Thanks to the OP for reporting this. I came here to see if anyone else was having the problem since nobody chimed in when I mentioned it on another site. My MP3s are encoded VBR with lame.
Thanks to the Sansa folks for jumping on it. Interesting that this cropped up in this release since it wasn’t a problem before. With the clock slow-down it sounds like you’re working to squeeze the most out of the battery which is appreciated.
Sansafix, Yes it does! Thank you! I’m very happy to have a product with such great people backing it up with the willingness to offer help and technical information! George
@nrc wrote:
Thanks to the OP for reporting this. I came here to see if anyone else was having the problem since nobody chimed in when I mentioned it on another site. My MP3s are encoded VBR with lame.
Thanks to the Sansa folks for jumping on it. Interesting that this cropped up in this release since it wasn’t a problem before. With the clock slow-down it sounds like you’re working to squeeze the most out of the battery which is appreciated.
nrc -
If you’ll notice the OP posted this on 8/08/08, long before the latest firmware release a little over a week ago on 10/02/08. So this didn’t just ‘crop up’ as a result of the f/w update; it was there before.
The good news is that the busy little beavers at SanDisk are working night & day on a fix . . . . OK, maybe not THAT hard, but they ARE working on it! 
If you’ll notice the OP posted this on 8/08/08, long before the latest firmware release a little over a week ago on 10/02/08. So this didn’t just ‘crop up’ as a result of the f/w update; it was there before.
The good news is that the busy little beavers at SanDisk are working night & day on a fix . . . . OK, maybe not THAT hard, but they ARE working on it!
Woops. Not sure how I missed that. :dizzy_face: But I still think something in the new firmware had some impact on this. I would guess that about 10% of my MP3s are having this problem. It’s so obvious that it seems very unlikely that the problem affected that many of my MP3s previously and that I just didn’t notice it.
Hello. I’m planning on purchasing a Fuze, but my mp3s are encoded at VBR minimum: 192 and maximum: 256. Since these bitrates are not too far apart, would it still cause skipping? Thanks.
I am also getting some stuttering on a 4gb fuze while navigating when a song is playing. Had not noticed any of this on the previous firmware. Seems to affect louder tracks from more recent cds which encode more samples at higher bitrate. All encoding is Lame VBR ver. 3.92 alt-preset-standard. Could be the increase in scroll speed having an affect. Seems to me that all Sansa players have some kind of bugs (the View being the worse) with interupt handling. My iRiver H10 6gb and 20gb, ancient Classic 10gb HD XP3 and Creative Jukebox 2lx all playback the exact same files with zero problems. I’m going back to the previous firmware to see if the stutters stop. Not concerned with OGG, as the Lame encodings are near transparent to the originals anyway and there would be little if no improvement on a portable player (only hear artifacts on about 1% of 6000+ tracks encoded with Lame).
OP, thanks for the explanation. And sorry for not finding the 8/08/08 post in which this issue apparently was described.
Though forgive me for complaining, but releasing a mp3 player to the market that can’t play mp3 files properly is pretty poor to my standards. And knowing about this problem two months ago and not fixing it in the latest release is even worse.
Mine is going back to the store, I am not going to wait for a fix that might never come.
Floone
The VBR fix will be included in the next release in November.
The problem only affects VBR files that have a minimum bit rate < 160K at the beginning of the song.
192 - 256 will be no problem.
Message Edited by sansafix on 10-15-2008 01:46 PM
floone
I would keep the player. The Fuze is a fantastic player and as Sansafix says, this VBR problem will be fixed. You can load the 01.01.11 firmware and see if it helps. You’ll have to spend quite a bit more money to equal the sound quality that this player has.
floone
I am one of the most fussy SOB there is when it come to just about anything specially electronics but the Fuze is so well designed packed with so many features and can do so much so well, AT ANY PRICE! I’ll live with the few small glitches… Sandisk with continually improve it in every way that can that is firmware fixable… What other company will have so many hands on people that work for them be so available to us all that are so willing to help… They sure don’t have too! But these people are so dedicated and into what they do that they want to… I know that with all the patience they show us answering the same **bleep** questions over and over There really good and very cool people!! You return your player and it’s truly your loss!! My wife and I are two very happy customers!! George & Penny
Thank you all for you help, it is very much appreciated. You are right, I have to give them the chance to fix this so now my girlfriend has a nice new Fuze, I keep on using my old 2G ipod brick. And when this issue is fixed I get myself another Fuze.
Floone
Floone,
Good man! George
Hey there, I got same problem (skipping) but at high volume setting (> 85%), the player play find at 6-70% volume though. Is this faulty sansa fuze or software problem? Its not mp3 file since I test it on my computer at max volume and no problem was found. Thanks in advance.
Ps: the problem with VBR and backlight issue still there though (even with CBR file >.<)
Message Edited by plumpcheek on 10-28-2008 07:59 AM
Message Edited by plumpcheek on 10-28-2008 08:03 AM
plumpcheek,
I can’t help but wonder if your not just over driving the output stage of the unit and causing it to clip at high volume! Only my opinion thought… I would try another head set if you have one… For the way you like to listen to music you may need a high end pair of ear buds… They will block out more noise that’s around you and play much louder at a lower volume setting… Also keep in mind once you develop a hearing lose your not going to get it back! High db can be a bad thing! George
Message Edited by George-W on 10-28-2008 11:12 AM
Ya , I’m not hearing at that high volume, its just for testing though. What I meant is my Sansa fuze have VBR issue and backlight issue (this happen even with CBR mp3 file), and when I push volume to >85% skiping/stuttering happen 
Depending on load ** Head set** in this case… Most any amps don’t like to be pushed past 75% before they start to show sings of clipping… I think if it’s doing it only at the high volume level you mentioned ( 85%) I feel that the output stage is clipping… again just MO… George
@dukepacman wrote:
Hi - I’ can’t easily tell you the range as I haven’t found a tool I’m happy with yet
Have you tried EncSpot V2.0? I downloaded your first sample and it showed lame 3.96. I have been using lame 3.98 vbr and have not had any issues.
Hope this helps
EncSpot looks like interesting software - I’ll have to try a more up-to-date version of lame and let you know.
Cheers!
DukePacman -
I suggest a free program for you to try called lamedropXPd3. It’s a stand alone very user friendly program that comes zipped. After you unzip just click the icon or pin to your start menu.
Right click on the launched program to adjust your settings. It comes with lame 3.98. You can single file copy or batch encode.
Try different settings and use EncSpot to see the differences in bit rate.
Default is vbr q4 joint stereo. I’ve been using q2.
Have fun
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