use of simulators to hear the effect of crossfeed etc ??

[mrB]

Hi,

I'm totally new to Rockbox, attracted mainly by the thought of getting a more natural headphone-listening experience by using the crossfeed and stereo width adjustments that are offered.

Is it possible to use one of the simulators to actually hear the effect of tweeking these in realtime?

I'm not intending to buy a portable mp3 player until I'm satisfied with the "naturalness" factor.
Thanks for your help.

[markun]

Yes, it's possible. Crossfeed works in the sim just as it would on the player.

[mrB]

OK!  Thanks. I downloaded the sim for iAudio X5 and ran it.
It opens with the 'files' menu selected, and when you right arrow that you get 2 options: playlists and root. Where to from here? Do I have to create a playlist and place it somewhere in particular? or what?

Could you lead me thru the steps for loading an mp3 file and playing it?

Thanks a lot.  (sorry! newbie)   

[GodEater]

The sim references an archos (regardless of what sim you downloaded - confusing eh?) directory as it's "root". So any files you want to play have to be in there, or a sub-directory off it. If you're on a linux/mac/bsd box you can create a symlink there to a directory of pre-existing music - if you're on windows you'll have to physically copy files there.

[mrB]

Thanks for that info. I got the X5 sim running on XP thru Parallels on my Intel Mac. I tweeked the crossfeed parameters to my own liking and was quite pleased with the outcome. However, i could hear constant clicks and pops which were not present when I played the files on other players. This was the case whether the crossfeed was on or off. Does it mean that that's going to be the situation if I install Rockbox on a real X5?

Furthermore, most of the other sound settings didn't work, eg bass, treble, bal, channel config, stereo width. I didn't try anything else.

I was happy with the difference that crossfeed made, but I don't know what to make of the other things that happened (or didn't). I'd like to hear some comments on this.

[GodEater]

I'd be inclined to blame the clicks and pops and other erroneous behaviour on the rather complex set of hoops your were making your machine jump through to get the simulator running. Certainly when I've used the simulator to playback music on my PC, I've never encountered them - but then I don't try and run a windows simulator on a Mac via a virtualisation solution - I'd just run the native version of the simulator for whatever OS I was running at the time.

[karashata]

I've noticed that the Windows sims (at least) occasionally pop and click regardless...

Even the Linux sims crackle slightly while playing music, though it's not as noticeable as the pops and clicks the Windows sims make...

[soap]

Are the non-functioning audio effects he is seeing ones which are done on hardware instead of software???

[bluebrother]

Are the non-functioning audio effects he is seeing ones which are done on hardware instead of software???

I don't know about this but I guess so. Remember, this is a simulator, not an emulator. It tries to simulate Rockbox, i.e. doesn't intend to emulate the complete hardware but rather simulate the non-hardware-specific parts. Playback itself is, due to the audio codec, hardware related.

The "real" experience can only be experienced on the real device.

[nls]

Bass and treble are examples of audio settings that are often done in the hardware directly, some targets lack that ability so we have code to do it too but i don't remember which targets and if that is carried over to the sim.

[mrB]

I'd be inclined to blame the clicks and pops and other erroneous behaviour on the rather complex set of hoops your were making your machine jump through to get the simulator running. Certainly when I've used the simulator to playback music on my PC, I've never encountered them - but then I don't try and run a windows simulator on a Mac via a virtualisation solution - I'd just run the native version of the simulator for whatever OS I was running at the time.

If you can point me to a ready-built sim for Mac I'd be happy to play with that. I just used what was available at the end of a link on this site. I don't believe I have the tech savvy to be able to put one together myself.

From other comments above it would seem I'm not going to be sure about the sound quality until I actually install Rockbox on the X5. I presume it's good otherwise it would have come up in the Cowon forum. Thanks for the feedback.