New Zip owner here!

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1

Hello everybody!

First of all, excuse my poor english, I’m not native english speaker.

Yesterday I got my new Sansa Clip Zip. I wished another player able to play other formats like ogg, flac etc. which I didn’t have on my good old Sony NWZ B162F. As first impressions, with your permission, I would make a small comparison between the two players.

Pros:

Sandisk: more formats (my first reason to buy it), microSD slot, powerfull output volume, better display, extra functions, some people would say Rockbox.

Sony: more intuitive and ergonomic controls and interface, bass boost button, navigation ring, good battery life (abt. 18 hours) with economic settings. No need for cable to recharge and transfer.

Both have FM radio. I use it rarely.

Cons:

Sandisk: poor battery life. Maybe it needs 2-3 recharges to reach its potential, but, still, only 8 hours of playing?

Sony: no expansion slot. This was the secondary reason to buy a Sandisk.

Now, about the sound quality… hmmm…

Sony has a stunning bass boost function, with volumic, powerful but balanced extra bass. I used the EQ and I managed almost to reproduce the Sony’s bass boost. The Sandisk bass seems to be more controled. On the other hand, Sandisk performs better overall, having a much better separation between channels and better resolution. For example, in FM the stereophony is far better than Sony’s. Also in music.

The headset from Sandisk is a ■■■■, IMHO. I preffer in ear headphones and I use a pair of Philips SHE 3590, the best budget headphones I ever heard.

Some questions I have in my mind:

  • if I decide myself to Rockbox my Clip Zip and for some reasons I don’t like it, it’s possible to reinstall the original firmware?

  • I have a 16 GB microSD in the expansion slot and some music on it, organized in folders. I noticed that the player renamed some of the folders, by adding some figures before the name of the folder. Something like this: 0F00000 ABBA instead of ABBA. When the name of the folder is longer, the figures replace letters from the name of the folder and that’s not OK.

 - I have 1.1.20 firmware on it. Should I update it?

If I’ll have something to ask, I will do it.

Thanks for your attention.

2

@ursamajor wrote:

 

Some questions I have in my mind:

- if I decide myself to Rockbox my Clip Zip and for some reasons I don’t like it, it’s possible to reinstall the original firmware?

 

Yes.

@ursamajor wrote:

 

- I have a 16 GB microSD in the expansion slot and some music on it, organized in folders. I noticed that the player renamed some of the folders, by adding some figures before the name of the folder. Something like this: 0F00000 ABBA instead of ABBA. When the name of the folder is longer, the figures replace letters from the name of the folder and that’s not OK.

 

1. The SanDisk players organize & display information contained within the ID3 tags of the music files, not the files names themselves (unless you scroll down the menu and navigate by FOLDERS).

2. You are probably using MTP mode (or Auto which defaults to MTP). Unless you really need MTP mode for ‘protected’ content like Rhapsody, Audible or ‘borrowed/rented’ audio books from your local library, it would be better to switch your USB Mode (in Settings > System Settings) to MSC. In this mode, your computer sees your player as just another external or flash drive; and is much simpler, straight-forward and less confusing for you. Note though, that if you do this you should remove everything you’ve added to the player first (FORMAT will do this very quickly and easily) as your computer can only ‘see’ files added onto your player while in the same mode as what it was when the files were originally transferred. Again, less confusion for you.

@ursamajor wrote:

 

 - I have 1.1.20 firmware on it. Should I update it? 

 

You can if you want to, but there was very few changes with the latest update from the one you currently have, so it probably isn’t necessary. You can see what changes were made in the firmware post here.

Welcome to the forum and please freel free to ask any other questions you may have. :smiley:

3

Indeed, I prefer the Folder mode navigation. At least, for now. I must learn to work with playlists, never did it before. :smiley:

The USB mode was Auto. I changed it to MSC. I renamed the modified folder and put it into MUSIC folder. Now all seems to be OK. Thank you!

4

@ursamajor wrote:

I must learn to work with playlists, never did it before. :smiley:

 

No you don’t . . . unless you want to.

5

Ehehehe:smileyvery-happy:, but Rockbox, AFAIK, is playlist oriented. And, somehow, I need it, because of its support for MUSEPACK format that I love it. Just converted my FLACs in OGG Vorbis (192 vbr) and noticed that they don’t sound so good I expected. They sound even worser than my MP3s (256 vbr). wtf, I expected better quality. Some time ago OGGs were much better than MP3s. This LAME codec was so good improved:womansurprised:?

PS: again, excuse my poor english.

6

Cannot edit my previous post.

I just “Rockboxed” my Zip and I just can say… WOW!!! The level of customization is awesome. Especially at sound settings there are more settings than I ever imagined that would be. I use custom firmware on my cameras too, CHDK on my compact Canon and Magic Lantern on my dSLR Canon and i nave a great esteem and profound gratitude for creators. Thumbs up for them!!

8

You’re right. Already deleted two folders transferred under MTP mode. Now all is OK. Installed some simple themes under Rockbox. Unfortunatelly, my eyes work harder to read the tiny fonts… I tried to change to bigger fonts, but the writting goes out of screen.

Anyway, now I love my new Rockboxed miniplayer!

10

Rockbox offers me all settings I need. The quality of the output sounds it’s now much better. As far as I tested it, it’s very stable and gave me lowest power consumption than original firmware. Also, it brought some new formats, musepack beeing my favourite. Already converted my Vangelis, JMJ, Kitaro etc. flac’ s in mpc.

11

Playing mpc files I already got 18 hrs playback. It’s very good I think!

12

By using Rockbox, my battery easily lasts 17-18 hrs.