Moondrop Space Travel 2 Earbuds mini review

Following on from my review of the G10 Wireless VR Earbuds, another pair of bluetooth in-ear headphones I saw as being recommended for low latency were the Moondrop Space Travel earbuds. Seeing they had a version 2 out, and they were priced about the same as the version 1, I thought I might as well get the version 2 (Ali Express affiliate link).

There is no way to force them into pairing mode, rather when you disonnect a device they will automatically go into pairing mode. Or if you remove them from the case and there is no previously paired device around for them to automatically connect to, they will go into pairing mode.

By default they are in 'Music' mode, which is not low latency. You have to quickly tap one of the earbuds 4 times and it will then change to 'Game' mode (tap 4 times again to back to Music mode). This can be a bit tricky as you do need to tap pretty quickly and it doesn't always seem to register all 4 taps. But overall it's not really a problem.

In game mode the latency does seem good and watching videos of people talking I see no sync issues. In music mode the latency is not so good.

Although I didn't see it advertised, you can actually also have the earbuds connected to multiple devices. You need to install the Moondrop app on your phone, and connect the earbuds (audio) to your phone. Open the app and it should then see and be able to connect to the earbuds. On the device page in the app for the earbuds, you go to Function Settings and then tap the > arrow. Here you can enable 'Dual device connection'. It gives you a warning that depending on your radio environment this might not be very reliable and you may get frequent hitches and disconnects. But I've found it to pretty good so far.

After enabling dual connection you connect the earbuds to 2 devices (note you must have already paired the earbuds with the second device, you cannot pair while already connected to a device). Then starting to play audio on a device will automatically switch the audio stream to that device. So there is no preference, like first comnnected device takes precendent, it is just whichever the latest device is to start sending an audio stream that the earbuds will stream.

I can't really comment on anything else with these yet, but the standard eartips they come with seem to fit my ears nicely. Sound quality seems decent. They claim to be Bluetooth 6.0 but I don't have any Bluetooth 6 devices to connect them to, nor know what difference, if any, that would make.

I couldn't find a manual online for them, but there clearly does exist a digital copy of it as you can open it in the app. The Space Travel 1 manual is available to download online, and it is basically the same as the version 2 manual anyway, there are no differences in the features or operations between the version 1 and 2 manuals.

Box front

Box rear

Headphones in charging case

USB-C port on bottom of charging case

Earbuds

G10 Wireless VR Earbuds from AliExpress mini review

Please note this post contains affiliate links.

Recently I purchased some G10 Wireless VR Earbuds from AliExpress. They are a knock-off of the Soundcore VR P10, though I don't think I really realised this at the time I was ordering them. While they have the same design (and I assume the same features) as the Soundcore VR P10, neither the G10 VR product page or the product packaging claim them to be Soundcore earbuds. So they are a knock-off, not fake.

There are two main reasons I purchased these:

• They are advertised as being low latency. Most bluetooth headphones have bad latency so that when you watch video of someone talking, the sound and the video aren't synced, which I find very distracting.
• You are meant to be able to connect them via bluetooth and a separate USB-C 2.4G dongle and switch between the two. For me this would be very useful for switching between my Mac and PC - I could have them connected to one via bluetooth and the other via 2.4G dongle.

However, upon testing them, the latency with a bluetooth connection is still quite bad. With the 2.4G connection the latency is good. I tried the bluetooth connection with my PC (Ugreen 35058 USB adapter, Bluetooth 5.4), Windows laptop (Qualcomm QCA9377 chip, Bluetooth 5.0), Phone (Google Tensor G4 chip, Bluetooth 5.3), and Apple laptop (M4 chip, Bluetooth 5.3) and all had quite noticable latency.

The switching between bluetooth and 2.4G does seem to work okay. If you have one device connected via bluetooth and the other via the 2.4G dongle, both playing audio at the same time, it will prefer the bluetooth connection. When audio is only playing on one device, then it will just switch to whichever device it is that is playing audio. The switch is not instant, but it is only a couple of seconds, which is perfectly fine in my opinion.

Connecting the earbuds to a device via bluetooth requires the case. With the earbuds in the case you press the bluetooth pairing button on the bottom of the case for 3s to get them to go into pairing mode. Once paired it seems hit or miss as to whether you can re-connect them to a device outside the case or need to put them in the case. I did not have to completely forget and then re-pair them from scratch at all though.

I couldn't find a downloadable copy of the manual, so I have scanned in the English pages, which you can download here: G10 Wireless VR Earbuds manual.

Due to the bluetooth latency issue, I am not sure if I will use these headphones that much. So I'm not able to give a full review of them (at least at the moment).

They do seem to fit my ears fairly well, but I can't say how well they'd stay in if going for a jog, for example.

The touch controls on the earbuds worked fairly well, but not perfectly. Sometimes I would double tap to skip back or forward, and it would treat it as a single tap, pausing the music instead.

Sound quality seems fine.

Volume adjustment speed I think is a good balance between being too slow too to adjust and too fast to adjust to an accurate level.

Reliability over time, battery life, and charging speed I can't currently make any comment on at all.

To sum up, if you want Bluetooth soundbuds with low latency, avoid the G10 Wireless VR Earbuds. If you want 2.4G soundbuds with low latency (possibly all 2.4G headphones have low latency?) then they seem fine.

Box

Box

Open box with manual

Soundbuds and 2.4G USB-C transmitter in the charging case

The G10 Wireless VR Earbuds

Bottom of the case with the bluetooth button around the centre, but nearer the back where the USB-C charging port is

The USB-C 2.4G dongle, with a female USB-C on one side to allow for pass-through charging of whatever you've connected it to

120mm quiet fan mod for MikroTik CRS312-4C+8XG Cloud Router Switch

Fan mods for the MikroTik CRS312-4C+8XG Cloud Router Switch are quite popular, generally this is just swapping out the stock 40mm fans for Noctua 40mm fans. However, these fans are quite expensive as you need 4, and my understanding is that although they are much quieter than the stock fans, they are still a bit noisy.

The simple fact is that the smaller fan, the faster it must spin to push the same amount of air as a larger fan. And the faster it must spin, the noisier it will be. So the solution to get the switch as quiet as possible is to fit fans as large as possible.

If you want to rack mount the switch with something else directly above it, then unfortunately you can't do much better than the 40mm fans. But if you have some space around the switch, you can remove the lid and fit a couple of 120mm fans to keep it cool.

For my mod I just used a piece of corrugated cardboard as the new lid, so my mod is fully reversible. If you aren't averse to cutting the metal lid, you could possibly find some low profile fans that you could screw into the metal lid - my standard size fans have to stick out slightly above the lid of the switch.

Ideally you'd also use fans in a pull orientation, to suck in air past the components and then expell the hot air. I think this should work slightly better than my configuration of push orientation, blowing cool air onto the components. It's not just a case of flipping the fan to change the orientation as you want the 'guard' piece of the fan shroud pointing down against the components so the fan can rest on them without them sticking up into the fan blades or rubbing against the hub. But reverse fans aren't that common.

The top / left fan has space around it, and is just kept in place by the cardboard lid.

The second / middle fan you can wedge between the SPF port shielding and the back of the switch. On the right you will need to remove part of the fan shround to allow it to fit down around the 4 pin power connector.

When inserting the fan you will also need to ensure you allow the power cables to run through the shroud rather than trapping them below or above the fan.

Because we're only fitting 2 fans when the switch normally has 4 fans, you'll need to unplug all four 40mm fans if you want the switch to be quiet. This will then make the switch think the two unplugged fans have died and show an error light on the front. If you find this annoying (I do), you can fit fan simulators on the two unused fan headers.

You'll need to make sure you get very low profile ones as the headers are below where the 120mm fans sit. Taller fan simulators would collide with the fan blades. I originally purchased two of the small fan simulators pictured below, but these have since both died and have now been replaced by ones that have a short flexible lead between the header plug and the simulator PCB.

The fan cables I just cable tied to the holes where the previous small fans were located.

The 120mm fans only have to spin at a very low speed to keep the switch cool enough. (The fan simulators show a very high RPM).

PSP Mic not working fix

When in Japan I bought a copy of the "Talkman English for Kids!" PSP game. However, on testing it once I got home I found that while the game worked on my English PSP, the voice detection part of the game was not working. After looking into this, it turns out that the PSP does not have a built-in mic, but you need a separate accessory mic that plugs into the top of the PSP.

So I purchased the "Talkman" PSP game, which includes the USB mic in the package. The mic just plugs into the mini USB socket on top of the PSP. But on testing it, this wasn't working either. It seems that for some reason the mic draws power from the gold contacts either side of the USB connector rather than just using USB power.

The contacts on my PSP looked pretty dirty, so I thought I'd document how I cleaned them here as they are too small to clean with something like a cottonbud. I broke a cocktail stick in half, then dipped the broken end into Isopropyl alcohol. I then pushed the broken end of the cocktail stick into the hole where the contact is located. This is a pretty tight fit.

I then moved the cocktail stick back and forth and twisted it round to try and scrub the contact clean. Repeat with the other contact. If your contacts are pretty dirty like mine, you can then repeat the process with the other half of the cocktail stick until you hopefully have both contacts fairly clean.

After doing this, the mic works fine.

Cheap Ali Express relegendable keycaps as replacement for Tipro MID keycaps

I have a Tipro POS keyboard that has relegndable keycaps, but the majority of the keycaps on it are missing the top clear plastic bit that clips onto the keycap. Unfortunately, it seems these tops are not available to purchase. You may be able to get some secondhand from a seller on deskthority.net, but the cost including shipping is likely to be near the cost of the keyboard itself.

The nearest thing I have been able to find available new is a complete key replacement that comes with its own plastic top cover. The transparent top cover is incompatible with the Tipro MID keycaps, so you would need to replace the whole key. The set I purchased from Ali Express was titled 1/10/pcs Transparent Keycaps Double-layer Keycaps Removable Paper Clips Custom MX Switch Relegendable Keycap Shell Protection. The link for them was: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004623750938.html.

Although these keycaps are pretty cheap, my keyboard has 80 keys that are missing the plastic lid. So it would still cost me about £18 to replace them all, which is a good way towards the full cost of the keyboard. Plus, you have to pull every single key and replace it compared to just clipping on a plastic cover on top of the existing keys. Anyway, I just ordered one pack of white/grey and one pack of black to see what they are like.

Although the height of the unmounted keycap is similar to the Tipro MID, the centre mounting column is much longer. This means the keys sit higher than the original MID keys. The top of the new key without its plastic cover sits at around the same height as a MID key with its plastic cover. So if you just wanted to get all keys to a standard height, then that would work. But as soon as you add the plastic cover on the Ali Express keys, they are higher than the Tipro MIDs with their plastic covers.

Tipro MID keycap (left) vs Cheap AliExpress relegendable keycap (right), both without top lid / cover

Tipro MID keycap (left) vs Cheap AliExpress relegendable keycap (right) underside view

Mounted on the keyboard you can see the Tipro MID keycaps with tops attached are about the same height as the black AliExpress Relegendable keycap without its top attached. The white / grey AliExpress relegendable keycap with the top attached you can see is much taller in profile. Below that you can see the Tipro MID keycaps without their tops.

Top view, you can (just about) see the extra space around the cheap black keycap because it doesn't have its lid attached.

The style of the keys is also slightly different. The Tipros have more of a slant at the front and are pretty straight up at the back. Whereas the new keys have a very slight slant that is the same on all 4 sides.

I would say if you had a Tipro MID keyboard where you wanted to replace all the keys, then these keycaps would be fine. But if you wanted a mix of Tipro MIDs and other keys, then these wouldn't really be suitable due to the height difference. Yes, they are the same height without the transparent tops, but then you're going to have to stick labels on them and the keys are a bit smaller in width and length without the lids clipped on.

Startech VID2HDCON2 / QED QCV EA0053 / Koryuu Video conveters

Recently I got a couple of video adapters, so I thought I'd post my quick tests with them. One is a SCART to component converter, the other a S-Video (S-VHS) and Composite to HDMI converter. I also re-tested the Koryuu, which converts S-Video and composite to component. For my uses I'm just interested in using them to get old games consoles working with a modern TV (Philips 50PUS8204/12).

Startech VID2HDCON2

Firstly the Startech VID2HDCON2 S-Video and Composite (and sound) to HDMI converter. This has an S-Video in port, Composite video in (RCA) port, and 2 RCA ports for left and right sound in. Then an HDMI out port.

It takes 5V power, but the jack is smaller than a standard barrel jack. (Mine didn't come with a power supply so I used a USB to barrel jack power with a barrel jack adapter to step it down to the smaller size). Then there's a power switch to turn it on and off.

On the front you get a button to toggle between Composite and S-Video and some LEDs to show you which one is selected and that the device is powered.

While this converter does work okay, it makes the 4:3 ratio consoles stretch to 16:9. Changing the aspect ratio on the TV settings has no effect. So no good to me.

Koryuu

The following tests were using the Koryuu to convert S-Video to Component, then the OSCC to convert to HDMI. The Koryuu has S-Video and Composite inputs on one side, and Component out on the other.

The Koryuu works okay. Have to press input button on Koryuu for a couple of seconds so it changes from red to green light to select S-Video. The Koryuu needs to be turned on before the console(s). Suggest: OSCC on, Koryuu on, change Koryuu to S-Video, change OSCC to YPbPr, turn on console (and select correct switch on S-Video switch if using one).

For sound you need a dual female RCA to 3.5mm stereo male cable. The stereo end goes into the AV2 audio in port of the OSCC. The small switch on the OSCC between this port and the HDMI jack needs to be positioned towards the edge of the case for the jack to be used as AV2 audio in rather than AV1 (SCART) audio out. The Koryuu itself does nothing with sound.

If the TV keeps saying "Video format not supported", putting the TV in standby then turning back on should fix it.

QED QCV EA0053

The QED QCV EA0053 has SCART input on one side and Component out on the other.

When I purchased the QCV it didn't come with a power supply. I found online suggestions that it used a 7.5V DC power supply. This was just mentioned in an online forum, I couldn't find anything more official about the power supply needed. So I tried 7.5V and it does work with that. Possibly it may work with 5V, but I've only tried with 7.5V DC (positive tip). The jack size is standard barrel jack.

Like the Koryuu, I tested this with the component out going into the OSCC. The OSCC does SCART RGB in, so this converter isn't actually needed for this, but I just purchased it because it was cheap and wanted to see how well it worked.

The main issue with the converter is that it doesn't deal with audio at all. So you need to use a SCART pass-thru adapter with audio out into the converter so you can extract the audio. I didn't think the adapter we had would work for this, but it did.

Using RGB SCART into the dumb switchable SCART / RCA adapter into QED SCART to Component converter then to the OSCC makes the sound & video cut out every so often (with PAL GC as source). It does the same without the dumb adapter (but obv. no sound). SCART straight into OSCC has no issue.

Running the component out from the QED QCV straight to the component in on the TV (so bypassing the OSCC) gave no issues. The image was stretched to 16:9, but changing the aspect ratio on the TV settings fixed this. So there seems to be something about the component output from the QCV that the OSCC doesn't like.

When trying this initially, connecting straight to the TV didn't black out but I got 2 bars of weird static effect that slowly move down the screen over the picture. After trying some higher quality audio RCA cables (I don't have long enough high quality component cables, just cheap ones) then I found it actually gave a good quality image.

Using the dumb S-Video to SCART adapter with a S-Video input into the QED SCART to Component converter gives no image or a very dark grayscale image. TV also says "Video format not supported". So the QED QCV does need RGB SCART and won't work with S-Video or Composite (both of which can be transmitted over SCART).

Conclusion

If you don't have an OSCC and want a cheap way to get RGB SCART into a modern TV that supports component, then the QED QCV is a cheap way to do this.

The Startech VID2HDCON2 is not a good way to get S-Video and composite video into a modern TV, at least for stuff that uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, which will be most things you'd want to use it for. The Koryuu works well. If I didn't have the Koryuu, I would probably look at the Kaico OSSC None RGB Add On Board, which seems a bit better featured.

If I didn't have the OSCC (or even if I did but I had the spare cash), I'd look at the RetroTink 5x Pro, which does about everything you need for connecting older games consoles to a modern TV.

Annoying facebook marketplace scammers

I've been looking on Facebook Marketplace for a couple of things I wanted recently. Yesterday I was surprised when I saw a load of listings for one the items I was looking at, all with the same photos but for sale in different locations and by different sellers. There were 3 different listings they had copied and then added multiple copies of each.

This screenshot is actually from today, and there are only a couple of obvious scam items on it

I thought this was quite a weird scam since Facebook marketplace is for face to face sales, and wondered how these scams would work. Well, today I received a reply to a message regarding a listing I had enquired about a week and a half ago. This was before I had seen any of these scam listings, and it wasn't one that had been duplicated. But the reply indicated this was a scam listing as well. Their reply was:

Yes, in our website for sale, limited promotion. If you are interested, please contact me， I can provide you our website， you can learn more about this product in detail. Our products return within 30 days, with a two-year warranty ，free shipping.

So unfortunately it now seems that finding genuine items for sale on Facebook marketplace is very difficult. With eBay listings you can usually easily if its a scam (No Buy it now, but a buy it now price listed in the description, description saying you need to contact teh seller before bidding, etc). For these Facebook marketplace items it seems you need to click on the seller's profile image, and view their other items for sale. If they have a load of other items available and all for the same price, then it indicates a fake scammer account.

I just checked the seller profile on another of the same item I'd been looking at (this one was located further from me, so I hadn't actually messaged them), and sure enough that one is a scam account as well.