Don't always blame the fuze!!!! -- Encoder/Decoder info

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
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I see a complaint on this forum occasionally that the music on their fuze is skipping.  Granted, there can be issues with the hardware that can cause such a symptom…However, it isn’t ALWAYS the player!!

I felt the need to report this after my experience yesterday.  I was ripping some of my older CD’s to be placed on the fuze and after listening to some of them, I noticed that several were skipping.  I did a bit of investigative work and found that the source files were the culprit.  The problem is that most modern day encoder/decoder programs really don’t do a very good job at either telling you the CD was ripped properly or if any errors were encountered.

I have many, many different encoder/decoder programs at my disposal and everyone I tried (dbpoweramp, WMP, various dedicated ripping modules within CD creation software) did NOT alert me of the issue of read/sync errors from the original CDs.

I finally ran the problematic tracks through EAC and it immediately alerted me that there were multiple read/sync errors on the original discs.  The CDs in question looked pristine, but had not been played in many years so I gave them a thorough cleaning.  At that point most of the read/sync errors disappeared…and the ones that remained were easily corrected by the software.

My point is not to endorse any particular software product, but to recommend doing a bit of investigative work at the root cause of an issue and DON’T immediately blame the player…

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-25-2009 03:57 AM

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If you check the “secure” option on the DBPoweramp ripper it will give you similar benefits and problems as EAC (error detection/retries, slow, stressful on your drive).  I only use it if there appears to be a problem, and then usually on just the affected tracks, not the whole CD.  YOu can also detect (not correct) errors in full speed rips with “AccurateRip” which compares a signature of your rip with an online database.  This is used by both DBPoweramp and EAC.

Certainly the first resort if there’s a problem playing on your sansa is to see if the file plays OK on your PC.   

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I’m not too big a fan of dbpa.  I find EAC to a much better job and I don’t find “accuraterip” to be very accurate… mainly because many of the CDs I deal with are not in any database…To each their own I guess.  I didn’t want this to turn into a software advocacy thread. I just wanted to point out a step that it seems that some are forgetting when troubleshooting problems.

BTW.  My said files played correctly on the PC…

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-25-2009 06:37 AM