Peculiar MP3 player issue

[lxskllr]

But then you have to balance battery life with everything else you want to use it for. And a decent MP3 player can sound a lot better than a phone, if you have good enough headphones to warrant it.

That being said at 128k my last point would be moot.

I'd guesstimate my S5 would play music at full volume through the onboard speaker for 36 hours straight. If that isn't sufficient, your use case is much more esoteric than mine.

I haven't noticed a difference between my mp3 players and phone as far as audio quality goes, but I'm also not an "audiophile". IOW, I don't hear things that aren't there.

 

[sdifox]

The sansa M250's don't support WAV. Supports MP3, WMA, secure WMA and Audible audio file formats. I suppose this rules out WAVs.

Edit: At Wikipedia is says So maybe will play WAVs. Of course, that's a lot of file space, but I could try and see what happens as an experiment.

A single WAV is an idea, and as said, could be ripped to an MP3, for continuous play of course.

So load the wav and the mp3 and see if you have the same problem at the same spots.

 

[Deders]

I'd guesstimate my S5 would play music at full volume through the onboard speaker for 36 hours straight. If that isn't sufficient, your use case is much more esoteric than mine.

I haven't noticed a difference between my mp3 players and phone as far as audio quality goes, but I'm also not an "audiophile". IOW, I don't hear things that aren't there.

That's good battery life. I doubt my Nexus 5X would last anywhere near that long. Maybe half a day.

I noticed a huge difference between some MP3 players and others. It started when I upgraded my headphones. With my previous ones I didn't notice much difference. I'd also recently re-encoded a lot of my MP3's with Lame instead of the old codec I'd been using.

With the new codec and new earphones my Sony NWZ a3000 sounded significantly better than the creative. I was hearing sounds I hadn't heard before in songs I'd been listening to for a long time. The stereo separation and the space the audio occupied was more expansive. I did several tests going between the two player, the difference was like night and day.

Was outside in a friends garden, they played Freebird from their phone through a portable speaker. I said I've got that on my MP3 player, it should sound better. He let me try it and everyone immediately agreed the difference was noticeable without any prompting, even through a small speaker.

 

[Muse]

That's good battery life. I doubt my Nexus 5X would last anywhere near that long. Maybe half a day.

I noticed a huge difference between some MP3 players and others. It started when I upgraded my headphones. With my previous ones I didn't notice much difference. I'd also recently re-encoded a lot of my MP3's with Lame instead of the old codec I'd been using.

With the new codec and new earphones my Sony NWZ a3000 sounded significantly better than the creative. I was hearing sounds I hadn't heard before in songs I'd been listening to for a long time. The stereo separation and the space the audio occupied was more expansive. I did several tests going between the two player, the difference was like night and day.

Was outside in a friends garden, they played Freebird from their phone through a portable speaker. I said I've got that on my MP3 player, it should sound better. He let me try it and everyone immediately agreed the difference was noticeable without any prompting, even through a small speaker.

I don't notice a difference between listening to my MP3s on my Sansa M250's and my Nokia 520 Windows phone. They are all encoded with LAME.

What headphones have you gotten that have helped with fidelity? I'm using Etymotics ER4Ps. Reputed for fidelity (I think), comfortable, durable as hell, expensive (but to me, well worth it).

As far as battery life, my Sansa M250's get maybe 10-12 hours from one AAA Eneloop battery. There is a world of difference between the battery life of my Nokia 520 phone depending on whether I'm in Airplane Mode or not. I rarely use the phone feature with it, partly because my coverage at home is spotty. I just put it in Airplane Mode unless I want WIFI at home for whatever reason, or data or a call elsewhere. I then put it back in Airplane Mode and the battery life is around 4x greater! With a full charge I could probably listen for 2 days or more to MP3s on a charged battery. I use it in the gym for music and it's pretty reliable there. There are probably exceptions I can't think of right now, but mostly it's trouble free for that usage. The other day I was in the gym and realized I'd forgotten to put it in Airplane Mode and it was down to 6% battery charge.

 

[Muse]

So load the wav and the mp3 and see if you have the same problem at the same spots.

I suspect that the tests would be inconclusive. I have the sensation that the peculiar noises are sporadic and unpredictable to some extent.

 

[sdifox]

I suspect that the tests would be inconclusive. I have the sensation that the peculiar noises are sporadic and unpredictable to some extent.

Lulz the problem is between your earlobes in other words.

 

[Deders]

I don't notice a difference between listening to my MP3s on my Sansa M250's and my Nokia 520 Windows phone. They are all encoded with LAME.

What headphones have you gotten that have helped with fidelity? I'm using Etymotics ER4Ps. Reputed for fidelity (I think), comfortable, durable as hell, expensive (but to me, well worth it).

Sorry I've taken so long to reply, I've not been well recently.

The headphones I had at the time were Sony MDR-EX300 which at the time were a huge upgrade soundwise. For only £40 they rivalled the sound quality of over ear cams that cost over £100. I'm sure yours are better than these were.

Interestingly enough the more recent Sansa Clip+ was hailed by many as having decent fidelity compared to most for a very reasonable price.

I'd say it was close to the particular Sony model, but I preferred the Sony's sound characteristics overall. hat's not to say that any Sony you get will have the same kind of quality. I'm very dubious about buying a Sony after they changed their sound signature. My current NWZ-A829 is the latest one I've heard that I'd be able to recommend.

Talking of varying sound quality between devices, I've heard varying quality on the same device. I have a compact mini system that offers MP3 playback from both a CD and from a USB port.

The quality of the decoder and audio path coming from the CD was vastly superior to the USB port. If you used the USB port there would be no point encoding your files above 64Kbps.

 

[Muse]

Interestingly enough the more recent Sansa Clip+ was hailed by many as having decent fidelity compared to most for a very reasonable price.

Hope you are feeling better!

I like my Sansa M250's, although they are different from one another as I said. They both sound good playing my MP3s, and to me they sound like my Nokia 520 Windows phone's MP3 playback. I have no complaints. I feel lucky in that the devices still work. Some pretty knowledgeable people have had them die on them.

None of my systems play MP3 except those and my computers, which also seem to do alright with MP3s. I play MP3s on my ministereo in my kitchen either by feeding the audio from a laptop or by connecting one of my Sansa's, all this made possible by a cool multi-port audio/video switch (I just use the audio connections), such as this:

GE 4-Device Audio/Video Game Switch