of terribly high quality, and the one of the feet of my old iBall had started to migrate a bit! I wish it had at least ONE LED! I was under the impression that being a laser mouse, there would be a cool laser thingy underneath etc…unfortunately all there was is a small hole and a “LASER” hologram. I know it’s just a gimmick, but I wish it had some bells and whistles :D
First of all, the mouse is NOT for lefties…the iBall website claims otherwise though! The feel of the mouse is great, with a matt grips t the sides and is very comfortable to hold. Plugging it into windows, my SP1 XP needed to install drivers before it was recognized as a mouse. The mouse utility was installed separately, and to me, seems more like a gimmick. The hotkey button makes a circular menu which has some apps and shortcuts on them. The only hitch is that they are PowerPoint …Word, etc….none of which I need to use THAT regularly. unfortunately, the app’s themselves could not be changed and I hated that menu…but it did remind me of the stuff I’d seen on some Logitech mice…also , the driver did not have the x-mouse style of scroll activation I used to have on my old iBall! So I uninstalled the v4.5 drivers and installed the v2.2 drivers (intended for the black cat) this cured it, and the fwd and rwd buttons were individually configurable... Only the hotkey on top became redundant, as the black cat didn’t have any! But it still does work as the middle mouse button which is nice, since the scroll wheel is a bit hard to press anyway. Also, the main buttons are a bit hard, but I guess use will loosen em up!
Using it was scary at first, it being very, very sensitive and adding to the fact that it was much lighter than a regular ball mouse, was like graduating from a Hindustan ambassador to a lancer EVO. I couldn’t even handle it! But gradually, I got the feel of it , and now I cant be without it! The buttons help a lot too; I browse and listen to music a lot. I set the back button to default and the fwd button to F9 and used that to set a QCD global hotkey! (I use QCD player instead of Winamp!) Now all I need is my mouse! And I don’t need to get QCD even. But it would have been nice if the drivers had allowed for the next track key to be assigned to that button (like a MM keyboard)
Actual game performance!
The testing of the mouse in CS was delegated to frantic. He opines that the sensitivity is good, and that he got headshots with lesser guns. Unfortunately for me, my CS performance seems to have gone down a few notches with this mouse (or maybe it was because I played CS after a Looooong TD on UT 2004!) but UT 2KK performance is simply awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the rocket launcher, which had been alien to me till now and had been at the bottom of my list went straight to the top and I learnt how to do the much famed “predictive rocketry” usually I play in average skill(heh he …yeah I’m a Noob)but with the new mouse, I got a 25/4 victory over a skilled bot in Idoma I was on a rampage first, going up to dominating!) I ought to try out adept next! First, I was unable to get the extra keys to work but found out that it was because I had left the driver utility running (lwbwheel.exe) end task it and you’re set to game! Remember to start it once you’re back in windows though! I had read that mice would make such a difference in skill, but never such a difference! Anyway, for gaming, this mouse rules! A minor bug (or should I say feature) is that this mouse tracks in the air!! Even up to about one inch in the air, the cursor will still move with your hand! With my habit of moving the mouse and picking it up, moving it again, learned on lower resolution mice, it seemed a minor irritant! But when I’ve got 1600 CPI, who cares!
The mouse is priced at 1990 MRP (yeah right!) and I got it at 875. At that price, it is terrific value for money. The iBall dealers seem to have them ready in stock, so you’ll get them soon! If you want to have a good mouse, but can’t spend K’s of rupees on one, this mouse is what I’d recommend.
posted by kickassso, 9:38 AM
Enhancer Settings
Enhancer is a Winamp DSP plugin which is far better than Winamp's own equalizer.To get the maximum out of any DSP, u need to tweak it to the max, for each song.
I am posting here, a setting which I found ideal for both Trance and Rock (its good to my ears atleast!).
Here we go!
posted by Erosimian, 10:58 PM
Amplifier Distortion!
With time on my hands and no other humans in the vicinity. I finally settled down to test my audio Rig…people test GPU’s, CPU’s so I thought …why not my amp?… why not push it to the limit. And got some interesting results. First of all, you need some heavy metal to help digest the distortion! Try listening to something which was recorded to sound like it was played with live acoustic instruments and human voices , and you’d end up crying.My audio system wasn’t integrated with its current shape in mind. Originally, it had bookshelf speakers as fronts, and sats all around, with 50 W for the fronts and 30 for the rest. Some last minute jockeying for the price and some floorstanders which my integrator was trying to dump let me get an 18K setup for 14!, with the catch being that I’d never be able to run it at full juice (at least for the speakers anyway).
Usually, I run it with the sub on full power and the rest on about quarter to half. even when my friends come over ‘cos the last time I tried it, I blew out a fuse:( Spades of bass is a good thing for handling Jazz and Country, but not trance or heavy Rock. So I decided to tilt the balance in favor of the fronts and turned down the sub to half. And I heard my main speakers distort for the first time .In fact, I saw the clip LED’s turn on!
Most of my friends say they like listening to trance and rock. But I’ve always had problems reconciling to that. Now I know why…DISTORTION!!
Rock especially demands a bit of distortion, and lesser systems and ALL ordinary pc speakers start distorting by the quarter mark. This adds to the sound which I had been missing .I had a hint of that when I took one of my CD’s downstairs to listen it on his Panasonic mini compo...Manson sounded way better at the minicompo pushing 70% power than in mine at the 10% I usually I run it at! I got the same sound out of mine at its three quarter mark, which was, I must add quite loud!
The answer to all this lies in distortion, and its mechanism. Tons of enthusiasts have raved about ‘valve’ sound and how much better it is when compared to transistor sound. Frankly, it’s just a measure of the distortion and more importantly, when and where it kicks in that is important. Valves (triodes, tetrodes, pentodes) etc have higher distortion levels at ordinary levels (2~5% is typical) but the thing is, distortion levels don’t increase much with greater power levels. even then, it is more due to even order harmonics (which are much more pleasant sounding than odd order harmonics).
Transistor Amps meanwhile give a slight distortion at minimum levels which decreases to almost negligible levels at the designed power level after which it rises Quite sharply. An amp which is rated at 100W RMS at .08% THD (total harmonic distortion) will manage 120 with as much as 10% distortion which is mainly due to power supply clipping and device non linearity.
And to compound their woes, most transistor amps are run in class B unlike valves which run in class A which gives better linearity
All said, I love transistor distortion! Who knows, in the future when digital amplification has taken over, there will be old timers like us vouching for how transistor sound is better than ‘Digital’ sound!
posted by kickassso, 10:18 PM