Volume problem on 8GB Fuze

I just bought an 8GB Fuze, intending to replace a Sansa m250, primarily for the increased capacity which I had intended to further increase to 16GB with an 8GB microSDHC card.  I use the player for recorded talks and books as well as music, with the emphasis on voice recordings rather than music.

I am very unhappy with playback quality.  Volume on the Fuze is very low compared to the m250.  I have to set the Fuze to maximum volume to equal less than half volume on the m250.  In a quiet environment, that’s barely ok.  It’s not going to work at all if there is competing environmental sound.  I’ve tried swapping ear buds of the two players and there’s no change in Fuze volume.  Interestingly, with a set of Panasonic mini headphones (unknown model), volume output from the two players is more similar.

If volume is set high or max, then mp3 files suffer from cutting out.  Cutting out and crackling are worse with high volume and time of the problem varies.  The identical tracks play perfectly on the m250, even if set to maximum volume (and the earbuds held away from the ear!).  I upgraded the Fuze to .15 and tried an OGG file, and that was much, much worse.  Cut outs were so frequent that I could not understand what was being said (this is an audio tape, not music).  The same OGG file played perfectly on the computer, and much better if volume on the Fuze were reduced.

Crackling is much worse on the Fuze than on the m250; perhaps the high frequency distribution is different?

I did charge the battery, which after testing shows as 94% charged.

Has anyone else experienced problems like this?

Thanks!

I have found that the biggest cause of crackling on any player/cd player/record player/radio/ect is the quality of the speakers/earphones. if the ones you are using are a little old, that could be one cause, or you’ve listened to them at high volume for an extended period or frequently. Bisting the Bass to hight will kill a set of speakers faster than you think would possible.

try turning down the bass setting on you player first. most sound systems cant handle it. you only need to turn it down until the buzzing stops. it may not be as much bass as you want, but it’s better than destroying your sound equiment. this is the cheap fix, the expencive fix is replacing the speakers :stuck_out_tongue:

The earbuds that came with the player are new, and the ones with the m250 are fairly new.  The key though is that both sets perform equally on the m250, where they work fine, and the Fuze, where sound is inadequate.

I tried changing the EQ settings and found that Classical had fewer drop outs than Normal or high-bass settings.  While volume was slightly better, it was still far less than the m250 produces and probably insufficient in other than a quiet space.

Try using more efficient headphones. If that doesn’t help, you could use software like mp3 gain to boost the volume of the recordings. I have trouble getting enough volume on my  old mp3 player. I haven’t yet had insufficient volume on my Fuze. Some lectures have been recorded with much less volume than others, so this is a factor. Make sure that the headphone plug is fully inserted into the Fuze. At first when I got the Fuze I didn’t use enough force, and the headphone plug wasn’t fully inserted. This adversely affected the sound quality and volume.

@guyscharf wrote:

I am very unhappy with playback quality.  Volume on the Fuze is very low compared to the m250.  I have to set the Fuze to maximum volume to equal less than half volume on the m250.  In a quiet environment, that’s barely ok.  It’s not going to work at all if there is competing environmental sound.  I’ve tried swapping ear buds of the two players and there’s no change in Fuze volume.

Forgive me, but you do know that there ae 2 different volume settings on the Fuze, right? Normal & High. From what you describe, it sounds like your Fuze is still set to the default ‘Normal’ setting.

It can be changed in SETTINGS > SYSTEM SETTINGS and scroll down to VOLUME, just under BRIGHTNESS (it doesn’t show on the screen unless you scroll down).

Most people find the High setting is better for them. I wonder why SanDisk even put the 2 options there in the 1st place? Why not just have the High setting level as ‘Normal’ and forget about it?

Looks like I have finally found the answer–a combination of two factors.  The headphone plug was not completely inserted, and that seems related to the cutting out.  I had tried setting the Volume option to High, or at least I was pretty sure I had, but now I tried it again and volume is satisfactory.  Whew!  I was not looking forward to figuring out an alternative!

Thank you all.

@jk98 wrote:
Try using more efficient headphones.

Any recommendations for a more efficient earbud type or a mini headset (size like Sennheiser PX100)?