The relationship between Ogg and Crackling

[kingofbeans]

Hey,

There has been a few threads bringing up the topic of a crackling sound being present when the display goes off.

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ight=crackling
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...ight=Crackling
http://z5lounge.com/viewtopic.php?t=...ight=crackling
http://z5lounge.com/viewtopic.php?t=...ight=crackling

I too have experienced this problem and After having VERY bad experience with Samsung customer service and Repair in the UK I am now faced with this serious problem. I have heard one guy just waiting for a firmware update to fix this and others believe it is a hardware problem. But this seems unlikely because it doesnt happen for me with mp3s. I was just wondering if people could tell me if they have experienced this problem and mainly with what file formats it has been? if we could see that it is just Ogg files and maybe specifically ogg files at certain bitrates and frequencies it would help a lot.
Also any ideas on how to fix would be great.

Thanx!

Thanx in advance.

[CrowdAds]

[wiggie]

I can confirm the crackling noise.

I haven't done any experimenting, but I know that the ogg files I have are all encoded with 160 kbit/s... oh, I just found out I have some encoded with 112 kbits/s. I will try those and try to play them with the screen on and with it off, to see if I can reproduce the crackling noise.

[wiggie]

Ok, i did some experimenting and this is what I have found:

1. It only crackles with OGG files, WMA is fine on mine
2. The bitrate does not matter, i get the crackling noise with 112 kbit/s and 160 kbit/s encoding
3. It only appears when the screen turns off, as soon as I press a button, the screen goes back on and the crackling noise disappears.
4. It is frequency independent, and, well looking at the spectrum of a song, one would see that it has almost all frequencies from 0 to 22050 Hz.
5. It is volume independent, that is, when the volume is turned to very low the crackling is still heard at the same volume as before. Thus, one, albeit unhealthy way to avoid hearing the crackling sound is to really crank up the juice. I don't recommend it. Furthermore, hearing impairment is a serious illness which is uncurable and VERY expensive to ameliorate its effects!
6. It does not crackle when DNSe is set to NORMAL.
7. DNSe set to NORMAL, during a song in quiet parts (quiet as in absolutely no sound comes from the musicians or their instruments or whatever else), I can hear a soft crackling noise.

EDIT:
I heard of people mentioning that even with DNSe set to NORMAL the crackling is still present.
For my Z5 this would be a fix, no sorry, this would NOT be a fix, since I find it unacceptable for DNSe to be disabled because it sounds so BLAND. Yet, since I can still hear the crackling noise, although much fainter than with DNSe, I still think that this isn't a fix.
I hope Samsung is reading this and doing their troubleshooting. We paid our fair share, now they should do theirs.

[jim144]

I've just noticed the crackling on mine, using WMA files from Napster To Go.

The crackle does not happen when the EQ is set to Normal.

Similarly, the crackle only appears when the display is off.

I'm using Sony MDR-EX70LP earphones.

[kingofbeans]

Thanx! Looks like it is mostly Ogg files that cause trouble but wma also (like for jim144 and darshan). I hope samsung do notice this and that more people experiment so we can see if there is a more specific problem. Thanks Wiggie for what you did. I found the same with ogg files being my only problem. Wma have been fine for me. I wonder what is different from the wma file from napster and mine from cds?

[keldog7]

I called Samsung tech support on this very issue (Canadian version).

I'm using firmware 2.37 right now (I think), and can confirm that my .ogg files have the same annoying problem. I sometimes pipe the audio output through my office receiver as well (via stereo-RCA patch cable), and can hear the same crackling at just about any volume - though I agree that it does not seem to be amplified by the volume setting on the Z5.

Anyway, the tech folks listened carefully when I explained the problem. Unfortunately, after about 10 minutes on hold I got the usual "tech-support-get-out-of-jail-free" answer... Apparently, the US and Canadian versions do not support .ogg files, therefore Samsung is not responsible for troubleshooting this problem. I went back and checked the electronic version of the manual (avoiding the "vgrep", so I gould use the search function in Acrobat)...sure enough, .ogg is not listed in the "supported files" area. Ultimately, I'd love to see this problem fixed, but I don't think Samsung is going to put too much effort into an unsupported file format.
-A
PS. Non-Ogg files sound great on my Sennheiser MX-75 phones.

[wiggie]

Did anybody get any answer to this problem? I still haven't. I also read somewhere that it might depend on the firmware. Perhaps with a lower firmware the crackling is not present. I don't really know if I'll be able to experiment with it. Can I downgrade and where can I find really low versions of the firmware?

[TIRO]

I used to experience a crackling noise between tracks. All of my tracks are MP3's at various bitrates ranging from 128k to 320k. The crackling noise did appear even when the screen was off and changing tracks. However the noise didn't appear if the album art wasn't available regardless of the song/artist. I expect my problem was related to album art loading after each track completing or loading when coming out of power save. Since i have updated to 2.45 (mainly for the EQ) everything is sorted.

To start I would suggest removing album art and then updating to the latest firmware....

Although this maybe a red herring for you guys... Good luck nonetheless

Tim

[wiggie]

I hear the noise with or without album art and only for OGG files. I don't have many wma files but the ones I have sound fine. And the noise appears throught the track. It stops after the track is finished and starts again once the new track begins.

Mp3 is not affected. I don't know how you got the noise.

Now that I think about it, it has something to do with the decoding (obviously). I don`t understand how it disappears when the light is on. Where does the interference come in? Damn, I hate debugging, especially if you have no software or hardware info on hand!

[wiggie]

Ok so the people that don`t experience the crackling noise with ogg playback while the screen is off and DNSe on are people who own the Z5F!

This is important! It means that the Z5F uses a different decoding algorithm or chip. I think the firmware is most likely the same (so algorithm is out of the question). Am I wrong?

Does anybody know the difference in hardware between the Z5 and the Z5F besides radio and recording functionality?

So, sadly, it is a hardware issue. I will wait a bit more to get this confirmed, somehow, and if it is fixable through software. If it`s true and unfixable, then I will sell my player. Even though I like it.

[Infestation]

I have just noticed this on mine, all my tracks MP3 @ 128kb, only notice recently when listening at low volume in an unusually quiet environment.

[wiggie]

Well that might be some static from whatever source. I think what we are discussing here is a relatively loud crackling noise during ogg playback with DNSe turned on and backlight off.

[Infestation]

Admitedly it's not what I would say is a loud crackling, but again disappears when the backlight is on, comes in slightly as the the backlight fades then louder again when the light goes out altogether,

[NobeyamaGP]

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum...9&postcount=35

There is my report of the ogg issue. (Please note: I don't acctually have this problem myself, I'm just trying to be helpful by sharing my information with those who do.)

[funrider]

I don't use ogg (yet) but maybe it's handy for user that maybe want to purchase this great z5f player that they should know about the flaws right now that has to do with ogg support.. maybe people who have problems could add it here too.. http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Porta...ersSamsungYepp

[masscat]

I have a European 4GB Z5 (not F), YP-Z5AB/ELS 2006/10. All my music is OGG encoded and I hear no noise under any settings, including when DNSe is set to something other than normal and the backlight is off.
I encoded a track of silence and can not hear any noise whilst this is playing.
All my encoding is done under Linux using Sound Juicer (gstreamer) and version 1.1.2 of libvorbis.
I am over 30 so my ears may not be able to pick up frequencies that younger folk can.

The only time I hear noise is when I am charging the Z5 using a USB car charger (cheap, unknown brand) which I put down to the charger not producing a good clean supply and not a problem with the Z5. This noise is introduced before amplification as its volume changes with changes to the volume.

[sazza_rad]

I've just been listening to my Z5 testing out the custom EQ (so cool!! I'm so chuffed with that!!) and I've noticed that I've got a crackling on WMA files when the backlight goes off, just like you guys seem to have with your .ogg files (what ever they are!!). The noise isn't there when the backlight is on, then as the backlight turns off, the noise starts.

[wiggie]

@masscat
I also use soundjuicer (I have to check what version, I'm not at home right now) and I only encode ogg vorbis files.

My model is the same one as yours (EU) YP-Z5AS/ELS 2003/03.

I just read the post by NobeyamaGP and his player is manufactured 2006/02, one month prior to mine. I don't see how they would maufacture different models for different continents. Hence, they all must have the same hardware.

I will just have to check the encoding options and versions of libvorbis and try different settings. It will have to wait for the weekend though, I have a quantum mechanics test to write friday!

@sazza_rad
You are experiencing the same problem as I, and others. I don`t hear the noise with wma files but others have reported this. Your advantage is that you can contact samsung and tell them about it because officially wma is supported (am I wrong?). Perhaps do that and see where you land.

OGG is a lossy audio encoding file format which outperforms mp3. Above that, it is open source!

[bigsavings]

masscat, could you upload one of your encoded Ogg files to rapidshare or megaupload or any other site? I'll test on my hardware (same as yours, except made in June/2006) to see if the encoding makes a difference.
Thanks in advance

[maru81]

I had the same problem with my brand new Z5, but mine was with wma files (192kb) ripped from cds using Windows Media Player. So I had to go back to the store for a exchange.

All I know is that it started right after I updated to the latest firmware for customized EQ.

Right now my exchanged player is charging.. and I will do a firmware update and see what happens.




Update: Upgraded to the latest firmware, and the sound is clear with display on and off.




I