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Colorfly CK4 first review - Page 11

post #151 of 236
12/7/12 at 5:41am

because it should be fine and probably about as good as available at that time. That Sandisc probably measures as a class 4 where some class 4s of the day did not. I don't think anyone has stated that H2O's card wasn't fast enough.

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post #152 of 236
12/7/12 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by H20Fidelity View Post

I was doing some critical listening this afternoon and made a discovery.
I was wondering why all tracks already loaded on CK4+'s internal memory by the seller sounded so awesome, I mean they sound absolutely fantastic, really dynamic full of life and well separated, but my tracks using the microsd sounded a touch grainy in upper mids a touch sibilant and edgy if you will.
The only tracks I'd listened to on CK4+'s internal memory were the ones preloaded, because I used mircosd from day one. Well, today as an experimental I loaded one album onto the internal memory and micrsd switching between at one set volume one track intro at a time.. Sure enough the internal memory sounded awesome just like the sellers tracks does, full, dynamic no grain, meanwhile external memory sounds grainy in the upper mids is more sibilant and a touch brighter which causes fatigue.
I ran the test several times over and over.. redface.gif This is not good because now I am left with a 8GB of awesome while the SD card slot is useless to me for critical listening sessions. These might be little things that held the player back from popularity.
RAFA can you run a test mate on your best IEM and see if I'm going crazy please or if you notice the difference?
When you have time of course

 

Well maybe this is just some kind of psychological anchoring effect, but I felt the same, yet with different music. I got mine second hand from some guy on ebay, however he had some music preloaded. I listened mine from the sd card. Every time I listened to his music, I thought "wow this sound is awesome" and when I listened to mine from the SD, I asked myself to what crappy music (recent pop r'n'b) am I listening.

 

While programming around my STM32 board, also to play music (still in the beginning stages), I know during playback small chunks of music are played.... I assume that the cluster size of the SD-Card must be the same as the one in the CK4.

 

CK4+ = 4096 Bytes

 

"Ugly" sounding Class 4 SDcard (32GB) = 16 kiloBytes

 

"Good" sounding Class 2 SDcard (8GB) = 4096 Bytes

 

BUUUUUUT, I will have to listen again tonight, to evaluate this again, because I am not yet confident in this. goodvibes could be right, that it could be a SD-hardware implementation issue. My bet is on the Software, but like I said not yet 100% confident.

 

H20, please reformat (slow mode) your SD to 4096Bytes and try again, so we can confirm my thesis and live on happily :D

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post #153 of 236
12/7/12 at 2:32pm

This will sound really odd and I wasn't ever going to bring it up because it's in the 'shouldn't happen, can't be so you're crazy' category. You can get slightly different sigs from HiSound players by changing the allocation size when formatting during a FW update. It's goofy and shouldn't make a lick of difference. I have no idea if that's what's happening on the cards as they will have different controllers etc as well. It's easy enough to format the large card to 4096 to test. I hate that this sort of thing may be audible. It's weird enough without this sort of voodoo.

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post #154 of 236
12/7/12 at 2:36pm

lol I wasn't gonna say anything either but goodvibes is right. I've also confirmed it but I still prefer the stock allocation on my Studio V 3rd ANV with BTN on.
 

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post #155 of 236
12/7/12 at 3:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lee730 View Post

lol I wasn't gonna say anything either but goodvibes is right. I've also confirmed it but I still prefer the stock allocation on my Studio V 3rd ANV with BTN on.
 

 

What is the stock allocation in that case?

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post #156 of 236
12/7/12 at 3:52pm
I'm formatting now, 8GB Class 4 Sandisk @ 4096Bytes, I'll know very soon with an answer.
Edited by H20Fidelity - 12/7/12 at 3:57pm
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post #157 of 236
12/7/12 at 4:02pm

I've got no problems with Transcend 32Gb Class10

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post #158 of 236
12/7/12 at 4:41pm
Ok, we've definitely done something by formatting.

The sound is a lot smoother, that grain I mentioned in upper mids has gone, sibilance has eased. I'm not getting that certain frequency biting my ear in upper mids anymore. If anything now the internal sounds a touch more dynamic, just a touch more refined but the fix is very noticeable to my ears. I wouldn't call them an identical matche but very close and a lot easier to listen too, at least that lean sound has been cured. This is after about 10 minutes going back and forth on one album track intro's (does your head in switching between them) I will keep listening though over the next few days and update my thoughts, It's a rather subtle change after formatting and much harder to detect, compared to something obvious to me before.

Thanks heaps RAFA for your idea, this has surely done something positive.
Edited by H20Fidelity - 12/7/12 at 4:59pm
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post #159 of 236
12/7/12 at 5:29pm

So you SURE you don't notice this in the C3? ( ha now you're gonna go listen for it i bet ) I never bothered doing any format of the Sandisk , just used it right out of the box.


Edited by nick n - 12/7/12 at 5:31pm
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post #160 of 236
12/7/12 at 5:35pm

What a weird phenomenon.....blink.gif

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post #161 of 236
12/7/12 at 6:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nick n View Post

So you SURE you don't notice this in the C3? ( ha now you're gonna go listen for it i bet ) I never bothered doing any format of the Sandisk , just used it right out of the box.

Not that I can hear on C3, it sounds pretty straight forward. You also need to do these tests over 3/4 volume, otherwise you won't hear the peak that was there, was highly noticeable with vocals like Taylor Swift, she'd hit this spike in her voice when reaching certain frequency's, cross between to much clarity, grain, with a knife edge to it. Sounded good but not awesome. With some higher energy artists like September, truly takes your breath away. Laying down concentrating listening from internal memory, combined with high volume and T-Peos H-100 I'm literally waiting for a Nasa rocket engine to launch the bed into outer space. Very exhilarating high fidelity experience. It's full on!
Edited by H20Fidelity - 12/7/12 at 7:15pm
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post #162 of 236
12/7/12 at 7:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RAFA View Post

 

What is the stock allocation in that case?

4096 and I agree it's best but btn off, LOL.

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post #163 of 236
12/7/12 at 8:24pm
I have a question.

I'm now trying to format my 32GB Class 4 card but the option for 4096 Bytes is not there under FAT32. The only options I have are 16, 32, 64, 8192 bytes.

What do I do in this situtation?
Edited by H20Fidelity - 12/7/12 at 8:27pm
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post #164 of 236
12/7/12 at 9:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by H20Fidelity View Post

I have a question.
I'm now trying to format my 32GB Class 4 card but the option for 4096 Bytes is not there under FAT32. The only options I have are 16, 32, 64, 8192 bytes.
What do I do in this situtation?

Maybe try FAT16....

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post #165 of 236
12/8/12 at 1:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by H20Fidelity View Post

I have a question.
I'm now trying to format my 32GB Class 4 card but the option for 4096 Bytes is not there under FAT32. The only options I have are 16, 32, 64, 8192 bytes.
What do I do in this situtation?

 

Hmm maybe there is some kind of specialized formatting tool in the internet. Have not found any. If you have linux, this is much easier, there you can format the dirve over the terminal in any way you want. But for Windows 16KBytes is standard for 32gb sd-cards. Try with the lowest setting.

 

@Achmedisdead: well this is where software comes into play. Best would be bit by bit.

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