Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists

iRiver 120 & Sansa Fuze+ - cracking sound in quiet parts

(1/3) > >>

monoid:
My problem is that clicking and disturbances/noise can be heard in quiet patrs of songs . Is that known issue? If yes, is it possible to avoid somehow? It came to my mind it may be atributed to display handling (I have "scroll text if long" enabled).

I first noticed it in Sansa Fuze+ and thought it is because of not so good DAC. Later on I RockBoxer iRiver 120 and it is also there (but the sound from iRiver is fine if I use digital optical output) and it did not occured in iRiver's OF.

So, the problem is not in mp3 file, it is not in decoding and digital processing (digital output is clean without disturbances). The problem must come in D/A conversion in iRiver/Sansa...

Thanks a lot.

saratoga:
Which version are you running?

monoid:
In iRiver H120 the last stable 3.12, bootloader 7pre4. I have SSD 120 GB 50 pin ATA.

In Sansa Fuze+ 06aa7e8-120821, bootloader 1.0. It is 16 GB with Kingston 32 GB uSDHC card.

Julian67:
I've experienced the same problem on my two iRivers (H140 and H340) and on my Sansas (currently Clip+, previously Fuze v2), which is really noticeable on quiet passages or in choral music where anything other than a human voice stands out.

The Sansa players can have a noise problem even in original firmware and it's quite well known.  In Rockbox it can become more obvious if you enabled the database which involves a lot of extra CPU load and disk access depending on how you configure and use it.  If you have a noisy Sansa you can't entirely eliminate the noise but you can mitigate it by not using the database.

With the iRivers it's different:  I've been using Rockbox on iRiver since it became stable on the H100 series and the crackles during playback are a relatively new phenomenon so I tried older stable firmwares until I arrived at a version which doesn't exhibit the problem on my players.  That version is 3.5.1.

Some observations/notes:

My H340 in original firmware (1.29k) very rarely (almost never) makes a crackle.  The same was true in older Rockbox.  In Rockbox 3.6 and newer it crackles and it's annoying, and the H140 is much the same.  With database enabled it crackled a lot when database updated, to the extent that the H340's FM radio was unusable due to extreme interference at this time.  This suggests to me that the problem is nothing to do with decoding but is associated with CPU load and/or disk access and/or RAM access.

The H340 running 3.5.1 without database doesn't crackle, or at least it's unusual enough that I don't notice, much like the original firmware.

The H140 works beautifully with 3.5.1.  I don't need the original firmware so installed Rockbox to EEPROM using rombox http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IriverFlashing so it runs from the flash memory chip.  Even while the database is updating there is zero unwanted noise and the FM radio works without interference.  Occasionally I've heard an unwanted crackle and on checking it has turned out to be either a noise actually present in the original recording i.e. a manufacturing defect, a damaged disc, a production error etc. or a noise arising from me....anyone with hairy ears and IEMs will know this can happen...

I'd suggest backing up your player's current .rockbox directory to PC, then trying the older firmware installed to flash with new, default settings (because current themes and some setings won't work on older versions).  All this is reversible if you follow http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IriverFlashing and as you already have a suitable bootloader it will be very simple.  If it solves the crackle problem like it did for me and you want a manual for the old version let me know as I couldn't find one anywhere so I built one.  It's quite useful especially because it contains the older theme syntax, and once you have this you can easily adapt current themes to work on older firmware.

monoid:
Thanks for info.

I was not that much surprised by noise in Sansa Fuze+ and I thought its the flaw in Sansa hardware. But it surprised me in iRiver H120, because a used it for many years with OF and there was never any noise.

So, this led me to conclusion it is not (most probably) hardware specific problem, but instead some problem in RockBox. I use mostly iRiver's optical output and so the sound is without problems even in current firmware. But I might use 3.5.1 in my H140 when I RockBox it.

Hard to say, what causes the problem. Digital output (on H120) is perfect (from current RockBox), so it must be D/A part of RockBox code. I use 120 GB SSD. I do not have database initialized on H120, so it must be also something else. I did not experiment with it, but my candidate is scrolling of long texts (MP3 tags). If scrolling is needed, it must be done periodically and may interfere with other circuitry.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page