1. Don’t assume that SSD’s won’t/can’t fail.
2. When buying an SSD, check what controller it uses and then get on Google to see how many data recovery providers claim to support that controller; if you find one or less, buy something else.
3. Or even better, RAID and/or back up SSD’s just like you would HDD’s.
4. In the event of failure, an idle, unpowered SSD can retain its contents for a year or so at least with no degradation (YMMV/don’t test this on any data you care about!).
5. People will eventually figure out how to recover your data, if you give them enough money.
6. Making a filesystem dump of an old Windows install bootable again is probably easier now than it’s ever been.
7. Making an old Windows install (or installer) work with USB3.x and NVMe is nigh impossible.
8. With enough old hardware, several rounds of “musical SSD”, Windows 10 installation media, and sufficient masochism, it can be done.
9. Manually bootstrapping a GPT partition is also possible.
10. Not everyone is courteous enough to warn you when they suggest running commands that will immediately and irreversibly remove all partitions from a disk.
11. Windows no longer seems to care how many times you swap your install between completely different computers.
12. When USPS says “7-10 business days” what they really mean is “3-4 weeks, if you’re lucky”.

Anyhow, major props to ACE Data Recovery for figuring out how to restore data from dead Sandforce drives. And also to Recovery Force, for pointing me in their direction.

Normally scheduled programming of “mostly nothing much” should be resuming shortly.

And that’s all fine, but now I can finally do some quick tests and see for myself if the product lives up to the hype.

My point of comparison will be my old but still serviceable set of V-MODA Crossfades. I’m quite fond of this headset, and feel it does quite well on build quality, comfort, and sound quality/performance. The Crossfades (and their newer variants) retail for a fair bit less than a brand new Nuraphone, so it should be a reasonable if somewhat easy benchmark for the Nuraphones to surpass.

Unboxing
Below are some pictures. I don’t think anything further is required here.

Build Quality
The case that comes with the Nuraphones appears well designed and solidly built. It closes with a magnetic clasp, and has a little cubby inside for you to stash your cable (or cables, or other stashables, as the case may be). This appears to be made of the same black silicone/rubber material as the Nuraphone earcups, and attaches to the case using a magnet. So I guess you can swap in alternate color cable-cubbies, if you actually have any. Regardless, the case is quite nice.

The build quality on the headphones themselves seems fine. I don’t think they look quite as stylish as the Crossfades, but that’s pure subjective opinion. The ear cups also don’t notch into place as you adjust them up and down, so maybe it’s a bit easier for them to drift out of alignment than on the V-MODA headset, though I haven’t had any such issues so far.

The thing I’m least a fan of is the black silicone/rubber that’s used on the earcups and along the bottom edge of the headband. I’m a little concerned about how it will hold up over the long run. Or course, the leather accent and (super-comfy) memory-foam headband on the Crossfades is literally disintegrating on me at this point, so it’s not like they’ve got any advantage; even at a theoretical level.

Overall, the build quality is entirely reasonable. Doubly so for a v1 product fresh off kickstarter.

Setup/Calibration
I got to experience some mild panic when I took my freshly unboxed Nuraphones, connected them to their analog cable, and tried to play some music to establish a baseline level of performance. All I got was silence.

Long story short, it appears the headset arrived with a dead battery. I discovered this after switching to the USB-C cable, which allowed them to power on and tell me to charge them. After some time on the charger, it was fairly straightforward to pair them and set up a hearing profile in the app.

I found that my hearing profile was consistent across repeated calibrations (and when I had a second person try, they got a completely different profile that was also consistent across calibration attempts), and that I could get a better (and better-sounding) result by running the calibration process with as little ambient noise as possible. By which I mean turning off fans, air conditioners, whirring laptops, and other sources of background noise before running the calibration.

Apart from having to discover that the headphones needed to be charged via trial and error, the setup process was easy and straightforward. My hearing profile looks like this:

Test Tracks
I’ve selected a small sampling of test tracks, aiming to get a variety of styles and formats/bitrates under test.

Emptyself – The Open Landscape (FLAC/Lossless)
Fair to Midland – Tall Tales Taste Like Sour Grapes (MP3, 256kbps)
Jethro Tull – Up to Me (FLAC/Lossless)
Dead Letter Circus – The Mile (acoustic; MP3, 303kbps VBR)
Dead Letter Circus – The Mile (electric; MP3, 256 kbps)
Collective Soul – Shine (MP3, 128 kbps)
Live – Lakini’s Juice (FLAC/Lossless)
Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower (MP3, 207 kbps VBR)

I played through the above tracks first on the Nuraphones, jotting down anything that I felt was new or otherwise noteworthy. Then I repeated the sequence on the Crossfades, paying particular attention to whether or not the same details were discernible.

The goal is to see if (and how frequently) I can replicate other anecdotal reports of hearing completely new sounds (and instruments) when listening on the Nuraphones.

All playback was done using playlister, which does not apply its own EQ or any other effects/modifications to the audio.

General Observations
I won’t force anyone to wade through my detailed notes. Suffice to say, I found 31 “new or otherwise noteworthy” things during the pass with the Nuraphones. On the follow-up pass, I found 10 of those things were sounds that I could hear just as clearly on the Crossfades, 13 were sounds I could subtly or very subtly pick out only after I knew to listen for them, and 8 were sounds that I could not pick at all on the Crossfades despite deliberately listening for them.

Probably the best single example can be found in ‘Up to Me’. On the Nuraphones, it’s clear that there are bells sounding around the 1:20 and 1:50 marks; I’d never noticed this before. With the Crossfades, I can just barely pick out the earlier set of bells (they are far more subtle), and the latter set is almost entirely unnoticeable.

Also worth noting is that at 128 kbps, ‘Shine’ was basically unlistenable on both headsets. It sounded a bit better on the Crossfades (which doesn’t really count in their favor!), but had clearly lost too much detail to be of any value in this test.

In general, the Nuraphones have a broader dynamic range, clearer and more detailed sound, and far superior stereo separation than the Crossfades. I also found that I wasn’t feeling like I needed to increase the volume of the Nuraphones. Quite the contrary, in fact; I found that I could listen at lower volumes without losing any clarity on the audio. For me, this is literally a first!

On the Nuraphones, bass guitar is clear and discernible as being separate from a bass drum. Not so with the Crossfades.

Some aspects of operating the Nuraphones are a little strange. There’s a button on each side that can be programmed with a variety of functions. By default the left button toggles personalization on/off.

However, unless you’re connected via bluetooth, the buttons are nonfunctional. And you can’t connect via bluetooth while using any of the wired connection options. This limitation (not being able to use the button without an active bluetooth connection) seems quite bizarre and unnecessary. Although I find the buttons are very easy to accidentally trigger when adjusting the headset, so perhaps it’s for the best.

You also can’t just plug a fresh set of Nuraphones into a headphone jack and use them like a normal headset; you have to pair them and set up a profile before you can actually listen to anything on them. This is weird, although once you’ve done this you can plug the headphones into any audio source, with or without bluetooth active/enabled, and they’ll work as expected.

Since they won’t work without a charged internal battery, I wish the Nuraphones had a power/charge indicator LED on the headset so that I can easily tell, without a mobile phone or bluetooth, if I’m good to listen or if I need to leave them charging for a bit.

Isolation
The Nuraphones do a very solid job here. They’re not noise-cancelling, but that black silicone/rubber I complained about earlier absolutely excels at blocking external sounds and distractions.

If you’re in a noisy environment like an aircraft, you’ll probably still get some background sound bleeding through. But I’ve used the Crossfades while flying without any problems, and the Nuraphones definitely block out more background noise than the Crossfades.

I’ve also been informed that the Nuraphones don’t leak sound into the room, at least not at comfortable listening levels. Quite the opposite with the Crossfades.

Full marks to the Nuraphone for this category.

Comfort
Have to give the win to the V-MODA here. The Nuraphones aren’t bad, but the earcups do trap a fair bit of heat and the earbud-like tips do cause some mild fatigue after half an hour or so (and I’ve always avoided earbud-style headphones for this reason). It’s not really a level playing field, however, as the headset designs are completely different.

After trying some longer sessions, I’d say that the headset is comfortable enough. For me it’s strictly less comfortable than a purely over-the-ear design like the Crossfades, however.

Sound
In “Generic” mode, the Nuraphones are quite unimpressive. I’ve seen other people claim they’re deliberately unimpressive. I don’t know if that’s true, but to my ears it sounds like in ‘Generic’ mode the headphones are using only the earbud driver and leaving the second, larger driver switched off entirely. The best adjective to describe the sound would be “tinny”. Extremely, annoyingly, intolerably tinny.

But nobody buys a pair of Nuraphones for the ‘Generic’ mode. And in ‘Personalized’ mode they sound much, much better. The audio is smooth and clear, the stereo separation and sound-stage is excellent, the bass is convincing (turn the volume up a bit, and the headphones feel like they want to jump off your head), and there’s plenty of nuance and detail to be heard. I did notice sounds (and entire instruments, and backing vocalists) that I hadn’t noticed before, in any setting.

The difference between ‘Personalized’ mode and ‘Generic’ mode is like night and day. The difference between ‘Personalized’ mode and the Crossfades is less striking, but I’d still definitely give the nod to the (personalized) Nuraphones.

I think the Nuraphones really excel on more acoustic/instrumental tracks and when handling clear, cleanly sung vocals. Tracks with high production quality and lots of studio polish also tend to shine. Which isn’t to say they’re bad at with other genres/tracks; it’s more the difference between “very good” and “awe inspiring”. And lossless, yes, having lossless copies of your tracks is worth it with these headphones.

Overall
These headphones work as advertised and live up to the hype. If you’d consider dropping $400+ on a pair of headphones, the Nuraphone belongs on your list of options.

P.S.
The following link should be good for AU$100 (20%) off a set of Nuraphones, if you decide you want a pair of your own:

http://fbuy.me/hmVMQ

Full disclosure – if six people actually buy a pair of Nuraphones from the link above Nura will send me a free pair. Which I will promptly donate to someone who’ll appreciate them.

2026 Update: Unfortunately I think you can no longer get these

So after several days of research I decided that I’d order an Ultimaker 2, straight from the Netherlands. I very nearly got a Form 1+ as I think that stereolithography is a vastly superior approach when compared to FDM. Ultimately, however, I was left with too many reasons stacked up against the Form 1+ (and of course, the frequent positive reviews of the Ultimaker didn’t hurt, either):

• Multiple reports from early users showing poor printer accuracy.
• Smaller build volume compared to the Ultimaker (and most other 3d printers).
• A time-consuming, messy, and smelly finishing process.
• Proprietary design with no/few user-serviceable parts inside.
• Very costly resin.
• Shipping logistics and costs with getting the printer to Australia.
• A slightly higher base cost.

That first point was actually a huge issue for me (what good is a 3d printer if it can’t print, accurately, in 3d?). I even contacted FormLabs Support to see if perhaps the Form 1+ had solved the accuracy issues and what their official calibration tolerances were when shipping a printer. Unfortunately all they could tell me was that the Form 1+ would be “more accurate” than the Form 1, and that they did not yet have any formally established tolerances as far as printer accuracy is concerned. That’s just not good enough. So an Ultimaker 2 is was.

The printer arrived last week, and I’m fairly impressed with it so far. It’s very easy to use, and comes with everything you need to get started.

After walking through the calibration wizard that runs the first time the printer is powered on, my test print came out with some minor issues:

As you can see, half of the print looked pretty good, but the other half looked kind of melty. After asking around a bit I determined that this happened due to the geometry of the Ultimaker’s printhead and cooling assembly. The printer comes with a single extruder installed, and with space already allocated for installing a second extruder as a future upgrade. The two extruder nozzles are positioned to be installed side-by-side, in line with the cooling assembly. What this means is that the Ultimaker 2’s cooling setup is actually asymmetrical, with one fan being significantly closer to the extruder nozzle than the other. This causes uneven cooling, and melty-looking results on the side that has the cooling fan further away from the nozzle.

This may sound like a fairly serious issue, but it’s actually an easy problem to solve. I was able to eliminate the asymmetrical cooling problem by printing out a custom cooling assembly (freely available; I used the ‘V06′ design found here) and replacing the stock assembly with it. My next print showed an immediate improvement:

So…the 3d printer can 3d print its own upgrades, fixes, and replacement parts. Soon we’ll have 3d printers spitting out improved versions of themselves, and all the companies selling these devices will be out of business. In any case, with the improved cooling assembly installed I’ve had success printing many things, from cups (watertight, but not dishwasher safe), to rubbish bins (a cup that’s accidentally scaled up too much makes a rubbish bin), to annoying cube puzzles, to custom-designed modifications for the drone:

In general it’s quite easy to print things. It’s pretty much just load up the part in Cura, transfer to SD card, and go. Cura is fairly easy to use, although some of the more advanced options could use a bit more documentation. My only major complaint about Cura is that in my opinion it’s overly aggressive about automatically retriggering expensive computations (toolpath and model updates) and brings my laptop to its knees as a result. However, Cura is open-source, and with a few hours of tinkering I was able to create a patched version that disables the expensive computations until the user says it’s okay.

In the end, the only real issue I see with the printer comes back to the cooling problem that I encountered on the initial print. If the printer is going to ship with a single extruder installed, then the cooling assembly that ships with it should be optimized for use with a single extruder. The dual-extruder shroud could easily be included as part of the upgrade kit for installing the second extruder. Taking it even further, however, what I really think what Ultimaker should do is redesign the printhead assembly by rotating the extruder nozzle locations 90 degrees from their current positions. That would put them in-line with each other but perpendicular to the fans, making them equidistant from the cooling source. It would also allow the same cooling assembly to be used with both single- and dual-extruder setups. Perhaps this is something they’ll consider for the Ultimaker 3. Or the Ultimaker 2+, if they follow the naming conventions that other companies seem to be using.

So overall the Ultimaker 2 is shaping up to be a very capable machine that’s simple and straightforward to use. I still think stereolithography is how we’ll end up printing things in the future, but the Ultimaker has shown me that there’s actually quite a bit that can be done with FDM.

Oh, and the accuracy? It’s spot on, on all axes. If I tell it to print a 1cmx1cmx1cm cube, that’s exactly what I get. Interlocking parts with relatively small (~1mm) features can be printed with ease. So no issues there.

Overall score: 9.0 / 10.0.

• Intel BOXD510MO Motherboard with Integrated Atom D510 CPU
• 4 GB Kingston DDR2-800 Memory
• Corsair 60GB SSD
• Aywun MW-101 Case

Here’s a shot of everything unboxed and ready to be assembled:

And here’s one of the build with everything installed and ready to be shut away inside of the case:

All told the total cost of this build was just slightly under AU$400, including GST and shipping fees. Nearly half of this was allocated to the Corsair SSD, so a comparable build may be attainable for closer to $300 if you’re willing to settle for a traditional HDD. As this system was intended to do duty as a server box, however, I felt that the performance benefit provided by the SSD was more than worth the extra cost.

Anyways, the system being replaced by the Atom build is a retail Hewlett-Packard box that was purchased way back in 2001. It has the following specs:

• 1.3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 (no HyperThreading)
• 256 MB PC-800 (400MHz) RDRAM
• 40 GB Western Digital HDD (IDE)
• Stock motherboard, case, audio, etc.

This system is all but worthless today, but back in 2001 it retailed for close to $1100 (with bundled monitor and printer). In its defense this old P4 box delivered a solid decade’s worth of performance and proved itself to be entirely capable of running a number of different servers, albeit under very light workloads. But all things must come to an end, and it’s time for this dinosaur to be replaced.

So how does the Atom processor stack up against this 10-year-old beast? Here’s a screenshot from Super PI comparing the two (the Atom is on the left, and the P4 is on the right):

Now it’s worth noting that this is not and cannot be an apples-to-apples comparison between the two CPU’s, as all the other variables (RAM capacity and speed, disk architecture, etc.) have been changed as well. But I think Super PI probably does a fairly good job of isolating the CPU, and at the 1M setting the task should be small enough that the difference in RAM capacity between the two systems doesn’t come into play.

Assuming that to be the case, the Atom D510 makes a fairly strong showing for itself. It comes in at roughly 3 times faster than the 1.3 GHz P4, and since the Atom D510 is a dual-core CPU one should expect it to be up to 6 times faster under a well-threaded (i.e. server) workload. That’s quite an improvement over the old system, although it’s worth noting that my desktop system (an Intel Core 2 Quad based machine clocked at 3.5 GHz) can breeze through the same benchmark in just under 15 seconds. So by modern standards the Atom CPU is quite slow.

But sheer performance is only part of the story. The other reason why I opted for the Atom based server is the Atom platform’s low power consumption. If I wanted the fastest server possible I could simply use my desktop for the task, and leave it running 24/7. And then I would cringe every time my utility bill was due. With the Atom my goal was to attain reasonable performance using as little power as possible, and after looking at the numbers I can only conclude that it delivers as advertised.

Using a Kill-A-Watt device I measured the power consumption of each system at the wall, and worked out that the 10-year-old P4 system draws 90 watts of power while sitting idle, and around 110 watts under full CPU load. The Atom system, on the other hand, weighs in at 17 watts while idle, and a massive 21 watts under full CPU load.

So 6 times the performance, for less than 1/5th the power consumption (and before I forget, the Atom system is virtually silent as well). With those numbers the Atom system starts to look like 100% win. I can run one box and get much better performance than the old system could deliver at a fraction of the energy consumption, or I could use the same amount of power to run a cluster of 5 Atom servers for 30 times the performance.

But in any case, that’s my Atom server build, and overall I’m quite pleased with the results. The Atom D510 provides a nice bump in speed over the (admittedly decrepit) server box that it replaced, while also using much less power. If you need a cheap, basic, quiet server box for low-volume workloads then an Atom-based solution is an option worth considering.