Sansa Clip Firmware Update

@uncleboko wrote:

I got my Sansa Clip because my previous mp3 player stopped working, and when I returned it to Currys in Redhill they did not have a replacement unit. I was therefore offered a Sansa Clip (cost £14 more) which I gladly accepted. Frankly, I have no complaints about this amazing little player at all especially when it plays FLAC, which means all I have to do to torrent downloads is insert tags and then drag & drop straight into the Clip - amazing. It’s also loud through my Tescos headphones 112DB.

 

May I suggest that some of the posters grow up out of short trousers.

Hear, hear!

And I’d like to add that since this ground has been plowed ad nauseum in various threads, perhaps it is time for those who are unable or unwilling to deal with the Clip in its present incarnation to move on - to another model or to another manufacturer. Vote with your feet if you must, but give the personal stuff a rest, okay?

Message Edited by Pollyanna on 09-25-2009 04:14 PM

 perhaps it is time for those who are unable or unwilling to deal with the Clip in its present incarnation to move on - to another model or to another manufacturer. 

 Given the title, many of the posts in this thread are going to be about a firmware update for the Clip.  If  you don’t enjoy reading such posts…  well, you saw the sign on the door.

 

It looks like, understandable given the times, Sansa is looking to save where ever possible.  Apparently they consider porting the firmware fixes already made for Fuze and/or Clip+ to Clips still under warrantee (or still on store shelves)  as a place to cut back.

I suspect that the next firmware update for Clip will contain most all the fixes people have asked for, and it will come from Rockbox.

 

@donp wrote:

Given the title, many of the posts in this thread are going to be about a firmware update for the Clip.  If  you don’t enjoy reading such posts…  well, you saw the sign on the door…

Well, see, that’s the thing. I didn’t see any such sign on the door. This is one of the threads I monitor here because I’m interested in “Firmware Updates,” not rending of garments, beating of breasts, analysis of capitalism and corporate profit-making, name-calling, personal attacks and general noise-making and mopery.

I appreciate the prompt help I got from folks here when I first got my Clip and had questions; I’m happy with the product when taking into account previous firmware support and overall value for price paid; I’ll continue to put in my two cents if the spirit moves me when people ■■■■■ and moan. YMMV

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Cheers.

@pollyanna wrote:


@donp wrote:

Given the title, many of the posts in this thread are going to be about a firmware update for the Clip.  If  you don’t enjoy reading such posts…  well, you saw the sign on the door…


Well, see, that’s the thing. I didn’t see any such sign on the door. This is one of the threads I monitor here because I’m interested in “Firmware Updates,” not rending of garments, beating of breasts, analysis of capitalism and corporate profit-making, name-calling, personal attacks and general noise-making and mopery.

 

I appreciate the prompt help I got from folks here when I first got my Clip and had questions; I’m happy with the product when taking into account previous firmware support and overall value for price paid; I’ll continue to put in my two cents if the spirit moves me when people pitch and moan. YMMV

 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Cheers.

*smiles*  So are you moaning about people who are bitching and moaning?     LOL.   

Forum works best when everyone has freedom to post whats important to them,   even your viewpoint.  The people posting here are here with a good purpose.   To request Sansa to release a fix concerning a sound quality issue.  They aren’t evil,  they are trying to better the product.   

I’m not trying to intimidate you from posting, but I notice there are many people that post here that moan about people who ■■■■■ and moan,  maybe they think its their duty to decide what is worthy to post here.   Personally I think we should respect other people and allow them to post and not tell them  that they are cluttering up a forum thread with things you personally don’t wish to be bothered with.  No one here owns this forum so feel free to post what is important to you.   >.<  LOL.

Enjoy your product and be happy knowing that many improvements to the Sansa Clip came by way of customers requests on this forum through the bitching and moaning process.

In my opinion, Sound quality issues like the pitch variance,  should be something Sansa should step up and take care.   Here is why I believe this: 

I’m sure a music company wouldn’t sell a musical instrument that couldn’t play in tune.    Sure people could play it.   Most wouldn’t even know its out of tune.    But when you hear the original song with the reproduced one its noticeable.  When you hear a competitor’s product spec is 20 times better than Sansa’s product you want them to address the issue.   Sansa knows how to fix it.    Its already been noted that it can be done without a noticeable effect in battery power.    I’ve perfomed serveral battery tests on 3 Sansa clips.    Customers will never notice a less than 3% battery power difference.   My clips get around 20 hours playtime with 128k encoded mp3s and 15-17 hours with V2 encoded mp3s.

I’m confident Sansa will step-up and make the right decision and fix this sound quality issue.   This is the type of issue that gives manufacturers a black eye.    They built a reputation surrounding the clip’s ARM processor and benefited by reviews that boasting its superior sound quality (even if it was 20 cents off pitch).  This reputation of the Clip benefited them, it differentiated their product from the competition.  The problem is this quality issue won’t go away, they never do, and concerned sansas customers will notice how Sansa goes about handling this issue. They will be measured by it, and this issues will follow onto new products such as the clip+.   Reviewers will be smarter and examine this issue as well,  they will be measured against the competition and this issue will be debated endlessly. 

In my opinion, It would be a move in the wrong direction not to fix this.  Will I lose sleep over this issue?  No obviously not.   But I do think this quality issue won’t go away,  I just hope Sansa fixes it now ,  rather than later.    Restore customers faith in their products quality, and bring their quality specs up to match their competitors.  

I enjoy black friday shopping at best buy and the clip was a great value for the price.  And I thought Sansa had great sound quality, but now im disolusioned looking at the specs.   19-20 cents off pitch vs  <1 cent off on the Ipod.  Humans pitch detection kicks in around 5 cents.   This means I may not notice it, but if I listen to the original reproduction vs the clips reproduction I will hear the difference.  We know it can be fixed.  It’s just a matter of Sansa getting it fixed. 

I am not impressed with Sansas last communications and thinking it was a bad business decision,  how hard is it to fix the firmware.  It’s allowing me to feel that Sansa is making second rate decisions concerning the clip’s quality and performance.   I am pro clip, but this news is disconcerting and i’m starting to open my eyes and look at new products,  something I haven’t done in along while.   I was content to stick with my Clip’s.   Who knows, maybe I will find something I like better.   Specs may not be detected by your customers Sansa,  But measureing up to your competition is important.  Please fix this.

Cheers

Edited for grammer and some spelling ><   i ■■■■ at english >.>

Message Edited by niko_sama on 09-26-2009 05:02 AM

"I enjoy black friday shopping at best buy and the clip was a great value for the price.  And I thought Sansa had great sound quality, but now im disolusioned looking at the specs.   19-20 cents off pitch vs  <1 cent off on the Ipod.  Humans pitch detection kicks in around 5 cents.   This means I may not notice it, but if I listen to the original reproduction vs the clips reproduction I will hear the difference.  We know it can be fixed.  It’s just a matter of Sansa getting it fixed. "

Bingo.  That’s my case.  I don’t really do any downloading of music, I rip my own (legally bought) CDs and do an MP3 conversion with LAME.  One disc that just jumped out that sounded “wrong” was the re-mastered version of the Rolling Stones’ “Their Satanic Majesties Request”, in particular “She’s a Rainbow”.  The tempo just sounded off, way off, and Jagger’s vocals sounded draggy on my Clip.  The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” also had some songs that really sounded slow too.  I figured either my WAV file rips were messed up, something was off in the MP3 conversion, or I was just hearing things that weren’t there.  I figured no way a well-known name brand MP3 player would be off like this.

I listened to the WAVs and MP3s again on my PC and then tried the same MP3s that were on my Clip on a 3 yr. old Creative Zen Nano Plus.  The files sounded just fine (pitch/tempo wise) on the PC and Zen but just plain off tempo on my Clip.  Then I look on this forum and found other complaining of the same thing.

I’m not a professional musician, I don’t have “perfect pitch”.  But even I was able to detect this, in particular with music I was familar.  I’m betting there are others that are in the same boat and don’t complain here.  It’s pretty sad that Sandisk seems to not really care that their players don’t do a basic function properly, play at proper pitch/tempo, when competitors at similar price points with similar features can do the same (and even cheapie players get this right).  And my Creative, by the way, does the same basic things the Clip can.  It has an FM radio, records voice, has a 5 band graphic equalizer and can even do MP3 encoding on the fly inside it’s tiny package of a CD via the line input, something the Clip cannot do.  It just doesn’t have the biggest memory capacity (1GB), hence why I got my 8GB Clip.  Plus the user interface/display of the Clip is nicer.  I’m just dissapointed that Sandisk doesn’t match the Zen’s sound quality and hence why I won’t bother looking to Sandisk for any products in the future.

I think you can ask most clip users and a lot of them will tell you that they own 2 or more clips or fuzes.  They are the one’s that are most likely to buy the new clip+ and any other new Sansa products and recommend them to other people.  But with the attitude of Sansa’s recent statement they are alienating a lot of loyal customers.  We don’t need more cheap mp3 players.  The market is already saturated with them.  We need quality products at an affordable price.

My 4GB Clip has served me well for more than a year, but now that development has halted for it, I’ve moved on up to the Zune HD. Thanks everyone for the helpful tips and such!

Now, that’s sad to hear …

@miikerman wrote:
Now, that’s sad to hear …

They say reality bites. :stuck_out_tongue:

@tipsypenguin wrote:
I think you can ask most clip users and a lot of them will tell you that they own 2 or more clips or fuzes.  They are the one’s that are most likely to buy the new clip+ and any other new Sansa products and recommend them to other people.  But with the attitude of Sansa’s recent statement they are alienating a lot of loyal customers.  We don’t need more cheap mp3 players.  The market is already saturated with them.  We need quality products at an affordable price.

>>>>>>>><<<<<<<< exactly my thoughts on it

@dcoaster wrote:
My 4GB Clip has served me well for more than a year

 

In spite of the pitch problem, huh?

 

:wink:

I have a question: I always thought the more serious pitch issues were only on v2 clips and fuzes (which I forgot about until this morning). So are the same problems on both v1 and v2?  There’s a specific song where the pitch drives me crazy on the v2, but I don’t think I listened to it on a v1 (and I tend to stick to my 8gb).  I have some ear issues which I usually blame it on.

They might as well close this thread, since they’re not working on the Clip anymore…right? :wink:

@marvin_martian wrote:
They might as well close this thread, since they’re not working on the Clip anymore…right? :wink:

I thought slotmonsta said that development was temporarily shifted to the Clip+.

@promisedplanet wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:
They might as well close this thread, since they’re not working on the Clip anymore…right? :wink:


 

I thought slotmonsta said that development was temporarily shifted to the Clip+.

Well, he said that before that latest announcement about the pitch fix (or lack thereof)…so I’m skeptical about anything else they plan or don’t plan, I guess.:neutral_face:

@marvin_martian wrote:


@promisedplanet wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:
They might as well close this thread, since they’re not working on the Clip anymore…right? :wink:


 

I thought slotmonsta said that development was temporarily shifted to the Clip+.


Well, he said that before that latest announcement about the pitch fix (or lack thereof)…so I’m skeptical about anything else they plan or don’t plan, I guess.:neutral_face:

I guess I could read back through the threads, but maybe you’ll be kind enough to remind me about the latest announcement you mention?

The last thing I remember about this from SanDisk was a post stating that the pitch fix had never made it into development for the Clip, and there was no secret firmware upgrade “sitting on the shelves.”  Is this in direct contradiction to any statement SanDisk has made in the past?

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-26-2009 04:47 PM

@promisedplanet wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:


@promisedplanet wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:
They might as well close this thread, since they’re not working on the Clip anymore…right? :wink:


 

I thought slotmonsta said that development was temporarily shifted to the Clip+.


Well, he said that before that latest announcement about the pitch fix (or lack thereof)…so I’m skeptical about anything else they plan or don’t plan, I guess.:neutral_face:


 

I guess I could read back through the threads, but maybe you’ll be kind enough to remind me about the latest announcement you mention?

 

The last thing I remember about this from SanDisk was a post stating that the pitch fix had never made it into development for the Clip, and there was no secret firmware upgrade “sitting on the shelves.”  Is this in direct contradiction to any statement SanDisk has made in the past?

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-26-2009 04:47 PM

That’s the same announcement I was referring to. Think back a while though…Remember when maxplanck made it into an issue with the Fuze? Personal attacks, threads locked, people taking sides? End result was, they fixed it on the Fuze. That is why it irks me that they choose not to do the same with the Clip and Clip+…the players do share a lot of parts, and code, do they not?

The pitch issue isn’t even why I moved on from my Sansa players…I never was able to hear it myself, although I did play a track at the same time as the same song on my 17-year-old Sony CD changer, and by the end of a 3.5 minute song, the Clip was 3 or 4 seconds out of sync. I just take offense to their “we’re not going to fix it” stance, especially on their brand new player. 

My Sansas never died on me, I just wanted to try something different…and I only sold the last one after I experienced a player with a properly-executed EQ (the only real failing of the Sansas) .  If they were to change their official posture on this issue, at least on the Clip+, then I might consider buying one next year. It’s sad, really… if they maintain their position, that at the very least, a lot of repeat customers will no longer be repeat customers. :cry:

@summerlove wrote:
I have a question: I always thought the more serious pitch issues were only on v2 clips and fuzes (which I forgot about until this morning). So are the same problems on both v1 and v2?   

 

The V1 clip is about 0.7% sharp/fast.  I don’t have a V2, but from what I’ve read on the forum, they are flat.

 

PromisedPlanet wrote:

 

The last thing I remember about this from SanDisk was a post stating that the pitch fix had never made it into development for the Clip, and there was no secret firmware upgrade “sitting on the shelves.”  Is this in direct contradiction to any statement SanDisk has made in the past?

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-26-2009 04:47 PM

On 19 March this year, SanDisk employee Sansafix said here: 

Pitch issue fix is feasible and will be in the next planned update,  likely within 2 - 3 months.  

The month before (I can’t find it now) he said that a pitch fix had been found (or similar words) that would impact battery power less than 3% and that the fix would come out in the next firmware release “this quarter” (his words).  No further firmware release ever came out.

SanDisk’s current pronouncement is contradictory to both of these.

@malix wrote:
Sansa Clip Pitch Issue

Introduction

Personal observation, as well as reports of other Sansa Clip users, indicate that music files played on this MP3 player are off-pitch [1]. For instance, DAVEK reported an error of -19.5 cents at 1000Hz on a file sampled at 44.1kHz on his Sansa Clip 8GB [2].

On the other hand, SanDisk technical support have stated that this problem was fixed by the latest firmware release (version 02.01.32 of February 2009) [3]. To test this assertion, I played the same audio file on two different Sansa Clips, on two other MP3 players, and on iTunes/PowerMac G4, and compared the results.

Nice test,

but did you try with a different codec ?

Everytime I’ve read of pitch bug I’ve found attached the word MP3. Clip plays also WMA ( like 99,9% of portable players ), OGG and FLAC.  

Is the problem related to MP3 only or it’s present with every codec ?

Could be very intersting redo the same test with WMA encoding ( so it’s possible to compare the behaviour of all 5 players ) and with OGG and FLAC ( in this case comparing Mp3 and Ogg and FLAC Clip performances ), with same settings ( 44.100 Kkz / 16 bit ). 

If the problem is not dependent by the codec the Clip results should be the same for every test.