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Sansa - prolonged electrical noise when loading tracks

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Vagabund:
Hi vitess,

i have removed RB completly. For me RB is not a alternative to the original FW. I have tested the version from today with the same background noise. My player should only play my mp3's in good sound quality, and i think i have no chance to reach this with RB  :-\ .

Michael

vitess:
The electrical noise is also present with the Sandisk firmware. I just created a ten minute 320kps MP3 of silence and listened to 5 mins of it with Sandisk's firmware and Rockbox with the config modification mentioned in my original post, and after 5 mins I left the file playing while I browsed the music list and viewed some photos. Result was that both exhibited:

- 2-3 seconds electrical noise on selecting track for playback
- 2-3 seconds electrical noise partway through playback (Sandisk at around 3:00, Rockbox at around 2:40)
- short bursts of electrical noise if browsing images while track playing or paused

Here are the differences I observed:

- Rockbox exhibited short clicks of electrical noise if browsing music folders or the database. The Sandisk firmware apparently sticks its lists in RAM. A possible workaround in Rockbox might be the "Load to RAM" setting for the database, but this option isn't present in the Sandisk firmware, presumably because it's assumed it's not needed for a flash-based player.
- Rockbox exhibited around 6 seconds of noise when started. The Sandisk's firmware didn't. The difference here seems to be that Sandisk's doesn't switch on the headphone-out until you first play a file, so you won't hear the noise as it's starting nor if you browse music folders or view images before you first play a file.

Provided you use my config workaround, there's not much difference when it comes to the effect of the electrical noise issue on the quality of playback. And ultimately you have Sandisk to thank for this hardware flaw...

Incidentally, the Sandisk firmware had a little surprise for me: a low level of continuous background static during playback when volume was low or muted (the noise pauses when the track is paused). This was the case with both Normal and High volume set in the Sandisk firmware's settings. Rockbox was perfectly silent with the volume at similarly low levels.

arwa:
I do own a Sansa e280 (not FM). I can clearly hear the noise, too, when using my Koss ThePlug in ear phones. (It is ok in a train with real background noise and when turning the volume a bit higher.)


--- Quote from: vitess on July 15, 2007, 11:10:53 AM ---Incidentally, the Sandisk firmware had a little surprise for me: a low level of continuous background static during playback when volume was low or muted (the noise pauses when the track is paused). This was the case with both Normal and High volume set in the Sandisk firmware's settings. Rockbox was perfectly silent with the volume at similarly low levels.

--- End quote ---

This low level summing/grumbling(?) (German: Brummen) can be heard in rockbox as well in my case. You have to turn down the volume to very low to hear it. It's interesting that the noise is not affected by the volume setting. So I guess there is no way around this, is it? It seems that the Sansa player simply sucks :(

What I can also hear is the scrolling of a menu entry on the display. Each character move makes a "tic". Interesting: This keeps going on even after Rockbox tuns off the display. So an enhancement suggestion for rockbox could be to stop all display rendering when display is turned off, if this could save battery. (menu scrolling, volume peak meter, clock redraw, etc.)

Greetings,
arwa

mgl888:
I got a Sansa after my Gigabeat screen broke, and yes, I'm quite annoyed by the noises which were completely non-existent on the gigabeat.

Also, I noticed that scrolling long lists tend to be choppy and slow during music playback. Is it possible to add the load list to RAM option?

Llorean:
Which SVN revision are you experiencing choppy lists with?

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