Rockbox: Clip+

[bleargh]

will the "backlight on keypress" work on skip/next track too?

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

No, it just leaves the screen turned off at volume change or pressing play/pause.

[mizuhikari]

Hi there, I test my clip+ with the last Meier v2, channel swap build from dfkt. So far is good.
Just wonder if there is a build for clip v1 too?

[keyb_gr]

mizuhikari: Building for multiple targets isn't all that much fun AFAICS. That's why people tend to stick to one type of player. (I have no idea how it's done on the build server. My guess is that they have one build environment per player, and each is sync'd to SVN.)

Here's a current Clip+ build of mine as of r29855, with just a couple of small things extra (FS#11304, FS#12094 "high gain", FS#12111).
rockbox-sansaclipv2-29855m-11304-12094-12111.zip
Should sound a touch better than a stock build (much like dfkt's latest one which also includes FS#11304), and those having a set with RDA5802 FM tuner chip will notice that soft-muting is disabled and sensitivity might be a teeny tiny bit better. So it's sort of an audiophile DX edition.

Nothing too fancy so far, I need to learn some more before I get into extra features.

[mizuhikari]

keyb_gr: thank you for you reply .

yea, i know that . I just curious how that sound in clip v1. And thank's for your build, really appreciated that. I will try after i arrived at home.

[skip252]

Originally Posted by keyb_gr

Should sound a touch better than a stock build (much like dfkt's latest one which also includes FS#11304)

You're saying that you detect an audible difference with FS#11304? saratoga said here if it did it could be committed if it actually does something. However this is the first time I've heard anyone say it actually sounds better. Do you have more information on what's different?

[dfkt]

I just measured the results with and without both parts of FS#11304. It didn't really show any difference.

I couldn't listen to it in an AB test, since I only have one Clip+, and swapping firmwares takes way too much time for my auditory memory to remember any differences.

[skip252]

Exactly why I was wondering what differences they might be hearing. I do have more than one Clip+ and conducted volume matched A/B testing since the first build you posted with FS#11304 included. I was looking to see if it actually drove higher impedance headphones better. It hasn't for me. I've never heard a a bit of difference. Max volume is a bit quiet but very acceptable.

When I read what it did I even ran a couple of battery benches to make sure it didn't affect the battery life. With or without they all came within a few minute of each other so I saw no difference there either.

[keyb_gr]

As I commented on FS#11304, any improvements due to higher HP amp bias current would mainly be expected driving low-impedance loads, as the AS3543 datasheet states. That's in line with what I found simulating amplifier circuits. (The mixer quality setting, by contrast, may improve distortion performance into line-level loads, assuming the effect isn't entirely masked by headphone amp distortion. A player with line-out may be needed to see the effect.)

I have no means of testing whether the changed settings really have any audible effect, with only one player and all. I'll have it tested by someone who regularly conducts measurements using Triple.fi 10 Pros as a load though.

(All I can tell is that my Clip+ sounds glorious on my trusty HD590s, with distortion performance limited by the recordings in almost all cases.)

[bertrik]

Originally Posted by skip252

When I read what it did I even ran a couple of battery benches to make sure it didn't affect the battery life. With or without they all came within a few minute of each other so I saw no difference there either.

Actually this is quite an interesting fact, as possibly reduced battery run-time was an important argument to *not* enable high-quality mode (AFAIK). If having high-quality enabled or not does not make a noticeable difference in battery run-time, we might just as well enable high-quality mode by default.

[dfkt]

Any more battery benchmarks with/without FS#11304 needed? I could do some as well.

I could also record the Clip+'s output (with various loads), to see if the patch makes any audible difference with various phones.

[skip252]

I wouldn't want anything committed using my memory from that far back. I have a relatively recent battery benchmark using r29511-110303. I'll grab a build with #11304 enabled, set the same conditions and do another soon as get the player fully charged. It should be finished sometime tomorrow.

[keyb_gr]

Here are the measurements (muchas gracias to industrious Bad_Robot, who did them twice to ensure repeatability):

Standard build
My build, with FS#11304

As you can see, it's not a ginormous OMG!!!1 type difference, but it's there - the distortion spectrum is somewhat more well-behaved with FS#11304 in. It's about 2 dB less for the 5th harmonic, up to about 6 dB for the 21st. And 1 kHz is near the impedance maximum for tf10Pros.

If someone wants to check this in (provided the runtime tests turn out OK), you might as well take the 11304-enabled version of the diffs from FS#12111.

[skip252]

There's a drop in runtime in this battery bench with FS#11304 vs. the last one, 15:13:41 vs 15:50:28. I used the build dfkt posted here so the circumstance aren't exactly the same but very close imo. Everyting else was the same as this

This battery benchmark was done today using a playlist made from 100 files split evenly between the external card and the internal memory. 50 -q5 Vorbis and 50 -V4 .mp3. The equalizer was on. The volume was adjusted to between -25 and -19 depending on how noisy things were around me . The backlight was set to 10 seconds. I listened with my usual set of Senn HD 428s connected. Those are of 32 ohm headphones.

so it's more of a real life test.

I have a copy of keyb_gr's build and will give that a try when time permits. That should be fairly soon.

[Timar]

Originally Posted by skip252

There's a drop in runtime in this battery bench with FS#11304 vs. the last one, 15:13:41 vs 15:50:28. I used the build dfkt posted here so the circumstance aren't exactly the same but very close imo. Everyting else was the same as this so it's more of a real life test.

Hmm, dunno, but "real life test" sounds like "way too many unknows variables" to me. The difference in runtime could have a lot of causes: you could have played more ogg files the one time, more files from external memory, you could have turned on the backlight more often etc. pp. I think if we really want to know if FS#11304 makes a difference we have to compare it under "laboratory conditions"...

[dfkt]

Here's a new build, with two new patches, besides the usual ones:

• FS#11891 manages to achieve gapless playback with "badly" encoded MP3s (ie. most anything that isn't LAME).
• FS#12111 by keyb_gr (see above) includes FS#11304 and additionally disables output mixer AGC (automatic gain control).

r29898M-110519-sansaclipplus (FS#9305, FS#10849, FS#11577 Meier v2, FS#11891, FS#12111+11304, channel swap) - dfkt.zip

[dfkt]

Here's an RMAA test, default Rockbox compared to FS#12111+11304: http://rmaa.elektrokrishna.com/Temp/...11%2B11304.htm

There are some very tiny differences between the builds, as keyb_gr already mentioned above. The build with FS#12111+11304 included seems to be a tiny bit louder than the default build (less than 1dB). So I did a second set of measurements, where I increased the input volume on my sound card by ~1dB for the stock build, to be more or less equally loud as the patched build (or even a little louder): http://rmaa.elektrokrishna.com/Temp/...Matched%29.htm - THD and IMD results are still the same, ie. a little better with the patched build.

[lestatar]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Here's a new build, with two new patches, besides the usual ones:[LIST][*]FS#11891 manages to achieve gapless playback with "badly" encoded MP3s (ie. most anything that isn't LAME)....SNIPPED...

@dfkt, just saw this. How the hell did you manage this? Sweet!

[dfkt]

You have to ask dryrock how he did it. I just added his fine patch to the build.

It is a somewhat controversial patch for some Rockbox developers, when you read the comments: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/11891

I couldn't find/hear anything detrimental with that patch yet. It does its job on FhG/Xing/etc stuff and leaves proper LAME MP3s with gapless headers alone.

[keyb_gr]

Originally Posted by dfkt

The build with FS#12111+11304 included seems to be a tiny bit louder than the default build (less than 1dB).

Interesting. That could be the effect of the disabled output mixer AGC in FS#12111.