Before buying: songs playing at a slower speed?

@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

Well, problem solved.  I bought a Sony Walkman 8GB for $99 today at BeastBuy.  NWZ-E38F.  AnythingButIPod.com rates these well.

Pitch and cadence are precisely matched with my PC and instruments on all songs from start to finish.   Sorry to see the Fuze go.  I miss the rubber backing.

I have the Sansa Fuze, 8GB, my daughter has the 4GB.  We have both experienced the “slow” replay on some mp3 files.  My daughter first noticed it on hers and told me that her Fuze played a song that sounded “demonic”.  I listed to it and agreed.  I do convert all our music files to 64kbps so we can get more music on them.  I’ve never had a problem with this before.  My 8GB has about 1750 songs on it, and it will repeatedly play the same mp3 files “slow” even after they are deleted and reloaded onto the Fuze.  I tried taking the same files and loading them onto my Sansa C250 2GB and they played fine.  I’m at a loss what else to try since the file plays fine on my computer, it plays fine off the Fuze when it is connected to the computer and it plays fine on another Sansa player.  To those of you that remember turn tables, it reminds me of taking a 45 single and turning the speed to 33 1/3 and playing it.  I’ve also tried putting the same songs but different bit rates on the Fuze and they will consistently play back distorted.  I wish I had a way to record what they sound like, it’s pretty bizarre.

I hope Sansa comes up with a fix for this soon.  We have 3 Fuzes in our household and we all love them.

Message Edited by Marie_W on 01-04-2009 07:45 PM

How did you get the songs that play slow? If you ripped them Delete them from your computer and then re rip them. I can only imagine that it is a case of a bad mp3 file, and if there are more than one what do they have in common?

They came from various places, CD, off another mp3, and some online downloads.   They did not all come from the same place.

But, they all play fine on my computer and my C250, for some reason the Fuze has issues with them.

It sounds lame but All I can say is possibly leave the bad tracks off of your players for now, and wait for the Firmwire upgrade (I dont know when) to see if it fixes this problem, many have come forward with this issue, so I do think that they will make an effort to develope a fix.

The slow speed syndrome has been with us since the beginning of mp3 files.  It is corrupted data within the file. Not all encoders are created equal and ultimately the problem usually resides in the ripping software from where the mp3’s were created OR (shame on you if this applies) data drops from transferring mp3 files from some sort of P2P service.  Some players (and computers) can handle these files better than others.

There are mp3 “repair” software solutions out there and I have a few friends that swear by them, for situations like these.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

The slow speed syndrome has been with us since the beginning of mp3 files.  It is corrupted data within the file…

You should read all the messages in this thread before jumping to conclusions. My test files did not contain illegal P2P music but instead contained test clicks and tones and were generated using the Audacity sound editor (shareware). My files were encoded with  LAME MP3, OGG, and WAV, and ALL played back about 1% slow!

There are several people reporting several types of problems in this thread. Perhaps I should repost my test results in a new thread. Forumites… what do you think?

@mp3geek wrote:


@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

The slow speed syndrome has been with us since the beginning of mp3 files.  It is corrupted data within the file…


 

You should read all the messages in this thread before jumping to conclusions. My test files did not contain illegal P2P music but instead contained test clicks and tones and were generated using the Audacity sound editor (shareware). My files were encoded with  LAME MP3, OGG, and WAV, and ALL played back about 1% slow!

 

There are several people reporting several types of problems in this thread. Perhaps I should repost my test results in a new thread. Forumites… what do you think?

I read all the messages in the thread.  I wasn’t responding to your post, but Marie_W’s problem a couple of posts above mine.  Sorry for any confusion.

PS.  I’m not here to pick any fights.  Have a great day!

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-05-2009 07:29 AM

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-05-2009 07:56 AM