digital distortion e250 - pt 2.....'dedicated' wma player

Further on my previous post, 2 or more weeks on after contacting australiansupport@sandisk and also trying on the website ( email response was promised within 48 hrs…it never came…) I’ve had no reply.

Im hugely less than impressed by Sandisk’s ‘support’.

However since then I have discovered that my faulty e250 will play wma files with no problem (a Microsoft plot?)… so for the record, its worth trying all supported formats before binning the player.

The player is now useable for the task I bought it for but I have to render all files to wma, well its easier than trying to get satisfaction from Sandisk it seems…

So now when someone says ‘oh you got a new mp3 player’ I can say ‘no, its a wma player!’

What mp3 encoder are you using?

Try using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with LAME at a good bitrate, 192 kbps. It’s probably a litte slower than whatever you’re using, but it is reputed to be the best.  EAC from LAME

It just doesn’t seem logical that your E250 would play one format correctly and the other incorrectly, especially the one it was made for–and is working for apparently every other E200 owner.

If the DAC (digital analog converter) chip is working, it should work for everything. Shouldn’t it?

As said in my first post, I have tried mp3s from my friends, from the net (most of those were encoded by EAC) and my own rips using Steinbergs pro Audio prog, Wavelab.

All files I tried were at various bit rates, 128 - 320.

ALL mp3 files break into digital distortion at a random point during playback.

I work as a Sound Engineer, Im used to sorting out audio problems, I got this player as a reference to preview mixes on an often used playback source these days, shoulda not been so cheap and got a more expensive one hey…

Im perplexed why it will play wma (and wav files) and not mp3s as well, so consider this a first, it clearly has a faulty chip in it, further to that I set the time on the clock, it wont keep time! It fluctuates + /- 2 or 3 hrs every few mins…

It matters not as long as it keeps playing wma files, but Ive spent a few hrs troubleshooting the bloody thing…

Maybe I should send Sandisk a bill for the time I spent, including time wasted contacting them for non-existent support!

Dont like my chances…

Sorry, I hadn’t read your other post. One never knows how knowledgeable people are (or aren’t). 

SanDisk support seems to be undergoing some kind of overhaul, and perhaps not for the better.  If it’s new, can you take it back to the retailer instead?

Or bang on SanDisk  support for a while. You could always PM one of the moderators on the forum, microsansa or slotmonsta, to see if they can speed things up at all.  

More expensive might not be better, particularly for sound quality. Check out www.anythingbutipod.com . Actually, you should post your problem there, too–they’ve got some very serious electronics geeks over there. 

It’s a shame you got a lemon, though–especially one with what seems to be a genuinely unique problem.