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Good point.....I'd bet most people had given up on any more updates. I'll admit, I was skeptical too....I always hoped they wouldn't "View" the Clip, but it's nice to see they haven't. You'll find that the new release is quite stable. I've been playing with it all day, trying various codecs on the machine. It's nice to get a few kinks out, too. I wouldn't expect a handful of new features at this point, with the new Clip+ taking the reigns as the front runner, as each model has to have its own unique attributes.
Bob
I can't say for sure, as I don't have an original Clip anymore. But here's some results others have had, starting with post #6...http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.ph
Thanks Marvin. I'll have to check it out myself now as there seems to be some extra features some claim in that post that aren't documented. I'll give it a shot and report back.
Wow! Did not think that was ever going to happen. Maybe I'll update from .18 now.
I updated my v2 Clip (8GB Clip), and ReplayGain does show up in the Music Options listing, with "Off", "Song" and "Album". I don't remember if it was there before as I never use Replay Gain but R/G is there now.
Now for the accuracy. Things have improved. I took some lab measurments and I'm pretty confident in them. I have access to a nice Tektronix 1GHz digital scope, and to make it more fun the thing had it's yearly calibration a few weeks ago. I'm a mixed signal IC design engineer so I'm used to taking these kinds of measurments.
I found some MP3 files, 128kB, CBR, mono, with frequencies at 100Hz, 250Hz, 1kHz and 10kHz. I checked their accuracy with the output of my PC's audio and they're dead-nuts-on those frequencies with my PC.
With the new firmware, I get the following:
100Hz plays at 100.3Hz (standard deviation 0.017Hz) 250Hz plays at 250.6Hz (standard deviation 0.024Hz) 1Khz plays at 1.003kHz (standard deviation 0.37Hz) 10kHz plays at 10.02kHz (standard deviation 2.9Hz)
Error as a percentage: 0.3% fast @ 100Hz 0.24% fast @ 250Hz 0.3% fast @ 1kHz 0.2% fast @ 10kHz
With the previous firmware, the same player, with the same 1kHz sound file, sampled at 128kb/44.1kHz, yieled 988Hz, a 1.2% slow playback. Just for grins I took a measurment with my old Creative Zen Nano, a 1GB player powered off a AAA alkaline. That unit plays 1kHz as 1.0003kHz, 0.03% error. The Clip isn't at that level but it got a lot closer.
Sandisk has indeed improved the pitch tolerance at least with V2 hardware. Previously my player was about 1.2% slow and I could easily hear the difference. My "solution" was to create an all-new library of MP3s from my CDs at 192kb/48kHz (I had all of the WAV files of my CDs already extracted so I was able to skip a step). I've been using 48kHz sampled files as the Clip does a good job at 48kHz, more like sub 0.1%.
Something has definitely improved for 44.1kHz sampled mp3's, and what's kind of humorous is now the player is marginally fast but it's a lot closer to ideal. That's great! I will need to give it a listen with 44.1kHz material and see if I hear it more on-pitch with 44.1kHz sampled files.
Why Sandisk didn't mention the speed improvement in the firmware update listings is puzzling. This is a BIG improvement and they should tout that. I have to give them credit and they should at least toot their own horn a bit after all the griping about it last year (and yes, I was one that griped and don't regret it).
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