Poor sound quality on X5 with RockBox

[tvg]

Rockbox has a poor sound quality. Compared to OF, it has numerous clicks when: stopping, pausing, fading.
1) The click at stop is rather loud to hear it, OF has no click at stop.
2) Every step of volume change has an audible click, though not loud, but it HAS!
3) Fade in - is a total mess of clicks. As I understand, the fade in is realized as gradient volume change. Every step produces one click. So fade in becomes a set of clicks, though fading away.
4) The worst thing is clicks during the playback. I found a place in my silent song where there are audible light clicks. I rewinded and repeated this place again and again. The clicks were the same, but they slightly moved forward (in time). Some time I could repeat it, but after turning on and off I couldn't repeat them on previous place. It seems that the clicks are from HDD, but why are they absent on OF?

I'm telling exclusively about FLAC playing.

[LinusN]

Wow! I have never heard anything like this on my X5, and you are the first to report it too.

[nicolinux]

I also never heard something like that... I supposed you listened the same place of your FLAC files with the OF (in case it was a hardware problem) ?

[tvg]

Of course the same FLAC, the same place.

Anyway, turn off the "fade in on pause" and listen to clicks on pause keypress - the stop is very inaccurate compared with OF.

Listen to clicks while changing volume: every step causes click (small). OF causes not.

(4) is the most doubtful, but the clicks were reproducible during small rewind and became not reproducible during big rewind. If I started to play the song again, the clicks became reproducible again.
This is difficult problem, I see...

But the clicks on stop, pause and volume change cannot be tolerated! Just listen, listen well - they are not a kind of CLICK, this is ...click...

[LinusN]

OK, I hear it now. I can only hear it at extreme volume levels.

[tvg]

Depends on your hearing ability. And some songs are quiet.
OF does not click at all and pause are accurate. Sad.

[Bagder]

the clicks on stop, pause and volume change cannot be tolerated!

I beg to differ. I never heard them. I enjoy my Rockbox on X5.

[Taurus]

4) The worst thing is clicks during the playback. I found a place in my silent song where there are audible light clicks. I rewinded and repeated this place again and again. The clicks were the same, but they slightly moved forward (in time). Some time I could repeat it, but after turning on and off I couldn't repeat them on previous place. It seems that the clicks are from HDD, but why are they absent on OF?

I'm hearing these clicks too, especially 1 to 3 (4 not so much, as I either haven't noticed it or I don't listen to flac files enough). I'm listening to mp3s mostly and the pause/volume change clicks are there too.

I don't think the clicks you describe in 4 come from hdd, but from playback buffer (as they are not in the same place after restart).
I'm not a developer and haven't looked in the code much, but i guess, especially with large kbit/s flac files, that the audio buffer has problems refilling or isn't filled properly.

But these are just my n00b guesses
Originally I just wanted to report that I'm hearing these clicks too, even with mp3s.

Greets, Taurus

[xlarge]

I haven't heard any clicks either.
Is this rockbox:x5 with remote?

[tvg]

the clicks on stop, pause and volume change cannot be tolerated!

I beg to differ. I never heard them. I enjoy my Rockbox on X5.

That does not mean that there is no clicks. How can clicks give enjoyment - I don't get.

I'm not a developer and haven't looked in the code much, but i guess, especially with large kbit/s flac files, that the audio buffer has problems refilling or isn't filled properly.

Exactly.

[Taurus]

I just dived a little more into this.
I gotta say, I don't hear any clicks during playback, even with flacs.
But I DO hear a clicking noise on track change (just when a new track starts, crossfading enabled). (EDIT: and of course on volume change/fade-in etc...)

As for my part, I don't have a remote connected.

The clicks are a little bit better to hear with my Sennheiser CX-300 than with my Sony MDR-EX71SL, as the Sennheisers bring out heights much more than the Sony headphones.

While were on the subject: There is an astonishingly high background noise present with Rockbox!
Just switched back to OF (haven't done this in a looong time ) and this noise is not as strong as with Rockbox.
Maybe it's just the different EQ settings that highlight the high frequencies much more, but background noise is definitely stronger in RB than in OF.
But the worst thing for me is that you can even hear HDD noises! Go to full volume (not playing anything, of course ) and e.g. run the disktidy plugin.
You'll hear, clicking, high frequency beeping... all sorts of nasty stuff!

BTW: You can hear volume change click thingy on OF too. Though not while playing a song, but when you paused playback, you'll hear clicking when changing the volume. But that's the only clicking that occured to me in OF.

Do you guys haven't got that AT ALL? Have tvg and I got super-sensitivity ears? Or maybe just defective/bad hardware?

[tvg]

Just disable fade in. And try to listen pause clicks.

[Llorean]

Many times sounds like this won't show up in all earphones. It can depend on the impedence and response of the earphones, so it can be expected that many people won't hears this sort of thing simply because the sounds never get to their ears, not necessarily because they themselves cannot hear the sounds.

[xlarge]

I beg to differ. I never heard them. I enjoy my Rockbox on X5.

That does not mean that there is no clicks. How can clicks give enjoyment - I don't get.

Your "logic" is reversable; Just because you hear clicks doesn't mean that there are any...
I've never heard any clicks. Not in RB or OF... But then again, i don't crank the volume to 0 either...
And i use etymotic phones.

[LinusN]

In any case, if the OF is better, we should strive to be equally good.