Etekcity Kitchen Scales

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very good kitchen scales

The manufacturer sent me these scales for review and I think they are excellent. I use kitchen scales a lot so I want something really good, and these fit the bill.

The scales look very stylish and they are also extremely good in use which is the critical thing for me. They seem very robust and should stand up to the knocks, scrapes and drops of frequent kitchen use.  They sit solidly on non-slip feet and have a good sized weighing surface (about 22cm x 19cm). The surface is brushed stainless steel, covered with a very tough, clear plastic layer, so the surface doesn't get smeared with fingerprints and so on and is extremely easy to clean. The display is backlit, large and very easy to read and the control buttons are convenient and easy to use.

The scales have four units: grammes, ounces, fl. oz. and ml.  (Personally, I never fl. oz. and ml, but others may find them useful.)  I have tested them and they are accurate to 1g or 0.1oz and have a tare (or zero) function so you can reset to zero once your container is on the scales and just weigh the contents as you add them. They use 3 x AAA batteries which are supplied and are easy to get when you need replacements. 

I'm very pleased with these scales. They are well made, they look very good and they work very well.  At just over ten quid at the time of writing I think they are excellent value, too, and I can recommend these very warmly.

Amazon page HERE

Etekcity 4-way power strip with USB ports

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A good quality power strip

This power strip was sent to me for review: it is very good.

It comes very nicely boxed and has an instruction booklet, which is largely redundant because all you have to do is plug it in, turn it on and use it.  There's not a great deal to say about a power strip, but the two important things are that it seems very robustly made so it should last well and that it is nicely designed.  It is slim and discreet, and very easy to use.  There is a single on/off switch, so the four sockets are not individually switched, but it does have surge protection.

The four USB charging ports are grouped at one end, which is a design I like.  Some other strips I have tried have the ports in parallel with the power sockets, so plugging in a larger power unit sometimes blocks a USB port.  The ports work just fine on my devices; they are rated up to 2.4A and automatically charge your device at the appropriate rate.

That's it, really.  It's a well made, well designed power strip which does the job it's made for and I can recommend it.

Amazon page HERE

Reshow car cassette adaptor

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good adaptor

I was sent this adaptor for review and so far it has been good.  A car cassette adaptor is a pretty niche item these days, but I still have an elderly and much-loved car with a cassette deck.  I have used FM transmitters to connect my phone or mp3 player to the radio but there are so many pirates as I drive around that the connection is pretty unreliable so an adaptor like this is very handy.  This one works well; it's dead simple to use and gives reasonable sound.

The adaptor comes simply packed and with a basic guide – but you don't need much.  You just push the adaptor into the cassette player, plug the jack into the headphone socket of your music source and the music will emerge from your car stereo.  You can move the output lead to emerge from the body of the adaptor in various positions, so it should fit pretty well all car cassette players and it seems solidly made.

The sound is pretty good. I find the level quite low, but boosting the volume of both source and car stereo gives decent volume.  It's not as bright as it might be on the trebles – but that may just be my cassette player, which is not in the first flush of youth.

Overall, this is a very decent item which is reasonably priced and well made.  I will update this review if I have any problems with durability, but I'm not expecting any and if you need a car cassette adaptor, I can recommend this one.

Amazon page HERE

Zeskit silver-plated copper 3.5mm jack-to-jack cable

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very good quality cables

Zeskit kindly sent me a couple of these cables for review.  I think they are very good; the materials are high-quality and they are well made.

The cables are nicely presented in a smart box (which may be slight overkill for a headphone cable) and look very nice themselves.  The straight plug is very nicely finished in whichever colour you chose; I have silver and dark grey which both look very smart. It has a step-shape which enables it to fit a lot of socket designs.  The right-angle plug is robust plain black plastic.  Both plugs have a very solid feel with good strain relief and gold plating on the contacts and they slide very nicely into and out of all the sockets I have tried.  The cable is sheathed in a ridged plastic which is nicely flexible and doesn't tangle much and which has very little friction noise when in use.

Whether these cables will transform the sound of your headphones is debatable; I have used them to connect my Hifiman Supermini player to Cleer DJ High-Definition headphones, which is a pretty good quality combination.  The cables certainly do a very good job, but I can't really say that they improve the sound massively - they are probably more a part of a sort of Dave Brailsford package of "aggregation of marginal gains."  However, they are very good quality cables which will certainly do a good job and should last very well.  Recommended.

Amazon page HERE

Lasmex H120 headphones

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good headphones with some limitations

I was sent these headphones for review and I think they are very good. They are well made, they have a distinctive style and very good sound in many types of music.  I think Lasmex C45 headphones are probably the best I've ever heard at under thirty quid, and these perform well at a higher level, too.

The H120 come beautifully boxed and are plainly a quality product. There is a very nice carry-case and two leads; one plain lead and one for connection to phones with a microphone and simple button control.  There is also a decent user manual, although there's no guidance on using the phone controls.  As the instructions seem to be pretty much "Press to receive and press again to hang up" this isn't a big problem.

The headphones are well made. They are quite weighty and have solid metal earcups with a nice style and a very highly polished finish (which does collect finger marks very easily, I find). The padding is very good and I have found them comfortable for several hours use. They grip well and seem to be made to accommodate a pretty large head, which is welcome.  They fold neatly and have a robust feel to them.

Connection is wired only, which suits me just fine and means that the makers' focus has been on sound production.  They have done a good job on this; I test a lot of headphones and these have a fine depth of tone and a very strong, rounded bass. They perhaps lack a little precision in articulation at the top as a result, but the overall sound, especially in modern music is very pleasing. Tops are bright and distinct, middles sound lovely and rich and the bass is strong and very deep. 

I have listened to a lot of music through these headphones, including my Test Tracks list, which gives all aspects of the sound a thorough trial. It starts with 16th Century choral music and ends with London Grammar.  I found rock and modern music in general sounded great: punchy, clear and with a real bass kick – and the really deep bass in tracks like London Grammar's Hey Now or Never Ending Circles by Churches comes over really well.  Acoustic music is pretty good and has a fair amount of space and air in it.  Classical didn’t do so well, though.  The very dominant bass can sound a bit boomy in the lower strings (really noticeable in the Karelia Suite, for example) and chamber music is clearer but can sound a bit unbalanced with an overbearing cello.

Whether these headphones will suit you will depend on your listening.  For wider listening, and especially classical, they may be a bit bass-heavy.  For more balanced sound in a similar price range I prefer Cleer DU (which I think are outstanding), Brainwavz HM5 or Noontec Hammo 2.  Sound is a very personal thing, though, and there's no doubt that these are very good headphones.  I have given them four stars because of their performance on some of my preferred music, but if you want headphones for modern music and like a good kick in the bass, I think you'll find Lasmex H120 excellent.

Homdox Steel 30l waste bin

Rating: 3/5

Review:
OK, but not the best quality

This bin was sent to me for review.  It's not bad, but it's less well-made than I had hoped.

The bin arrived in no fewer than three cardboard boxes, one inside the other.  In spite of this, there were a couple of dents in it which I'm not impressed with.  There is a permanent dent in the lid which doesn't look great, and a large dent in the body of the bin.  This one was easy to push out – which gives you an idea of the thinness of the steel.  Compared to, say, a Brabantia bin it's really quite flimsy which may not matter much in normal use, but isn't confidence inspiring.

It looks nice (dents notwithstanding).  The steel has a good brushed finish (not polished as stated on this page) and it's nicely proportioned.  The pedal mechanism is OK but a bit stiff; the lid opens fairly easily but well short of vertical.  Also I'd expect a pedal to be fairly flat but this one sticks up at a rather alarmingly priapic angle.  This isn’t a problem as such, but it's not what I'd expect.  The lifting handle on the hinge is solid enough, but it's twisted; again, not really a problem in use, but I'd expect better.

The inner plastic bin is very solid, with a capacity of about 30l.  However, it is not perfectly round so it has to be positioned very exactly or the lid doesn't close properly.  Even then I sometimes have to give it a tap to close fully, and the inner bin's imperfect shape makes it a little difficult to fit a liner so that it doesn't show too much.  The lid doesn't fit quite true all the way round, with a bit of an overhang toward the back, which doesn't show much but doesn't suggest real quality in the build.

So…it's OK, but not the greatest bin in the world.  It is cheaper than bigger-brand bins, but the difference in quality is pretty evident.  That said, it looks good in the kitchen and does the job fairly well.  I wanted a second bin for recyclable waste and this seems OK for that.  I will edit this review if I have any durability problems after using it for a while; for now I'd say it's adequate but it may be worth paying a little more for better quality. 

Amazon page HERE

Electronic Mall CD/DVD drive

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Not compatible with Windows 10?

I was sent this CD/DVD drive for review, but it won't work with my Windows 10 laptop or notebook.  I contacted the distributor who sent me a replacement – with the same result: it simply doesn't register in File Explorer.  I have contacted them again, but have received no response this time.

Although it says on this page that it is compatible with Windows 10, on the box the compatibility list only goes as far as Windows 8, and I suspect that this is simply not supported by Windows 10, making it useless for many, many people.  It may possibly work on older versions of Windows or with other OS, but if you have Windows 10 don't buy this!

Amazon Page HERE