Gapless playback?

@flactastic wrote:

Saratoga - first you mentioned about my “silly cables” and now you make false statements like “cables don’t add hum and distortion.”  YES they do.  Bad, old, broken cables do.

 

 

A broken cable does not produce hum.  You are simply mistaken.  

And anyway, you didn’t say the cable was physically broken.  You said it was cheap, and that you were able to test with it.  Either what you said about testing with it was wrong, or what you’re saying now is mistaken.  Please don’t expect me to read your mind.    

FLACtastic wrote: 

 

Stop making assumptions and barking orders (e.g. “You have set something wrong.” “Figure out why your soundcard isn’t working properly.” )

 

It’s very arrogant, and it’s rude.

 

 

 

  

I didn’t give you an order, I simply told you what you need to do to make this work, and explained why what you were doing was not going to work.  You’re perfectly welcome to continue to be unable to do what you set out to do and I will not mind.  But do not insult me for trying to help you succeed.  I have good intentions even if you choose not to be helped.  

And FWIW assuming you’ve got a problem when your line out level is 20 dB below line out level isn’t much of an assumption :slight_smile:  I hardly think I’m being arrogant in thinking something is very, very wrong here.  

From the sidelines, this is really a clash of cultures.

Saratoga (and Takla too, I’d guess) are programmers. They are used to dealing with computers as logical devices that accept comands and execute them. The commands work, or they don’t work.  If they don’t work, they try a different set of commands. Programmers think, and offer advice, in step-by-step imperatives. 

Yes or no. 1 or 0. Logic.  “Either what you said about testing with it was wrong, or what you’re saying now is mistaken.”

They’re not trying to boss you around, FLACtastic. They’re applying calm logic and offering you programs–sets of commands to accomplish the purpose. They have thought about the problem and are trying to give you the steps that will solve it in the most direct form. 

It’s not about who’s in charge. It’s about solving the problem. 

Second that: cables cannot add hum or distortion.

Maybe if they were wrapped around a transformer. :wink:

Cables can indeed add hum and distortion, it’s all about the signal-to-noise ratio.  As your source signal drops, the noise becomes more pronounced.  As for hum, if you have a high cable resistance, such as a bad shield connection in particular, you will pick up all kinds of interference on the signal lead.

The longer the cable run, the stronger the likelihood of noise.

For a basic test with a sound card “aux” input, you should be able to use a basic portable device patch cord.  The application you are using is “one-dimensional”, simply looking at the overall signal.  More subjective testing, with your ears, may hear subtle nuances.

The epic battle between raw engineering and listening tests reminds me of Bob Carver and his “transfer function” marketing blitz years ago.  Now that was fun.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

@neutron_bob wrote:

Cables can indeed add hum and distortion, it’s all about the signal-to-noise ratio.  As your source signal drops, the noise becomes more pronounced.  

 

 Noise from the source and receiver.

neutron_bob wrote: 
As for hum, if you have a high cable resistance,

 

 

  

Which cables made of metal do not.

neutron_bob wrote: 
 such as a bad shield connection in particular, 

 

Which is not physically possible since a bad shield connection does not increase resistance.

  

neutron_bob wrote: 

 you will pick up all kinds of interference on the signal lead.

 

 

So if you use cables that don’t exist in a situation thats not possible, something that doesn’t make sense happens.  Got it. This was a valuable contribution to the thread.  

  

neutron_bob wrote: 

 More subjective testing, with your ears, may hear subtle nuances.

 

 

lol

@neutron_bob wrote:

 

More subjective testing, with your ears, may hear subtle nuances.

Subjective testing is often unreliable.  This is why objective testing is often preferable.  Please see message 363 of this thread and http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf for the explanation.

neutron_bob wrote: More subjective testing, with your ears, may hear subtle nuances.

 

 

Only if you have the right accessories, some of which are available at very reasonable prices from  http://www.machinadynamica.com/

If you’re using the wrong kind of pebbles or you don’t have the  Frog Jump in Water Sound
Room Acoustics Tweak
then how do you know you are hearing the correct and genuine subtle nuances???

Message Edited by Takla on 06-03-2010 01:00 AM

I want to clarify the shielded comment since I was a little unfair.  I suppose some shielded cables do use a common ground as a shield line, if so breaking one of them does increase the resistance (a lot!).  However, the result is not hum, in that case you have no common line!   You’ll get a weird mixing of the left and right channels as they try to force current into one another.  Rather then hum you’ll get mixing of the channels and near total loss of signal since you no longer have a real electrical circuit.  

Hehe, I work with test equipment daily.  Glitches are a common occurrence, depending upon the cables used.  Working with the oscilloscope, where the probes are grounded can make all the difference, especially since we have a digital processor and multiplexed display active.  Quite often, I choose to limit the bandwidth in order to see a clean sample.  I don’t know how sensitive the test software might be in your case.

With the typical portable cable (stereo mini plug), I see damaged conductors at the plugs and strain relief points.  If cables are abused and kinked, the shielding can be pinched making a wee capacitor in the line.  Small signal cables can have the two Sig+ wires twisted or as a parallel pair.

As far as the sonic differences are concerned, this is only an issue at the extremes, of course.  With a little Sansa, we have quite short cables.  With the average studio runs, you can have microphones twenty meters or more from the console, a much more pronounced issue- those cables are expensive.

Bob :stuck_out_tongue:

@neutron_bob wrote:

Hehe, I work with test equipment daily.  Glitches are a common occurrence, depending upon the cables used.  Working with the oscilloscope, where the probes are grounded can make all the difference, especially since we have a digital processor and multiplexed display active.  Quite often, I choose to limit the bandwidth in order to see a clean sample.  I don’t know how sensitive the test software might be in your case.

 

With the typical portable cable (stereo mini plug), I see damaged conductors at the plugs and strain relief points.  If cables are abused and kinked, the shielding can be pinched making a wee capacitor in the line.  Small signal cables can have the two Sig+ wires twisted or as a parallel pair.

 

 

 

 

Great, but no one said you can’t break a cable.  I don’t doubt if you rip the wires out it doesn’t work as well.  What you said was:

"Cables can indeed add hum and distortion "  

Do you want to take that part back?  Because it seems like you’ve changed your mind.   

Message Edited by saratoga on 06-03-2010 02:10 PM

this thread is TLDR

just checkin in to see if this thing is gapless yet and if it’s even on the horizon?

(rockbox is too technical for the wife so i want to use the sansa firmware)

@emagon4523 wrote:

this thread is TLDR

 

just checkin in to see if this thing is gapless yet and if it’s even on the horizon?

 

(rockbox is too technical for the wife so i want to use the sansa firmware)

 If she isn’t worried about gapless, set it up so the default is Sansa firmware, and you boot to rockbox when you’re using it.  There’s info on how to do that on the rockbox site.

 

Can I just add another plea for gapless playback (at least when playing lossless files like FLAC)? Or maybe enable cue support so we can rip CDs to a single file and get gapless by that method?

I’m loving gapless functionality via Rockbox. However, as I’m sure you know, Rockbox doesn’t currently support line-out functionality (it only plays through the headphone-out) so this means if I want to play my Fuse V2 through my stereo (via my dock) or use a portable headphone amp (via the line-out) I have to use the Sansa firmware - and lose the gapless ability. :frowning:

So, come on good firmware developers, PLEASE continue working to give us gapless!  If Rockbox can do it, I know YOU can too! :wink:

@flactastic wrote:

Can I just add another plea for gapless playback (at least when playing lossless files like FLAC)? Or maybe enable cue support so we can rip CDs to a single file and get gapless by that method?

 

I’m loving gapless functionality via Rockbox. However, as I’m sure you know, Rockbox doesn’t currently support line-out functionality (it only plays through the headphone-out) so this means if I want to play my Fuse V2 through my stereo (via my dock) or use a portable headphone amp (via the line-out) I have to use the Sansa firmware - and lose the gapless ability. :frowning:

 

So, come on good firmware developers, PLEASE continue working to give us gapless!  If Rockbox can do it, I know YOU can too! :wink:

The obvious answer for you is…use the headphone-out.:wink:

The signal out of the HO is very clean out of the Sansas…I use my various rockboxed Sansas with a portable amp just fine. You must have  V2 Fuze if the LO still doesn’t work with RB…so simply use the headphone-out, set the player volume tosomewhere between -5db and  0db, and you’re all good…plus you can still use the RB EQ, which is awesome compared to the one in the OF.

I know this won’t help you with your dock, but if you want to connect to your stereo there’s always the old mini-RCA jack cable. I wouldn’t expect to ever see gapless on the Fuze OF, now that the Fuze+ is here.

@ Marvin_Martian: that’s exactly what I have been doing whenever I listen to a gapless album. However, I still look forward to the day I can play gapless through the line-out. I certainly don’t bother with EQ or any of those stupid sound controls - utterly useless if you’re using good gear and good earphones and good audiophile recordings.

Rockbox v3.7 is out and is stable for Fuze V2. The only thing that doesn’t work (and it’s known) is USB connection using Rockbox. So, you still have to use the OF to synch your music, but otherwise, Fuze V2 has joined the “stable” crowd in Rockbox.

I’ve been using RB since it could work with the V2 Fuze and I haven’t gone back to the OF. In fact, I never will go back to the OF, even if they DO have gapless playback eventually, but I highly doubt it.

RB has proven gapless playback with the Fuze CAN be done.

@isamuelson wrote:

Rockbox v3.7 is out and is stable for Fuze V2. The only thing that doesn’t work (and it’s known) is USB connection using Rockbox. So, you still have to use the OF to synch your music, but otherwise, Fuze V2 has joined the “stable” crowd in Rockbox.

 

I’ve been using RB since it could work with the V2 Fuze and I haven’t gone back to the OF. In fact, I never will go back to the OF, even if they DO have gapless playback eventually, but I highly doubt it.

 

RB has proven gapless playback with the Fuze CAN be done.

 

I’m using it too, on the V2 I just got, my V1, and my two Clip+'s…love it!

All mp3s should have the option for gapless. Sgt.Pepper, Dark Side of the Moon…songs are connected!

@progro_rock wrote:

All mp3s should have the option for gapless. Sgt.Pepper, Dark Side of the Moon…songs are connected!