Sansa Fuze+

What is the maximum number of songs that can be in the GoList?  Is it still 200?  And can we make more than one GoList?

So glad to see that Sansa has finally upgraded the User Interface. I was shopping around for a new players with some better video playback compared to my Fuze. Some people recommended the ZuneHD and CowonS9 but I would rather pick this up instead. 

Although you gotta wonder, would it be wise to give it a few months before buying new? Cause as anyone knows, sometimes the first batch of new products always encounter some problems before everything is fixed right by the company. 

Cheers!

@cibernetico wrote:

 

Although you gotta wonder, would it be wise to give it a few months before buying new? Cause as anyone knows, sometimes the first batch of new products always encounter some problems before everything is fixed right by the company. 

 

The good thing about SanDisk is they are very responsive and issue firmware updates on a regular basis. In fact, there is already one out for the Fuze+ that fixes a few things that didn’t make it in before the product release date.

Sansa Fuze+ Firmware 01.27.02

Interestingly enough, this firmware update made it out before the User’s Guide. :dizzy_face:

“would it be wise to give it a few months before buying new”

I suggest you wait just a few weeks, and not a few months. If there are glitches, they are most likely to be software issues which will be fixed with a firmware update. The reason to wait a few weeks is for the players to be in plentiful supply at many retailers and to be suitably discounted. While there is still a small supply of players available, you can’t fault a retailer for insisting on full price(since he knows he can get it easily enough).

 When the 4 GB Clip+ first came out for example, those who had it sold it at $50, which was full suggested retail. A few weeks later, some retailers were selling it for as low as $40. If you really want it now and don’t mind paying a little extra to get it immediately, then go for it now.

@marvin_martian wrote:

 


@coreying wrote:

So with this “gapless playback” support - what are the conditions?

i.e. Will it work with my LAME encoded MP3’s which playback gapless on my Rockbox enabled iRiver H140 and Winamp etc?

(I don’t have a Clip+, but I’m sure I’ve seen people say that gapless support on the clip+ does NOT include MP3s)


 

With the Clip+, the “gapless” is very close, but not quite perfect. Going through a variety of LAME mp3 albums of mine, there were a couple albums that were perfectly seamless in their track transitions, and a couple albums where sometimes there would be a very faint click that you would hear. Most people might not even hear it…but if you are used to  Rockbox-type seamlessness, the Clip+ isn’t quite there. 

 

As far as the Fuze+, who knows?

Thanks for your response Marvin. I have just borrowed my friend’s Clip+ to test this out and for the most part the gapless playback with my LAME encoded MP3’s works fine, and there is no click either!

However, the method that Sansa are using to perform the gapless playback appears to be the “read ahead and listen for silence at the end and start of tracks and then remove that” rather than the “read the gapless information from the LAME encoding and process the files based on that” methods. What this means is that where there is music playing at the very end and very start of the song, the gapless is working perfectly. But where you have a song with a moment silence at the end or start of the song, but no “gap” (as silence is not necessarily a gap!), then the silence is also removed, mucking up the timing of the silence.

An example of this would be the “Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory” album.

At the end of track 2 (Overture 1928) is a series snare hits in time with the guitars and bass, with pauses in between the groups of hits. The track transition occurs during one of the pauses in the groups of snare hits (~0.75 second at end of track 2 and ~0.25 at start of track 3), but the pause is cut out by the method of “gap skip” which Sansa are using.

Still, this is a far rarer occurrence in music than continual sound between tracks, so I can live with this fault :slight_smile:

@coreying wrote:

 


@marvin_martian wrote:

 


@coreying wrote:

So with this “gapless playback” support - what are the conditions?

i.e. Will it work with my LAME encoded MP3’s which playback gapless on my Rockbox enabled iRiver H140 and Winamp etc?

(I don’t have a Clip+, but I’m sure I’ve seen people say that gapless support on the clip+ does NOT include MP3s)


 

With the Clip+, the “gapless” is very close, but not quite perfect. Going through a variety of LAME mp3 albums of mine, there were a couple albums that were perfectly seamless in their track transitions, and a couple albums where sometimes there would be a very faint click that you would hear. Most people might not even hear it…but if you are used to  Rockbox-type seamlessness, the Clip+ isn’t quite there. 

 

As far as the Fuze+, who knows?


Thanks for your response Marvin. I have just borrowed my friend’s Clip+ to test this out and for the most part the gapless playback with my LAME encoded MP3’s works fine, and there is no click either!

 

However, the method that Sansa are using to perform the gapless playback appears to be the “read ahead and listen for silence at the end and start of tracks and then remove that” rather than the “read the gapless information from the LAME encoding and process the files based on that” methods. What this means is that where there is music playing at the very end and very start of the song, the gapless is working perfectly. But where you have a song with a moment silence at the end or start of the song, but no “gap” (as silence is not necessarily a gap!), then the silence is also removed, mucking up the timing of the silence.

 

An example of this would be the “Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory” album.

At the end of track 2 (Overture 1928) is a series snare hits in time with the guitars and bass, with pauses in between the groups of hits. The track transition occurs during one of the pauses in the groups of snare hits (~0.75 second at end of track 2 and ~0.25 at start of track 3), but the pause is cut out by the method of “gap skip” which Sansa are using.

 

Still, this is a far rarer occurrence in music than continual sound between tracks, so I can live with this fault :slight_smile:

 

I ended up deciding it was good enough, for a good long while…because as you saw, it’s pretty close. But I ended up Rockboxing my old Clip+ after I got my second one, and liked it so much that I did it to the other one too.

But as far as the Fuze+, I can’t answer if it will be handled the same way as the Clip+ or not…and with the new touch controls on it, I don’t anticipate myself getting one, either. I already had a player with controls that worked that way, and unless I was standing or sitting still, the controls were a pain the the butt.:wink:

Agreed. I don’t like the touch controls either. Give me real buttons for general usage any day. Now I know the Clip+ does gapless fine, I’ll just grab one of them :slight_smile:

Maybe I’m alone on this and it was probably a budget thing, but does anyone else wish they had two of the microsd card slots? One for your extra stuff and one just for use with SlotRadio. Like I said, maybe I’m the only one who would think this would have been a good idea but just wanted to see if anyone else thought of it. 

@cibernetico wrote:

Maybe I’m alone on this and it was probably a budget thing, but does anyone else wish they had two of the microsd card slots? One for your extra stuff and one just for use with SlotRadio. Like I said, maybe I’m the only one who would think this would have been a good idea but just wanted to see if anyone else thought of it. 

“Paging JK98!”

@cibernetico wrote:

Maybe I’m alone on this and it was probably a budget thing, but does anyone else wish they had two of the microsd card slots? One for your extra stuff and one just for use with SlotRadio. Like I said, maybe I’m the only one who would think this would have been a good idea but just wanted to see if anyone else thought of it. 

“Paging JK98!”

@neutron_bob wrote:


With a firmware revision, the transition has become quite acceptably smooth on the wee Clip.  I’m confident you’ll like it.

 

 

Calling a spade a spade:

The ONLY acceptable gapless is a completely indiscernible transition that is completely seamless with absolutely no way to determine that said transition actually occurred.

That’s it, that’s all.

Either it fulfills this criteria or It Is Not Capable Of Gapless.

Fini.

So, to anyone out there (and I don’t care about splitting hairs), is it or isn’t it?

@roj wrote:

 


@neutron_bob wrote:


With a firmware revision, the transition has become quite acceptably smooth on the wee Clip.  I’m confident you’ll like it.

 

 


 

Calling a spade a spade:

 

The ONLY acceptable gapless is a completely indiscernible transition that is completely seamless with absolutely no way to determine that said transition actually occurred.

 

That’s it, that’s all.

 

Either it fulfills this criteria or It Is Not Capable Of Gapless.

 

Fini.

 

So, to anyone out there (and I don’t care about splitting hairs), is it or isn’t it?

I don’t know of anybody here in the forum that has one to test, yet.

Ah!  Hi Roj

Bob  :stuck_out_tongue:

““Paging JK98!””

 I have asked about players with two card slots(and perhaps even 4!) for a long time. Either that, or a full sized SDXC card slot. Sandisk wants to push their expensive 32 GB micro SDHC card, and perhaps a year from now their expensive 64 GB micro SDXC card. Many would rather use less costly or higher capacity full sized cards though.

@jk98 wrote:

““Paging JK98!””

 

 I have asked about players with two card slots(and perhaps even 4!) for a long time. Either that, or a full sized SDXC card slot. Sandisk wants to push their expensive 32 GB micro SDHC card, and perhaps a year from now their expensive 64 GB micro SDXC card. Many would rather use less costly or higher capacity full sized cards though.

I can’t disagree with that. But SanDisk appears fully commited to slotRadio/slotMusic, so hoping they’ll put full-sized SD slots in their next player is a pipe dream.

@gwk1967 wrote:


@jk98 wrote:

““Paging JK98!””

 

 I have asked about players with two card slots(and perhaps even 4!) for a long time. Either that, or a full sized SDXC card slot. Sandisk wants to push their expensive 32 GB micro SDHC card, and perhaps a year from now their expensive 64 GB micro SDXC card. Many would rather use less costly or higher capacity full sized cards though.


I can’t disagree with that. But SanDisk appears fully commited to slotRadio/slotMusic, so hoping they’ll put full-sized SD slots in their next player is a pipe dream.

I have only seen a handful of people who’ve shown any interest in SlotRadio/Music in the many forums, since it was introduced. Are they actually selling many of them? I would have considered a SlotMusic album if they were in FLAC, since they are not, I have no interest. I’ll either buy a CD so that I can get FLAC source files for my computer, or just buy an MP3 download from Amazon to put on the cards I already have.

“I can’t disagree with that. But SanDisk appears fully commited to slotRadio/slotMusic, so hoping they’ll put full-sized SD slots in their next player is a pipe dream.”

It is easy enough to put a Slotradio or Slotmusic card in an adapter to make it full sized. Another idea would be to have a player that has both a micro sized and a full sized card slot.

@marvin_martian wrote:

 

I have only seen a handful of people who’ve shown any interest in SlotRadio/Music in the many forums, since it was introduced. Are they actually selling many of them? I would have considered a SlotMusic album if they were in FLAC, since they are not, I have no interest. I’ll either buy a CD so that I can get FLAC source files for my computer, or just buy an MP3 download from Amazon to put on the cards I already have.

 

I don’t know the sales numbers either. I haven’t bought any myself. But for whatever reason, SanDisk continues to bank on slotRadio/Music.

@jk98 wrote:

 

It is easy enough to put a Slotradio or Slotmusic card in an adapter to make it full sized. Another idea would be to have a player that has both a micro sized and a full sized card slot.

 

 

They could do that. I firmly believe they won’t, though.

There are a few problems with Slotradio. First of all, imo the price point is too high. Consumers typically only buy impulse items if they are priced under $20. Having 500 song cards at under $20 rather than 1,000 song cards at under $40 would imo have been much more popular.

The next issue is that people want to have their own music as well on a card in the player. Slotradio+ cards seem to address this, but adds to the cost of the cards. Having a second card slot on players would be another way to address this.

Imo if there would be a way to mark disliked songs on the cards so they won’t play, the Slotradio cards would be much more popular. It is so annoying to have to manually skip to the next song every time a disliked song starts playing. If someone only likes around 30% of the songs, the cards would still be worthwhile if the disliked 70% could be programmed to be skipped.