Popping sound while playing some mp3s..

I updated to the latest firmware, took the Fuze to work…love the fact that you can scroll from z to a now!  Thanks!

But now I have an issue: there is a popping sound the creaps in while playing certain songs.  For example, Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf will start playing, and after a few moments there will be a slight popping sound that gets louder and faster as the song plays.  If I pause the song, the popping stops for a bit, then slowly works it way back.  If I skip to the next track, that track will play fine.  If I skip back that track will have popping  noises.

I have already checked the songs on the computer and they do not have the popping noise.  The only thing I did recently was use mp3gain to adjust the gain on some songs…but even then the majority of the songs adjusted by mp3gain did not have the popping noises.

Anyone else have similiar issues?

Thanks for your time, and have a great day!

Are they variable bitrate files? Some people have had some issues with some variable bitrate files. The next firmware for the Fuze will hopefully correct these problems. I don’t know if using mp3 gain might also be a factor.

Perhaps the program you used to encode the problem files didn’t do such a good job? MP3 decoding programs for a pc seem to be more robust and have better error correction than those for a portable player.

What bitrate are you using? With a lower bitrate come more artifacts. If you used a lower bitrate(128 kbps or less), then try making some new mp3 files using a different program and a  192 kbps or 256 kbps constant bitrate for some of the problem CDs and see if you still get these poping sounds.

Message Edited by JK98 on 10-21-2008 10:35 PM

Also your going to hear things you never did before even if you have a  HQ well set up audiophile quality system depending on how good you earbuds/headset is…  Could be in fact in the music…  I’m not saying it is but just that it could be…  The you have many other variables in file type bit rate even the dive you riped from if you rip your music…  I have a few CD that show a few odd ball things but 90% of the rest of the music I have on the unit is so fantastic I guess I don’t let a few hiccups bother me… I loaded Sheryl Crow’s Detours and on both of our units as a song ends then the next just stars i will hear 1sec of the last song played then all is well till the end of the song…Any one else have this CD in there units?  I checked tags and all look good Mp3 192 bit rate… and like I said it will do the same thing on both units we have a 4 gb Fuze and a 8 GB unit… I think this is a small price to pay and I’m willing to deal with. maybe the next firmware up will fix some of the issues…  Best of luck! George

@george_w wrote:

I loaded Sheryl Crow’s Detours and on both of our units as a song ends then the next just stars i will hear 1sec of the last song played then all is well till the end of the song…Any one else have this CD in there units?  

George -

You might get Audacity music-editing software (free). If there is an echo or artifact hanging around, you can visually find it and delete it.

I use it frequently for ‘live’ albums where I don’t want to listen to 10 - 20 seconds of applause at both the beginning and end of a song. I delete what I don’t want, then apply ‘Fade-in’ or ‘Fade-out’ to make it sound more natural and ‘studio-like’. :wink:

I get this too but it’s on an album that is cbr and 128kbps.

Also when pausing and resuming a song, there’s a weird distorted sound for about a second before it gets back to normal.

Tapeworm,

Thanks I’ll give it a try… Free is the right price too!  I have Nero burn and I’ll have to look at that and see how and if it can help with Our music…  My wife has about 600 record albums and most of them I’m going to try and convert them to cd’s then rip them to the players…  So that program you sent the link for sounds great…  I have a extra recever and a decent turntable an a line input on my wife’s desktop… so I think I should be able to something…  George

I have the same problem and I assume that it’s not the fault of the file because the mp3 plays just fine on my PC.  I’ve noticed that, when the popping starts, making any adjustment to the Fuze’s volume will make the noise go away, if only temporarily.  I think that higher volumes eliminate the popping, as well.

I hope some sort of fix for this comes out soon, as I love everything else about the Fuze (4GB).

@george_w wrote:

I loaded Sheryl Crow’s Detours and on both of our units as a song ends then the next just stars i will hear 1sec of the last song played then all is well till the end of the song…Any one else have this CD in there units?

George -

Happened to see this CD in the library today while I was perusing for my own collection. Picked it up and scanned it briefly in WMP. Can’t say I heard exactly what you are describing, but there are a few tracks that sort of run into the next (no definite stop - pause - start of next track). The end of Track #2 blends into the start of Track #3 by about 1/2 - 1 second. Same with Track #2 over-running into Track #3. You don’t really notice it if the songs are being played/heard in track order, but if your shuffle is on, the beginning of these tracks are going to sound weird with the leftovers from the other tracks at the beginning.

A simple edit in Audacity (or other music/sound file-editing software)will clear this up. I couldn’t tell if this was intentional or just sloppy editing in the mastering process when creating the CD. This kind of ‘blending’ was popular a few decades back with more than just a few artists, and it saved you from hearing the pops, dust & static in the silence between the tracks while listening to the old vinyl LP’s. And that was OK then, because you played a record from start to finish, flipped it over, then played the other side. It was too much of a hassle to listen to just 1 or 2 tracks (especially if they weren’t in consecutive order), because you’d have to get up, stumble over to the turntable, lift or raise the tone arm and set it back down 'ever so gently’ and try to hit the space between the tracks and also try to do it perfectly vertical, so you wouldn’t scratch the record with the stylus and hear all the noise involved with that. Definitely NOT user-friendly! Plus the fact that more times than not, there was a distinct cloud in the air (and most likely your brain too) that affected your vision and motor skills (if you get my drift) :wink:

With shuffle mode and picking & choosing individual tracks to listen to these days, thankfully that form of recording isn’t done much today, so it’s not a big issue. But every once in a while you run into it, like on this album. I noticed also, that there’s a very abrupt ending to Track #11; no fade-out or hint that the song is about to end. Again, I don’t know whether this was planned, but I think it’s just a matter of sloppy editing; sure sounds like it anyway.

And I’ve never heard so much ‘verbal counting’ on one album before! Was Sheryl recording with a bunch of blithering idiots? Didn’t she think they could pick up the beat? I don’t mind an occasional “One, two . . . one, two, three, four” at the beginning of a song, but 3 times on 1 album? Come on Sheryl, you’ve been at this a while now. Hopefully your studio musicians have too. This REALLY isn’t necessary. In fact, I found it irritating! :angry:

Thanks!  I left a reply in the other post!  But wow!  You put some time into this!! I didn’t play it on WMP-11 on my computer. I just ripped it at 192 in MP3 format and loaded it on my player… On the player i sure can hear all of the stuff your talking about!  I also get the odd between some overlap for a sec or two when the next song starts even when played in track the order… Funny I’ll have to play it on my home system again but i didn’t hear the overlap that i remember anyway…  Ya track 11 is a abrupt ending. anti climactic if you ask me! Yes I think they all had been " Having a grand old time":wink: at the cost of the recording!  But this is really fantastic news to my ears!!  George

George -

If what you are hearing is not what I was describing, then you may want to re-rip the CD again. At the very least, listen to the CD itself to see if it is on the CD or just on the .mp3’s you ripped. :smiley:

I will listen  to the CD again!  I ripped it about 4 times already But you set me straight with the track order when I bring it up by artist! I have to listen to the CD tomorrow and see what i find… The wife’s sleeping now!  Thanks  for all the help I’ll post what I find tomorrow! The Cd is different for sure.  It’s political, lots of love lost and some fun stuff thrown in the mix… It took me a bit to warm up to it… George

Update

Ok I just put a head set on and in WMP-11 I do hear a burp at he end of most songs and the start of some others…  I think for some reason the Fuze exaggerates this to a much longer and overlapping hiccup… I did a properties on a song and it said “MPEG Audio Layer-3” I’m not sure but I think this is different from at least some of my other ripped music.  Do you think this could have something to do with it?

Another udate

Ok something strange I said I did a properties on a few songs and come up with MPEG Audio Layer-3, well after playing the song on WMP I just did another properties and that is now gone from all the songs… I know this sound nut’s but I copied and pasted it to  this post so I know I’m not going nut’s… I think WMP is a bit wacky though!!  LOL!!

Message Edited by George-W on 10-24-2008 10:08 PM

Paul,

Other then the to updates I left last night I had the chance this morning to hear that CD On my home system that has a very revealing sound to it…I played it at a good volume level.  The CD played exactly as you describe…  Tracks running together but some with smooth overlapping tracks… I didn’t hear any unintended pause or skips like I can hear on WMP in most tracks… Again I think maybe that WMP or the format MP3’s  I’m using is the cause and that maybe the Fuze exaggerates or can’t handle the tracks well. I also tried ripping it in mp3 256 with the same results on the audio… I have two Bob Seger CD’s with the same audio skip between songs again ripped at MP3 192kbps…  But I’m thankful that most of the music on the player plays wonderfully…  Thanks again! George 

If you only get these short pauses on tracks that are merged, there is nothing wrong. MP3 will have a slight pause due to the encoding in frames and the playback hardware will add some gap too. The ultimate test is side 2 of the Beatles Abbey Road album. That side has a run of tracks that are merged together. If ripped as individual tracks and encoded to MP3 there will be a gap in the merges. This will show you how much gap a particular player adds. Older Sony CD players were at about 2 seconds, my Kenwood car stereo is very short at maybe 250 miliseconds. The workaround is to merge the tracks when ripping to wav, but if it is 3 or 4 tracks, they become 1 track.

Another skipping posibility is that the MP3 has both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in it. Check your tags in MP3tag and see if it shows both. Set it to delete the ID3v1 if they are present. I had this happen on a Sansa View that would skip the last second or two of song. Removing the ID3v1 tag from the MP3 solved it.

1412all,

Thanks for your reply. I’ll check for the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. But it’s nice to know that this is somewhat normal behaviour for the fuze .  George  

@jehovatron wrote:

I have the same problem and I assume that it’s not the fault of the file because the mp3 plays just fine on my PC.  I’ve noticed that, when the popping starts, making any adjustment to the Fuze’s volume will make the noise go away, if only temporarily.  I think that higher volumes eliminate the popping, as well.

I hope some sort of fix for this comes out soon, as I love everything else about the Fuze (4GB).

This describes exactly the same problem I’m having, including the temporary (maybe for 15 seconds or so) fix with the volume adjustment! Higher volumes don’t fix it for me though, the pops are still there… My suspicion is with VBR files as well, I hope this is fixed soon