If the problem does not depend on the player hardware and is not seen by other users with latest firmware installed then I can imagine of only a few other potential sources of error:
your headphones
your audio files
incorrect firmware update
I’d suggest you do some more testing with different headphones, because this is imho the most likely cause of your problem.
Second, if you could provide the exact encoding command then I could recheck with similar mp3 files. Did you specify other arguments to lame apart from ‘–preset extreme’? Could you also reencode some problematic files using ‘-V0’ instead of ‘–preset extreme’ and check if they are played correctly?
Finally, just to make sure, you might reinstall the current firmware and reformat your device(s) - after backing up your media of cause. There are several users who did that step again and suddenly their problems have gone …
Not the headphones (Sennheiser CX-300s) - they work fine on the Cowon players (all three of them).
Not the audio files per se (I’ll get to that) - they play just fine on the three Cowons too.
Not an incorrest firmware update - unlikely since it’s THREE Sansa Fuze players of two different sizes.
Also, when I install new firmware, I immediately reformat the player. I’m not a trusting soul. It’s annoying having to do my settings all over again but it beats “gotchas”.
Here’s my theory:
I’ve noticed that this seems to happen on bass-heavy tracks. i use EQ settings of +2 on the lowest bass slider and +1 on the next lowest. If I turn off EQ, all is sweetness and light, regardless of volume level. If I play Mad Professor (Jamaican dub that is VERY bass heavy), she dances better than a hippo in a tutu. All tracks are encoded from original .wav files at the --preset extreme setting - which uses LAME’s newest VBR code (it was there in 3.97 but you had to specifiy it - it became default in the 3.98 and above). I used this app to do it:
Not the headphones (Sennheiser CX-300s) - they work fine on the Cowon players (all three of them).
Not the audio files per se (I’ll get to that) - they play just fine on the three Cowons too.
Not an incorrest firmware update - unlikely since it’s THREE Sansa Fuze players of two different sizes.
Also, when I install new firmware, I immediately reformat the player. I’m not a trusting soul. It’s annoying having to do my settings all over again but it beats “gotchas”.
Couple of things… Are your headphones in ALL the way… you really have to push…the fuzes jack can be really tight.
I also doubt very much that the audio files are the problem.
Its not an incorrect firmware, but it could be corrupted. If you only downloaded it once and then applied it to 3 players, then I would guess thats the issue. Try redowloading and then re applying the Firmware…
Yes they are, first thing I checked. If they go in any further, they’ll travel through the center of the earth and arrive in Singapore.
I re-apply the firmware. Also, it’s inconsistent - which is the worst kind of tech support problem to track (I’m a long standing techie - almost two decades). Today with no EQ it’s just fine.
Yes they are, first thing I checked. If they go in any further, they’ll travel through the center of the earth and arrive in Singapore.
I re-apply the firmware. Also, it’s inconsistent - which is the worst kind of tech support problem to track (I’m a long standing techie - almost two decades). Today with no EQ it’s just fine.
HMM. Ive been reading this thread for a few days and thats all I could come up with… I dont know whats up
I can cause my fuzes or clips to skip; but I have to be extremely aggressive with the EQ and with loud volume settings…settings that I wouldn’t normally use. But, that is the only way I can get them to skip
Well, the one thing that skipped profusely was Mad Professor’s “A New Decade Of Dub” which is Jamaican Dub. North Americans and denizens of the UK know it as drum ‘n’ bass. Essentially it’s a VERY heave bass track with little instrumentation other than a severely reverbed trumpet. I then added my standard EQ which was +2 on the lowest scale and +1 on the scale above that. This produced “tumpin’ bass” to say the least. Those tracks went absolutely nutz with the skipping.
@roj wrote:
Well, the one thing that skipped profusely was Mad Professor’s “A New Decade Of Dub” which is Jamaican Dub. North Americans and denizens of the UK know it as drum ‘n’ bass. Essentially it’s a VERY heave bass track with little instrumentation other than a severely reverbed trumpet. I then added my standard EQ which was +2 on the lowest scale and +1 on the scale above that. This produced “tumpin’ bass” to say the least. Those tracks went absolutely nutz with the skipping.
Is it the same with your custom EQ and normal EQ? Are you using the replay gain feature of the Fuze?
The point is, that if the decoded data is close to the 16bit limit (32768) and some additional scaling is applied there might occure some data overflow.
@roj wrote:
What 16-bit limit? Can you explain please? And yes, my custom setting or the Rock setting both produce similar results. No ReplayGain is used.
Message Edited by roj on 06-06-2009 07:19 AM
The 16 bit sample size means the number of bits used to store each sound sample. You could think of the dynamic range in some kind. Most mp3 decoders produce 16 bit output because most (consumer) sound hardware is limited to 16bit.
To not apply any amplitude manipulation you should really use Normal instead of Rock.
Oh, THAT 16-bit limit. I’m very familiar with it. I was wondering if you were referring to some hardware limitation and for the life of me couldn’t figure out what it was.
Normally I play flat (normal) but then decided to experiment. I quickly abandoned Rock (too harsh at the high end) and ended up just goosing the bass as I iterated earlier in the thread. However, with the bass-heavy dub tracks I mentioned, that was enough to push things over the edge.
While I agree that most consumer playback hardware for portable use (car decks,DAPs, etc.) are limited to 16bit, 24-bit has ruled in theconsumer computer world for several years now. I haven’t use 16-bit output since I left my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and moved to a M-Audio Revo 7.1 five years ago.
@roj wrote:
Well, the one thing that skipped profusely was Mad Professor’s “A New Decade Of Dub” which is Jamaican Dub. North Americans and denizens of the UK know it as drum ‘n’ bass. Essentially it’s a VERY heave bass track with little instrumentation other than a severely reverbed trumpet. I then added my standard EQ which was +2 on the lowest scale and +1 on the scale above that. This produced “tumpin’ bass” to say the least. Those tracks went absolutely nutz with the skipping.
Is it the same with your custom EQ and normal EQ? Are you using the replay gain feature of the Fuze?
The point is, that if the decoded data is close to the 16bit limit (32768) and some additional scaling is applied there might occure some data overflow.
I had a thought last night at work. I work in radio and when we do a live broadcast we sometimes have problems when the announcer gets excited. What happens may be similar to what you are experiencing. Its called over-modulation. The sound processor that the broadcast is run through cant handle the audio its trying to process. I am thinking you may be pushing the Fuze’s audio processor past its limit with those tracks. I might try using an audio editor like audacity to turn down things like the bass or the overall volume, and then resync it and try again.
I don’t work in radio but I’ve been an audio buff for decades and not only do I understand where you’re going, I was trying to convey this with my comments about buffering. Essentially, I was trying to say that the processor was having a hard time keeping up in real time and that perhaps a pre-buffer might give it a chance to get stuff done and output before exceeding a break point where the sound stream would be interrupted.
BTW, what’s the difference between a rev. 1 and a rev. 2? I have a rev. 1 but it’s a unit I bought brand new at Christmas.
I don’t work in radio but I’ve been an audio buff for decades and not only do I understand where you’re going, I was trying to convey this with my comments about buffering. Essentially, I was trying to say that the processor was having a hard time keeping up in real time and that perhaps a pre-buffer might give it a chance to get stuff done and output before exceeding a break point where the sound stream would be interrupted.
BTW, what’s the difference between a rev. 1 and a rev. 2? I have a rev. 1 but it’s a unit I bought brand new at Christmas.
What I am saying is that possibly editing the audio file and taking the audio level down, before you put it on the player, there is a possibility that the player could process the audio with out the clipping. I had a problem with some speed/thrash metal, and what I had to do was edit the track so the initial volume was lower before I added it to the player.
The difference between a v1 and v2 are in the hardware, nothing is different in terms of playback or audio processing.
Nothing that is significant. Like you would guess the v1 came out first, and with time came other hardware that did exactly the same things as the v1 but cost Sandisk less or were more readily available so they used them. Everything works the same.
@roj wrote:
Ah - OK. As long as it’s not like the the typical Creative Labs garbage where they table a model and then subsequent versions water it down.
No its not like that… And that makes me glad… Creative Labs kills me sometimes…I ordered 2 of their cards with IDENTICAL model numbers, and got 2 different cards that were marked the same way… ??? Who knows? But that rant aside, the Sansa Versions dont change playback or capabilities
I’ve been in this business a long time and I go WAY back with CL, back to the original AWE64. The watering down started around the era of the PCI128 and is just as you describe. That was over a decade ago. Since then their hardware is questionable, their drivers utterly atrocious, their hype a tissue of lies and their business practices questionable at best. I have had it out publicly on forums with more than one CL rep and somehow they always magically disappear when confronted with records of their shoddy consumer record.
I despise them.
There is not a single CL product I would buy with *YOUR* money and that includes the X-Fi. Their DAPs are garbage.
