Sansa Clip+ 8gig Rockbox over drove the internal amp?

[gregorylock]

I did a quick search on the forums for Sansa Clip+ bad sound and I didn't seen anything up front that seemed like it was like the issue I ran into.

For the past Month or Two I've been running Rockbox on my Sandisk Sansa Clip+ 8 gig.  I was very pleased with the sound!  I printed the entire rockbox manual and looked through all the settings and decided on each setting what I liked.  Everything was going well for me, and then all of a sudden I couldn't hardly get any sound out of the player.  I booted into the OEM firmware and tried to play a song that way and noticed the same issue there too.  I took the card that was holding my music out and put it in an older Clip+ and tried playing a song and it sounded like it should.  Then I tried to reset everything on the player, both Rockbox and the OEM back to the default settings and still no improvement.  I hooked the player up to a Windows 7 PC and used checkdisk to test the onboard memory and the music card.  It said everything was fine.  I used the Rockbox software to uninstall Rockbox, and then I used the OEM software/driver that works with Windows 7 to re install the OEM firmware.  Again I tried to play a song and the sound was still bad.  Next I tried to reformat the main memory.  Then I loaded a song onto it and tried again.  Still sounded bad.

I'm not putting blame on anything.  But I'm curious...  Because it seemed like the Rockbox software was able to make my player louder than the original OEM.  I got used to running my player at full volume under the OEM while it was attached to some Ihome speakers.  When I was running it with Rockbox I ran it close to wide open.  I think it was between 30 and 40 on the volume control.  I just wonder if it's possible that rockbox over drove the internal amp to the point where it finally died?

[saratoga]

Volume should be identical between rockbox and the sandisk firmware.  dfkt actually measured it and we adjusted the 0dB gain to exactly match the Sandisk firmware:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=28848.0

Although if you have the region set to EU, then you'll have a lower volume to comply with EU regulations. 

It is certainly possible to damage the output on the clip.  There is no coupling capacitor, so plugging the headphone jack into things that aren't headphones can be dangerous if the device its plugged into doesn't include a couple capacitor either.  A few people have broken their players this way, although the built in amp is quite tough and usually just switches off if shorted.  You won't damage it by running too loud though.  They don't work like that. 

[gregorylock]

Volume should be identical between rockbox and the sandisk firmware.  dfkt actually measured it and we adjusted the 0dB gain to exactly match the Sandisk firmware:

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=28848.0

Although if you have the region set to EU, then you'll have a lower volume to comply with EU regulations. 

It is certainly possible to damage the output on the clip.  There is no coupling capacitor, so plugging the headphone jack into things that aren't headphones can be dangerous if the device its plugged into doesn't include a couple capacitor either.  A few people have broken their players this way, although the built in amp is quite tough and usually just switches off if shorted.  You won't damage it by running too loud though.  They don't work like that.

I have an older one that I used for 5 years.  Under the OEM firmware I ran it for about a year or two on those kinds of speakers, without any damage.  The speakers I have are made for using with mp3 players and ipods.  I'm guessing that my newer one had a defect in it.

Will rockbox work on this? 

https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-8GB-Clip-Player-Black/dp/B00VXMY262/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1474163138&sr=8-2&keywords=sandisk+clip%2B

[saratoga]

Will rockbox work on this? 

https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-8GB-Clip-Player-Black/dp/B00VXMY262/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1474163138&sr=8-2&keywords=sandisk+clip%2B

No, thats not one of the supported models.

[gregorylock]

Will rockbox work on this? 

https://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-8GB-Clip-Player-Black/dp/B00VXMY262/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1474163138&sr=8-2&keywords=sandisk+clip%2B

No, thats not one of the supported models.

I need to find something that will take one of my old cards that can run rockbox because I'm pushing around 7,000 songs and usually the original firmware won't support that many.

[gomezz]

This is why I set the volume on my Clip+ to -3 when connecting to a line level input as I found it was driving the FM transmitter I used to use in my work van into clipping when set higher.  By comparison when used with headphones the volume is set to around -15/-18 depending on the sensitivity of the headphones used and the ambient noise level.

[gregorylock]

This is why I set the volume on my Clip+ to -3 when connecting to a line level input as I found it was driving the FM transmitter I used to use in my work van into clipping when set higher.  By comparison when used with headphones the volume is set to around -15/-18 depending on the sensitivity of the headphones used and the ambient noise level.

I really don't think I over did the amp.  In a way it sounds almost like the waveform is out of phase.  I'd be happy to post what the audio sounds like but I'm afraid of the copyright laws, since just about all my music is copyrighted.