Not too many postings regarding this topic, and the ones there are don’t have much good to say.
The Fuze is advertised as supporting wav, but does it work well like it should? Are there problems? The battery life estimates (24 hrs max) are based on mp3 playback at a certain bitrate. Does anyone know what the typical battery life is for wav music files?
Not interested in the recording functionality at present (which I guess is wav) - just interested in playing ripped cds in their original lossless (wav) state.
Not too many postings regarding this topic, and the ones there are don’t have much good to say.
The Fuze is advertised as supporting wav, but does it work well like it should? Are there problems? The battery life estimates (24 hrs max) are based on mp3 playback at a certain bitrate. Does anyone know what the typical battery life is for wav music files?
Not interested in the recording functionality at present (which I guess is wav) - just interested in playing ripped cds in their original lossless (wav) state.
Anyone with an answer wins a cookie.
Many Thanks.
I don’t know about .wav, but it also supports .flac lossless files, which will be smaller than .wav, so you can pack more music on your player.
Battery life playing all .flac is not something I know. I’d hazard a guess that you’ll get less than 75% rated life.
I bought a Fuze just three weeks ago. I decided to buy this little music player because of its good linux integration (MSC/USB, ogg, flac, wav) and this very lively community support. And I love it!
Nevertheless there are some issues one should know about. One thing is the current state of wave file support, which is not perfect. Let me answer your questions quickly:
1. The Fuze uses PCM wave files for recording FM radio streams or voice recordings from internal microphone. These are signed 16 bit little endian at rate 24000 Hz stereo (FM) or mono (voice). What you are looking for is probably 16bit/44100Hz/stereo. This is supported as well - at least you can play these files too. One odd thing I noticed is the completely wrong estimate of the total file play length (several hours instead of few minutes).
2. The battery life time is about the same as with mp3 files. As a quick estimate I get about 20hr playback.
I know some threads about “this is a mp3 player, not a wav/ogg/xyz player” but I don’t like this sayings. If a file format is supported - and wav is even officially advertised - then it should be made clear what the required specs (and limitations) are. I plan to investigate the wav thing a bit further soon.
For me, the Fuze handles FLAC files better and they have the added benefit of storing meta data in it’s tags…so if I’m going to use a lossless format in the Fuze, I use FLAC. Battery life isn’t bad at all with FLAC files. I get approximately 17-18 hours playng back FLACs.
Yeah, I am currently enjoying flac file as well ogg vorbis. They are both great formats and really sound super on that player. The battery drain should be higher than with mp3 due to the complexity of the flac/ogg construct - it requires more processing power.
I am a bit baffled why somebody would want to play wav when there is flac format freely available. It does save a lot of space in the memory.
Cheers back. Agreed. They should offer more stats for wav if they list it as officially supported. The reason I havent looked into flac is that I don’t remember seeing that as being supported although people are using it.
After seeing a few posts about people having problems with wavs, I just thought I’d ask around.
For some of us audio fanatics who like the music the way it was recorded there are some hurdles sometimes. I listen to classical, so quality is more important than for pop. Also, with gb storage getting smaller and cheaper all the time, I can’t see settling for lossy sound. Sandisk’s microsc plug in is a perfect example. Soon they’ll be 80gb instead of 8 that you can add on.
Audio CD’s contain PCM audio, not WAV’s. WAV happens to be the default audio format on Windows and in its uncompressed state contains PCM audio too.
If you had woken up an Amiga or Macintosh user, you would have probably defaulted to IFF or AIFF.
People here have argued that high bitrate MP3 sounds better than FLAC on the Fuze, claiming the FLAC decoder in the Fuze is not the greatest. Not sure how true that is, but perhaps you need to do some testing for your own to check if you hear the difference.
Audio CD’s contain PCM audio, not WAV’s. WAV happens to be the default audio format on Windows and in its uncompressed state contains PCM audio too.
If you had woken up an Amiga or Macintosh user, you would have probably defaulted to IFF or AIFF.
People here have argued that high bitrate MP3 sounds better than FLAC on the Fuze, claiming the FLAC decoder in the Fuze is not the greatest. Not sure how true that is , but perhaps you need to do some testing for your own to check if you hear the difference.
Enjoy your future Fuze!
Same here. But I do know that FLAC is harder for the player to decode, and thus decreases battery time (in some cases significantly)
I strongly suggest doing a direct comparison between CD (or wav copies or FLAC) and high-bitrate mp3 (256-320) on the playback equipment you intend to use with the Fuze. Do blind tests, so you don’t know which source you are hearing.
Your ears are the standard you have to judge by–not the name of the format or even whether it’s lossless.
Please note that I’ve corrected this message. I originally wrote WAV files but meant WMA files.
Bought a Sansa Fuze for mum’s birthday and noticed a problem with certain albums. The player browsed through the tracks, over and over, without playing any of them. I had transferred the albums from my PC and knew they worked fine with my Creative Muvo T100.
When I investigated the problem further, I discovered that all the problematic albums were in the WMA format. I hadn’t stored them in that format intentially; it happened once when I was new to Windows Media Player. But, as I said, they work fine with Creative; that’s why I hadn’t discovered it earlier.
SanDisk’s support suggested I solved the issue by installing SanDisk’s own converter software. I responded that WMA is a standardized format and that Media Player’s conversion works fine with other players, so why would I need a certain encoder? Besides, that would mean mum wouldn’t be able to play WMAs she recived from friends without converting them first. They haven’t answered that question yet.
I’d like to add that I’ve updated the player with the latest firmware.
I’m surprised that anyone has a problem with the fuze playing wav files. I just assumed that the fuze can easily handle wav files of any kind. The recordings that I have made with the fuze are wav files themselves so why would the fuze had trouble playing them?
I responded that WAV is a standardized format and that Media Player’s conversion works fine with other players, so why would I need a certain encoder?
–snip 8<–
That is not entirely true. WAV pretty much is just a container. The contents of the WAV file can be just about everything, from uncompressed audio PCM to MP3 and lots of other things.
The Fuze (or Sandisk) claiming WAV support is like them claiming MPEG-4 support. It is a best-effort implementation that by no means covers all possible combinations.
If you have the original files as WAV, you have lots of conversion options, but I would personally stay away from Sandisk’s convertor. It is not the friendliest of programs and I find it very limited.
I’ve corrected the original post since I wrote WAV instead of WMA. I do want to stay away from Sansa’s Media Converter; you shouldn’t have to use a certain converter for a standardized format. Besides, I find the Media Jukebox a lot friendlier and general.
Are you sure the WMA files don’t have any DRM (digital rights management) that the Fuze doesn’t recognize? I seem to recall at one time Win Media Player had that turned on by default, even for ripping.
If you were new to Windows Media Player you probably ripped the CDs to WMA with Copy Protection because those were default setting in WMP. They’re doing what they are supposed to do–play on one unit but not let you copy them to another. Aren’t you glad you are helping the music labels fight piracy?
You can try transferring the files again in MTP mode (Settings/USB Mode) via Windows Media Player and see if it sends over the DRM (digital rights mania) information to unlock them. No guarantees. Or, better, rip again to mp3, which doesn’t have digital-rights garbage in it.
Sansa Media Converter is for video. Nothing to do with audio files. There are audio converters, like Media Coder, but they may not work with copy-protected files because…you’re not supposed to copy them.
Please note that I’ve corrected this message. I originally wrote WAV files but meant WMA files.
When I investigated the problem further, I discovered that all the problematic albums were in the WMA format. I hadn’t stored them in that format intentially; it happened once when I was new to Windows Media Player. But, as I said, they work fine with Creative; that’s why I hadn’t discovered it earlier.
Any chance the files are WMA Pro? There are few if any players outside Microsoft’s own that will play Pro. Newer Toshiba’s, but I believe they manufacture Msoft’s players so call that an inside deal.
Yeah, I am currently enjoying flac file as well ogg vorbis. They are both great formats and really sound super on that player. The battery drain should be higher than with mp3 due to the complexity of the flac/ogg construct - it requires more processing power.
I am a bit baffled why somebody would want to play wav when there is flac format freely available. It does save a lot of space in the memory.
Message Edited by Etoja on 04-18-2009 07:03 AM
(Back to the topic again … )
I fully agree with you - and others - in that flac has some nice pros, notably tag support and reduced size. So, if you have the choice I would recommend it too.
@But sometimes you simply don’t have the choice. Also, apart from the device specific support of flac and the achieved sound quality (which I didn’t check so far) there are obvious reasons to stick with wav files. For me I record with other equipment in wave format and like to take over the files to my Fuze without processing. And for other users there might be other reasons (see @spaterik) or just personal likings - who knows.
