I have a question regarding how fast devices (in this case my Clip specifically) play songs.
When listening to a song today, I seemed to notice that the pitch was a teenie-weenie bit lower on the Clip in comparison to my PC. To check, I played the song back to back with my PC. I managed to start them at the exact same time. I found out that my PC was done playing about 2 seconds earlier than the Clip.
First of all: Is it at all possible that two different players play songs at different speeds? I assume so (my father, who is a sound engineer, more or less said so once to my face).
In any case - is it normal that the difference is this big? I mean, it was big enough for me to notice a pitch difference. Or are the length and pitch issues to different things altogether?
Edited to add: I tested it with my old MP3-Player too. With the same result - the other player is done playing 2 seconds earlier than the Clip.
Edited again: Before someone asks - the issue is not related to a specific song. I tried three different songs from three different sources (two downloaded, one ripped from CD) and they all exhibit the same behavior. They all have different bitrates etc. too.
Yes, it is possible that different players have slightly different speeds; it even happens with identical players (or computers) occasionally. The clock pulse that is used to run the chips can be slightly skewed, and since the clock rates are in the thousands-, millions- or even billions-per-second range, even the tiniest amounts will add up considerably. Of course, in this case, pitch and time length are (inversely) proportional. It’s usually not a problem for most people; perhaps you have very good tone perception (I’m kinda tone-deaf myself ).
For the record, my Clip seems to be going faster than my computer: a 197.52 second song on the PC took 196.14 seconds on the Clip (I’ve compared the waveforms).
Aw man. That ■■■■■ balls. I find that a little extreme… I’m not sure I can put up with that But I don’t want to send it back just to get a player that plays the songs faster…
But tell me, how can it be that the exact same player (in another thread you wrote that you have the 8GB European Clip as well) could be this different? I mean, shouldn’t they have the same chips and all?
Actually, my Clip is a 4GB with the V1 hardware. The 8GB however is based on the V2 hardware. I don’t know if this has something to do with the speed difference…
I know this ■■■■■, but give it a little time. You may get used to it after all. I’ve also felt like this many times when using new gadgets, but eventually it goes away.
Oh, just checked again, that wasn’t you who wrote that, I remembered it wrong. Sorry for the confusion
Yeeaah I know. I’m going to wait and see and probably won’t send it back, but it still takes away a fair amount of the excitement of having a new thingy. But I’ll see.
).
But I don’t want to send it back just to get a player that plays the songs faster…
