Before buying: songs playing at a slower speed?

The fact that only a handful of people here have reported this problem is irrelevant - this defect, if it really is there, is subtler than other bugs/difficulties users may experience: most of those who’ve noticed it seem to be musicians. And I’m not. :slight_smile:

That said, you’re absolutely right: I haven’t tried the Fuze. But I’m looking around, I want to buy a new portable music player, I do not mean to judge this or that model. I read reviews, and try to form an opinion, just like most other customers do. When I read about this, I thought it’d be better to ask here: I still think it was the right thing to do.

You’re right, I can buy it and then take it back if I’m not satisfied, but normally people try to make the right choice immediately, not taking this kind of trial and error approach. :wink:

I try to listen to what everyone says. And I might still buy the Fuze, as nothing else really seems to be as good in the same price range, especially thinking about its interface (why’s everyone else going for touch-sensitive interfaces, for example?).

“My Fuze plays everything slower” is a reply that will interest me. “Your Fuze must be defective, because mine plays everything perfectly” is another reply that’ll interest me. Replies such as “no player is that accurate anyway so it really isn’t a big defect” don’t help, though I know that who wrote it was trying to be useful - but it only made me check if what I own has the same inaccuracy, and report back.

Now, I’ve gone through way too many reviews, so maybe I’ll follow your advice, buy a Fuze and see if it’s true or not. See you soon, hopefully with a perfect sounding Fuze. :slight_smile:

I as a musician have only noticed the slowness on my own recordings (Songs I could play in my sleep) So When I had the opportunity to run this by some of my friends who are also musicians I did. Most of these people are not classically  trained to they said yeah it sounds fne, But When I gave it to Marc Cohen, and he listened to Some of his tracks he counted it off and confirmed that it was perfect and that I was just hearing things. I think that some of the fuzes especially when they are reading from an SD card there could have a bit of a drop but nothing that the untrained or the in some cases the most trained ears can hear

@malcolm81 wrote:

But I’m looking around, I want to buy a new portable music player, I do not mean to judge this or that model. I read reviews, and try to form an opinion, just like most other customers do. When I read about this, I thought it’d be better to ask here: I still think it was the right thing to do.

 

Absolutely! Many people do not do their homework on something like this beforehand. We hear from them all the time here. “What do you mean, it doesn’t offer gapless playback?” or “Why in the world wouldn’t this support folder navigation?” The forum is full of these 2 issues alone. Obviously, these things matter to some people, but apparently not enough for them to research what product fits their needs the best before plunking down thier hard-earned $$.

 

You’re right, I can buy it and then take it back if I’m not satisfied, but normally people try to make the right choice immediately, not taking this kind of trial and error approach. :wink:

 

Right again. Smart people do. But that option is always available to anyone who gets something they didn’t expect, or is not happy.

 

Now, I’ve gone through way too many reviews, so maybe I’ll follow your advice, buy a Fuze and see if it’s true or not. See you soon, hopefully with a perfect sounding Fuze. :slight_smile:

 

You can only research so much. The final ‘proof is in the pudding’. Sooner or later, you’ve got to make a decision. Hopefully, it’ the right one the 1st time, but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not. Good luck in your quest. :smiley:

I thought I’d posted this, but can’t find it, so apologies if it is here twice.

If the problem is an occasional player getting through with an uncalibrated crystal oscillator, that should also show as the clock keeping bad time.

I don’t have a Fuze yet, so I tried my e200 against foobar on the PC.  The big problem is getting both to start at the same time, but I managed once. Through a 6 minute song they played so close you’d think the phones and speakers were running off the same source.  That was on the Sansa firmware.

Then I tried a longer play on Rockbox (because it preloads the next track so shouldn’t lose time between songs).  The PC and Rockbox started a little apart, so didn’t sound synchronized, but stayed about the same, maybe a quarter second apart, for close to half an hour. 

@donp wrote:
 

… with an uncalibrated crystal oscillator, that should also show as the clock keeping bad time.

 

I think we all here assume that the Fuze is designed with a crystal oscillator, and therefore should have a playback speed that is accurate to about 0.001%. This is the typical accuracy of a crystal clock, and is about a thousand times more accurate that any human can distinguish as a pitch.

      …but… There are other ways to design electronics, and the cost and physical size of adding a crystal oscillator may not have been deemed necessary.

In my experience generating accurate time bases with electronic circuits based on resistors and capacitors is very hard to do - and can be considerably worse than equipment of 20 years ago that based playback speed on electrical motors and rubber belts.

'In my experience generating accurate time bases with electronic circuits based on resistors and capacitors is very hard to do -"

Perhaps not that hard if temperature is held constant. One could probably design a clock that is very accurate if the temperature is held at some constant, like for example 25C, standard room temperature, however if the temperature is allowed to vary then it might run faster at higher temperature and slower at lower temperature. As a test, you could take a digital watch and keep it in a refrigerator(in a sealed plastic bag to protect it) for a few days and see if it ran slow. I guess even a mechanical watch might run slower at a colder temperature.

I am wondering about the Fuze’s processor. It may not have that much spare processing power, so if someone presents  interrupts for the processor(ie presses buttons or turns the scroll wheel to adjust volume), this might delay the processor slightly in it decoding. This might especially be the the case with WMA or FLAC which take much more processing power to decode than mp3. Just the interrupt to turn off the backlight or other interrupts might present somewhat of a delay.

Well, now the problem has become worse.  After updating to 02.01.17, now my tracks are not only slightly slower - but the pitch is slightly lower, too.  This is unacceptable because I can’t play my instruments against my Fuze tracks anymore without detuning them.  Ughh…

I’m going to return it and if I get another that keeps pitch I’ll never do an update again.  All I want to do is drag mp3s onto it and I don’t need to go online with it at all.

Just for details:

WinXPpro SP3 on my PC.

mp3s only of various bitrates.  Some fixed, some variable.

CDex for ripping.  Never a hitch before.

Some mp3s bought on Amazon.

Some mp3s converted from .wav files on PC platform-based audio recorder.

Playing only off the internal memory - no added memory cards.

All tracks on the Fuze exhibit the same defect.  They are slightly slow and now slightly off pitch after my first firmware update.

Hmmm, I wonder:

Will this thing take .wav files?

I need something more professional.  The Fuze is great for clowning around but for serious musicianship I’m afraid it won’t cut it.

Message Edited by Arranger on 12-31-2008 11:22 PM

@mp3geek wrote:


@donp wrote:
 

… with an uncalibrated crystal oscillator, that should also show as the clock keeping bad time.

 


I think we all here assume that the Fuze is designed with a crystal oscillator, and therefore should have a playback speed that is accurate to about 0.001%. This is the typical accuracy of a crystal clock, and is about a thousand times more accurate that any human can distinguish as a pitch.

 

      …but… There are other ways to design electronics, and the cost and physical size of adding a crystal oscillator may not have been deemed necessary.

 

The Fuze has a real time clock, so crystal would be nice.  Even if no crystal, how well it keeps time will tell you if it is off.

 

@arranger wrote:

Well, now the problem has become worse.  After updating to 02.01.17, now my tracks are not only slightly slower - but the pitch is slightly lower, too.  This is unacceptable because I can’t play my instruments against my Fuze tracks anymore without detuning them.  Ughh…

 

I was going to suggest that you re-install the previous f/w version, but since you have one of the new Rev. 2 machines, there is no previous version here. This player hit the market vurtually at the same time as the firmware update did, so the original f/w is not posted here.

 

Hmmm, I wonder:

Will this thing take .wav files?

 

Yes, as long as the bit-rate isn’t too high. WAV is a supported file type, but some people have problems playing the very high bit-rates. The Fuze also now supports FLAC & OGG if those alternatives are viable options for you.

I created my own test mp3 file by using the voice recorder. Watching the clock I whacked a stapler to the desk at as close to a 10 minute interval as possible. Likely well within a second.  I then transferred the file to the PC and viewed it with Audacity.

Results:
The voice recorder has the two “whack” sounds at about 10 minutes and 0.4 seconds apart. This could be caused by imprecision of my testing, but a longer test over 28 minutes gives about 2.4 extra seconds. This would indicate that the clock for the voice recorder is running an itsy bitsy amount too fast - but this error this too small to be audible.

Using Audacity I cut out the extra time to make the two clicks “exactly” 10 minutes apart, and then I added a pure 440 hz tone for the bulk of the 10 minute recording. This is independent of any crystal or other oscillator - simply a mathematical equation. This file was exported as MP3, ogg and wav files and put on the Fuze.

When I play the MP3 file back on the PC I can use my Korg CA-30 Chromatic tuner to measure the frequency of the tone that was artificially generated with Audacity.   My tuner identifies the tone as A440 with 0 cents deviation - a little fluctuation of 1-2 cents is caused by ambient noise.

When I play the file back on the Fuze pushing the earphones up to the mic on the Korg tuner I get a pitch of A440 with about -20 cents of deviation. This is very close to the timing error of about 1.1%.  I also copied wav and ogg versions of the same file to the Fuze, and when I play them back they are also 20 cents low in pitch. The time it takes to play the MP3 file from one click to the other is 10 minutes 7 seconds, consistent with a little more than a 1% speed error.

Here are two links that discuss the human perception of pitch and the “cents” scale of frequency…
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Music/cents.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent\_(music)

Both of these sources claim that the limit of human hearing is about 5 cents. But the second goes on to say that many music students cannot hear a 10 cent difference. I must admit - I cannot hear the difference in their sample files - though the tuner picks it right up. Wikipedia claims that most normal adults can hear 25 cents difference, which is pretty much what we are looking at for my player.

The funny thing is the voice recorder is not effected, and the real time clock appears to work right. This give me hope that there is a firmware fix that can repair the issue. On the other hand, mine might be broken. Does anyone want to try my test files. It is easiest if you are also a musician and have access to a crystal based tuner, but a stopwatch will work as well.

Im gonna take my fuze to work tomorrow, and use a pure mp3 file (never seen a computer other than  the one it was created on) in the studio and run it thru the crystal tuner, Then Ill use the same file on my fuze and run that thru the studio and the tuner. If my assumptions are correct I will get a difference so low most people wont be able to hear it. People like the arranger and myself and anybody who has a trained ear may hear it but those are unique cases. Like Ive said before I can only hear a difference on my own songs (placed on the fuze as mp3).

Good work there.  If I had a Fuze I’d try it.  As I said my e200 appears to be spot on.

Doesn’t help you yet, but if/when Rockbox is ready to run on Fuze, it has pitch-speed adjustment in 1/10 percent increments, plus running different software, so the problem may not exist at all.

Unfortunately, I have the ‘curse.’  Also known as perfect pitch.  I used to tune pianos and without it, I would have been out of a job.  Tuning instruments requires a sense of pitch beyond what the average listener might perceive.  Anything less is unprofessional.

The Fuze is way off pitch-wise and if I play electronic keyboard against my own recorded electronic keyboard tracks that are transferred to the Fuze, it is ghastly.  Nobody would want to listed to that too long.  This is above the average human’s perception threshold and virtually anyone would find listening in this way intolerable.

I’m realizing now that Sansa is catering to a wide amateur audience with this player and overall it is a very satisfying tool.  My applications are beyond what it was intended to do and it’s dissappointing that such a simple consideration would have made it a pheonominal device.

Thank you, all for your very insightful posts and efforts.

@arranger wrote:

Unfortunately, I have the ‘curse.’  Also known as perfect pitch.  I used to tune pianos and without it, I would have been out of a job.  Tuning instruments requires a sense of pitch beyond what the average listener might perceive.  Anything less is unprofessional.

 

The Fuze is way off pitch-wise and if I play electronic keyboard against my own recorded electronic keyboard tracks that are transferred to the Fuze, it is ghastly.  Nobody would want to listed to that too long.  This is above the average human’s perception threshold and virtually anyone would find listening in this way intolerable.

 

I’m realizing now that Sansa is catering to a wide amateur audience with this player and overall it is a very satisfying tool.  My applications are beyond what it was intended to do and it’s dissappointing that such a simple consideration would have made it a pheonominal device.

 

Thank you, all for your very insightful posts and efforts.

I used to be perfect pitch (I lost the ability thanks to Vocal nodes and 40% hearing loss) So I know what you mean, and yes the fuze is geared for the novice. But For $85 what did you expect? If I wanted something I could carry on stage with me I would have spent 2 or 3 grand. I wanted something I could use for fun. I wanna put my tracks on it too but most of the time I listen for the pleasure of listening. This means I dont think about microscopic differences. Im listening to AC/DC as I type this, and its not in tune, but Im telling my self Bon Scott was jsut a little to drunk when they cut it. I can deal!

I noticed this last night too, not on my Fuze, but on my E280.  At first I thought, gee, is my battery going dead? But no, this isn’t a cassette player! and besides that I had 3/4 of a battery.

I was playing a high bitrate MP3 off a uSD card.  It was irritating . I’m going to try and copy it to my player and see if that makes a difference.

But don’t let people tell you you’re crazy.  This is definitely a problem with my E280, and could likely be a problem on your Fuze.

I also have two Jensen SMP-1GBD MP3 players in the house. I bought them in a closeout sale for $9 each last month, and they are so bottom of the line that Jensen last I looked does not even admit to having produced them on their website. At that price I can afford to have one player per piece I am listening too - often audio books that are difficult to put back to the right spot. And one is for my 7 yo daughter. I am surprised hers has lasted the month without being lost or run through the washer.

So I put the test MP3 file that I mentioned earlier in this thread on that and used my Korg tuner to measure the pitch of the A440 test tone. Both players had the pitch dead on. So it is possible for a tiny cheap player to play in tune. These players physically make the Fuze look like an Elephant next to a mouse, and are smaller but similar shape to the USB memory key that I use with no visual display - just two buttons for control.

I also have an older MP3 player someplace around the house - but have not been able to find it in a week. I will test that too if I find it - it might be at the bottom of the washer.

Welp,

Mine’s going back to whence it came… a.k.a.  Radio Shack. I’m looking into the Cowan D2 or Sony Walkman.  I find no excuse for this oversight on Sandisk’s part.  It’s digitized music and I don’t think I should have to accept it like some worn capstan on a tape deck, or a stretched turntable belt.  :neutral_face:

Message Edited by Arranger on 01-01-2009 07:58 PM

@arranger wrote:

Welp,

Mine’s going back to whence it came… a.k.a.  Radio Shack. I’m looking into the Cowan D2 or Sony Walkman.  I find no excuse for this oversight on Sandisk’s part.  It’s digitized music and I don’t think I should have to accept it like some worn capstan on a tape deck, or a stretched turntable belt.  :neutral_face:

Message Edited by Arranger on 01-01-2009 07:58 PM

I already took one other brand of MP3 player back to Best Buy in shreadded packaging, and I have grown rather fond of this one. I plan to wait till next week when hopefully someone from SanDisk will comment on the issue and the likelyhood of it being fixed. Most consumer electronics these days appears to be shipped with software that is not yet ready for prime time.

It would help if before you return yours you make a similar series of measurements. Being a musician I expect you have a couple tuners around the house, and it is very trivial with a tuner and a recording of any long sustained note to make a quantitative measurement of the pitch.

Message Edited by Mp3Geek on 01-01-2009 06:46 PM

I just purchased my Fuze on last Saturday. This problem occurred for the first time earlier tonight. A file that I recorded off of the FM radio began playing at what about 1/2-1/3 of the normal speed. It stopped for a few seconds after I adjusted my volume. I had a Sansa c200, and the file played just fine on there. Never any defects or problems. I don’t know why it would begin now.

Message Edited by allycat89 on 01-01-2009 09:44 PM