VBR mp3 skipping/stuttering on 8GB model

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
61

@george_w wrote:

Like others have said push in the headphone jack more!  You said you tried a few pair but that don’t mean you pushed it in far enough!!  This is most likely the cause if all you songe sound like ■■■■!!  other thing I can think of is if the unit was formatted accidentally if may have a unusable fat on it!! It needs Fat 32 to work right!! Use the format command on the unit and start over!!  But really check out the headphone jack again first it does push in harder then the normal headphone jack!!!  George

Agreed 100%!!!

I’m a fairly new convert to fuzes and when I got my first one, I had the exact same skipping scenario.  Having had previous players for many, many years, I felt I had a “bum” unit.  After pouring over all the relevant posts in a wide variety of forums, it seemed that the common issue was the headphone jack “tightness”.  I didn’t believe it at first, and I too switched headphones many times until I took a very close look to see if the phones were all the way inserted…   Alas, they were not.  As soon as inserted the headphones in properly, all my skipping issues went away.  Since then I’ve not had 1 single issue with either of my 2 fuzes.

I’m not saying this is your underlying problem.  But don’t think that this is a minor point.  If the headphone jack is not fully inserted, you will be guarranteed a skipping problem…in all units.  Check and recheck this step before going to more labor intensive steps.

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-30-2009 07:25 PM

62

did that repeatedly. Tried several different headphones repeatedly pushing them in as far as they could go - even played with how far in etc.

It is already in FAT32.

The songs will play just fine as long as the volume isn’t turned up, less than half way, but as soon as the volume gets half way or more, the songs no longer play. Just skipping noises. And I played with the EQ and setting choice. Still nothing.

63

 Now that the weekend is over, maybe the Sansa support people will come back to work and see your email.  Sorry you got so frustrated that fellow users couldn’t fix your player over the internet.

64

You may have a hardware problem. I would contact tech support.

65

I’m having this problem too.  I’m on the latest firmware, V01.01.22A.  The problem only shows up when I’m playing audiobooks at “Fast” speed (which I do all the time).  When the backlight goes out, I get very short “click-like” interruptions about twice a second.

Going to custom EQ makes it noticably worse.  The problem goes away at normal speed.  FWIW, I’m playing from internal memory.  Haven’t tried moving to external.  I have an 8GB MicroSDHC plugged in containing other content.

I’ve sort of gotten used to it, but I’d sure like to see it fixed.

PM me for a sample MP3 if not replicable.

66

If you have not tried yet,  make sure the internal memory is formatted with 32K cluster size.  If you formatted from Windows,  it will use 4 K clusters which cause large overheads.

Formatting from the devices Format menu will ensure optimal size.  Do this at a point when you can reload all the content again.

67

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

@george_w wrote:

Like others have said push in the headphone jack more!  You said you tried a few pair but that don’t mean you pushed it in far enough!!  This is most likely the cause if all you songe sound like ■■■■!!  other thing I can think of is if the unit was formatted accidentally if may have a unusable fat on it!! It needs Fat 32 to work right!! Use the format command on the unit and start over!!  But really check out the headphone jack again first it does push in harder then the normal headphone jack!!!  George

Agreed 100%!!!

 

I’m a fairly new convert to fuzes and when I got my first one, I had the exact same skipping scenario.  Having had previous players for many, many years, I felt I had a “bum” unit.  After pouring over all the relevant posts in a wide variety of forums, it seemed that the common issue was the headphone jack “tightness”.  I didn’t believe it at first, and I too switched headphones many times until I took a very close look to see if the phones were all the way inserted…   Alas, they were not.  As soon as inserted the headphones in properly, all my skipping issues went away.  Since then I’ve not had 1 single issue with either of my 2 fuzes.

 

I’m not saying this is your underlying problem.  But don’t think that this is a minor point.  If the headphone jack is not fully inserted, you will be guarranteed a skipping problem…in all units.  Check and recheck this step before going to more labor intensive steps.

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 01-30-2009 07:25 PM

Thanks for this info!  My fuze started skipping and clicking when I was adjusting the volume while listening to a song.  This never happened before.  I immediately checked the headphone jack and it wasn’t pushed all the way in.  This saved me alot of time and aggravation trying to figure out whether it was the fuze or the song file. 

I’d rather spend that time downloading free audio files!

68

Hi guys,

I’m having the same problem with non-VBR (128kbps) mp3 files : when the backlight goes off, the sound starts stuttering.

I noticed that this only happens on 48000Hz files, not on 44100Hz ones. My fw version is : V01.01.11F.

Hope this helps!

69

@ace17 wrote:

Hi guys,

I’m having the same problem with non-VBR (128kbps) mp3 files : when the backlight goes off, the sound starts stuttering.

I noticed that this only happens on 48000Hz files, not on 44100Hz ones. My fw version is : V01.01.11F.

Hope this helps!

 

 

Update the firmware. That is always the first step.

70

traalfaz

Your not on the latest firmware!  It is v01.02.26A with A as my region… Up date to this and you should be fine with  no more issues!  George 

Message Edited by George-W on 05-25-2009 12:51 PM

71

oh I’m sorry, I don’t know why, I was sure I had the latest version.

Anyway, I updated to 1.02.26F and it works great now!

Thank you!

72

OK, I’m wading in on this one.

I have THREE Fuze players, two 8Gb and one 4Gb. All are updated tot he latest firmware as of this writing, which in layman’s terms means the newest one with ReplayGain and Folder support (thank God!). All THREE of them skip when playing mp3s, regardless of whether EQ is turned on or not. The mp3s are all home grown and encoded with LAME 3.98.2 at the – extreme preset. What is perplexing is that the symptoms seem to maifest themselves more when one is moving around (walking briskly is one example), which is NOT the behavior one would expect from a flash player as it is more endemic of hard drive players.

This is NOT a hardware issue.

Reformatting does NOT help - that was done on all three players after the firmware upgrade.

This is not a headphone issue - the various headphones are very securely plugged in.

This is a BUFFERING / DECODER issue.

I’ve owned enough players by enough vendors (Creative Labs, Cowon, Sandisk), both hard drive and flash based (Cowon I7 / X5 / A2, Sansa Fuze / Clip, Creative Labs MuVo) to know where the issues lie with the architecture. Given that Flash is SLOW compared to hard disk access, it behooves one to have superior buffering built into one’s firmware. Formatting with larger cluster sizes is at best a KLUDGE, since it not only wastes valuable disk space needlessly but only has limited success at best.  Somewhere along the line, the decioder (which is usually one of the more resource intensive aspects of the player) is getting starved and cannot cope with high bitrate VBR mp3s, especially if sound altering EQ or higher volume levels are used.  That’s a firmware efficiency issue.

Did I mention that the fix needs to be implemented in firmware?

The fix needs to be implemented in firmware.

So Sandisk, can I assume that the next firmware revision will finally address this long-standing annoying and very basic issue?

Thank you.

Message Edited by roj on 06-03-2009 07:37 AM

Message Edited by roj on 06-03-2009 07:39 AM

Message Edited by roj on 06-03-2009 07:43 AM

73

@roj wrote:

OK, I’m wading in on this one.

 

I have THREE Fuze players, two 8Gb and one 4Gb. All are updated tot he latest firmware as of this writing, which in layman’s terms means the newest one with ReplayGain and Folder support (thank God!). All THREE of them skip when playing mp3s, regardless of whether EQ is turned on or not. The mp3s are all home grown and encoded with LAME 3.98.2 at the – extreme preset. What is perplexing is that the symptoms seem to maifest themselves more when one is moving around (walking briskly is one example), which is NOT the behavior one would expect from a flash player as it is more endemic of hard drive players.

 

This is NOT a hardware issue.

 

Reformatting does NOT help - that was done on all three players after the firmware upgrade.

 

This is not a headphone issue - the various headphones are very securely plugged in.

 

 

This is a BUFFERING / DECODER issue.

 

I’ve owned enough players by enough vendors (Creative Labs, Cowon, Sandisk), both hard drive and flash based (Cowon I7 / X5 / A2, Sansa Fuze / Clip, Creative Labs MuVo) to know where the issues lie with the architecture. Given that Flash is SLOW compared to hard disk access, it behooves one to have superior buffering built into one’s firmware. Formatting with larger cluster sizes is at best a KLUDGE, since it not only wastes valuable disk space needlessly but only has limited success at best.  Somewhere along the line, the decioder (which is usually one of the more resource intensive aspects of the player) is getting starved and cannot cope with high bitrate VBR mp3s, especially if sound altering EQ or higher volume levels are used.  That’s a firmware efficiency issue.

 

Did I mention that the fix needs to be implemented in firmware?

 

The fix needs to be implemented in firmware.

 

So Sandisk, can I assume that the next firmware revision will finally address this long-standing annoying and very basic issue?

 

Thank you.

Well, I don’t have this problem with my LAME MP3 VBR’s, or WMA VBR’s for that matter…in fact, not even my Ogg Vorbis(which is inherently VBR) does this…maybe I’m just lucky. :stuck_out_tongue:

Message Edited by Marvin_Martian on 06-03-2009 12:09 PM

74

I have no problems with 320Kbps MP3 or OGG files either. Since this person mentioned the problem occurs more when moving around (which should have absolutely no effect at all on a flash memory device)… I suspect the real problem is a loose or bad headphone connection (or not plugged in all the way).

75

On all three players?  Decidedly unlikely and besides, that was the FIRST thing I checked.  The issue is also not limited to moving around - it can happen while I’m sitting quite stationary on the bus.  And yes, I did state in my message that moving aorund should have absolutely no effect on a flash player.  Furthermore, I can replay the same song and it will play just fine.  The problem is sporadic.

Also, the mp3s play just fine on all three of my Cowons.

Nope - firmware mess-up.

Message Edited by roj on 06-03-2009 12:24 PM

Message Edited by roj on 06-03-2009 12:26 PM

76

Further testing reveals:

1)  This happens when EQ is engaged.  I use a custom EQ setting that gooses the bass and mi-bass frequencies a bit.  If I play flat, all is relatively well, which leads to…

2)  This happens with high volume levels

Basically, this player doesn’t have the juice to deal with high bitrate VBR files when EQ and high volume levels are employed.

The skipping while moving was coincidental - that was also when I turned up the volume.

Can you say “inefficiently coded firmware”?  Tighten up your code, Sandisk!

Message Edited by roj on 06-04-2009 06:47 AM

77

@roj wrote:

Further testing reveals:

 

1)  This happens when EQ is engaged.  I use a custom EQ setting that gooses the bass and mi-bass frequencies a bit.  If I play flat, all is relatively well, which leads to…

 

2)  This happens with high volume levels

 

Basically, this player doesn’t have the juice to deal with high bitrate VBR files when EQ and high volume levels are employed.

 

 

The skipping while moving was coincidental - that was also when I turned up the volume.

 

 

Can you say “inefficiently coded firmware”?  Tighten up your code, Sandisk!

Message Edited by roj on 06-04-2009 06:47 AM

It never happened to me with VBR mp3 and ogg files at about 200 kbps using custom EQ settings. In contrast to your settings I’am rarely using the high volume range. And yes, I do benefit from the new firmware in many aspects.

Maybe I’m just as lucky as Marvin_Martian?

78

@roj wrote:

Further testing reveals:

 

1)  This happens when EQ is engaged.  I use a custom EQ setting that gooses the bass and mi-bass frequencies a bit.  If I play flat, all is relatively well, which leads to…

 

2)  This happens with high volume levels

 

Basically, this player doesn’t have the juice to deal with high bitrate VBR files when EQ and high volume levels are employed.

 

 

The skipping while moving was coincidental - that was also when I turned up the volume.

 

 

Can you say “inefficiently coded firmware”?  Tighten up your code, Sandisk!

Message Edited by roj on 06-04-2009 06:47 AM

I use a headphone amp with my Fuze fairly often…when I do, the Fuze volume is somewhere between 90% and 100% volume…master volume is controlled by the amp. I believe that qualifies as high volume output from the Fuze, and there’s no skipping going on when I do that. So maybe the “inefficient coding” is occurring with your files :wink:

79

What I can’t figure out is why I’m experiencing this on THREE players, one of which is 4Gb.

80

Sounds like bad headphone jacks in all the players. Try backing the headphone plug out a very small amount (about 1mm). The jacks seam to semi-short and load down the amp at higher volume levels. Some people added thin washers on the headphone plug to hold it out slightly, others returned their players as defective.

Message Edited by 14124all on 06-04-2009 10:34 AM