Just picked up 8GB Clip Plus - Impressions

[rubennyc]

Fantastic news about Ogg Vorbis getting flawless gapless treatment on the Clip+. It's about time.

Anybody mind a quick mp3 LAME gapless test on the Clip+? Not a big deal at all just curious. This test is reproducable on at least one player I know, just curious to see if the pattern holds up on another:

- Take two LAME mp3 tracks that should play gaplessly but result in click on the Clip+
- Make a copy of both tracks.
- Use Media Monkey to remove all ID3v1 tags from the two tracks, leaving just he ID3v2 tags (probably a good idea to tweak the track titles for easy identification later)
- Transfer the copied files back to the Clip+ using anything but Windows Media Player (WMP will re-populate the ID3v1 tags)
- Check to see if the copied files playback gaplessly (i.e. without the click).

Thanks,
R

[dfkt]

Everyone already confirmed that LAME isn't gapless, unfortunately. Would be too good if it's just a ID3v1 thing... but that still woudln't change the fact that the player doesn't play gapless where it should play gapless.

[rubennyc]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Everyone already confirmed that LAME isn't gapless, unfortunately. Would be too good if it's just a ID3v1 thing... but that still woudln't change the fact that the player doesn't play gapless where it should play gapless.

I agree, but if it is just an IDv1 thing, then it should be fixable, right?

[dfkt]

Let's keep our fingers crossed for the next version of the firmware.

But yes, if it's just the presence of ID3v1, it would be an acceptable bug - since v1 really shoudln't be used by anything anymore.

[d_headshot]

I agree with dfkt's previous statement. We shouldn't have to go excessively out of our way just to tweak an mp3 player just so it perform basic functions. I mean, how hard can it be to implement gapless? Isn't it just the action of tag reading to play the track at a specific time?

[defaultluser]

Originally Posted by rubennyc

Fantastic news about Ogg Vorbis getting flawless gapless treatment on the Clip+. It's about time.

Anybody mind a quick mp3 LAME gapless test on the Clip+? Not a big deal at all just curious. This test is reproducable on at least one player I know, just curious to see if the pattern holds up on another:

- Take two LAME mp3 tracks that should play gaplessly but result in click on the Clip+
- Make a copy of both tracks.
- Use Media Monkey to remove all ID3v1 tags from the two tracks, leaving just he ID3v2 tags (probably a good idea to tweak the track titles for easy identification later)
- Transfer the copied files back to the Clip+ using anything but Windows Media Player (WMP will re-populate the ID3v1 tags)
- Check to see if the copied files playback gaplessly (i.e. without the click).

Thanks,
R

I took a different album, one which I encoded recently so I know it was made with LAME 3.97 B2 (just to make sure it's not an old version issue). I used Mp3tag to remove the ID3v1 tags, leaving only ID3 v2.3 tags. I verified their removal with Winamp, and then with a hex editor (they are at the end of the file, with a "TAG" header).

I copied the files to the player using MSC mode.

The results are a slightly less pronounced gap, but it's still there. I'd consider trying it with no tags at all, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the player.

Sorry guys, it's probably not the tags. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to try.

[ultrauber]

Originally Posted by Mikerman

I've had great service from antonline.

Amazon's price seems to be fluctuating a bit (I so dislike that aspect of Amazon)--I've seen it over the past few days at around $66 to $68.50 (right now, $68.61). But you have to love that free shipping and no tax!

Antonline FAILED at printing the right address on the package - so I didn't get mine till now, a month late. May be just me, but I've found Amazon to be more reliable. +Free shipping.

[defaultluser]

Originally Posted by ultrauber

Antonline FAILED at printing the right address on the package - so I didn't get mine till now, a month late. May be just me, but I've found Amazon to be more reliable. +Free shipping.

Oh, that's too bad.

But really, I always buy direct from Amazon too if I can. In this case, Amazon wasn't offering the Clip+ direct until a couple weeks after release, so if I wanted it right then, I had to go with Ant.

[defaultluser]

Might as well update this old thread: gapless OGG Vorbis is not %100 perfect. There is a soft noise you can hear on very soft tracks when the changeover happens. So, there is no "gap," but there is some noise at the transition.

I didn't note it previously in this thread because I just didn't hear it. On live music or pop, you won't hear it at all. It only becomes a problem with soft post-rock, concept or classical tracks, and even then you won't hear it all the time.