[makethemusic]

My top priority is clean sound, it's true. My Explorer sometimes reminds me of listening to cassette tapes. Fixing the hiss would go a long way. I might see if I can find my old Etymotic P->S cable and see if that makes it more listenable.

As to the frequency response graphs, I'd be very interested in seeing yours. I was thinking about putting together a rig at my home office for doing that myself. It'd be fun to use test gear that's made for MHz sampling for simple two channel audio.

A few people have mentioned hearing a "hiss" now, but I have tested every earphone I have, as well as many o don't during CanJam, ranging from BA to dynamic to planar headphones, and I have not ever experienced this. I ha EA tried these tests with multiple units as well, and also have a few of our partners running the tests as well with the same no-hiss results.

Can you please let me know what earphone and which track you are using? Is it TIDAL or UAPP? The more information the better!

 

[Trager]

TIDAL, with wifi on, but the playlist is saved to offline mode. Happens on multiple tracks, all of which exhibit the same behavior. Verified that TIDAL is in hifi mode, and the hifi indicator shows in the app.

I tend to listen quietly when in a quiet environment like my home or office, so don't usually get volume much past 25/30%. The hiss tends to go away between tracks or when playback is paused.

 

[makethemusic]

TIDAL, with wifi on, but the playlist is saved to offline mode. Happens on multiple tracks, all of which exhibit the same behavior. Verified that TIDAL is in hifi mode, and the hifi indicator shows in the app.

I tend to listen quietly when in a quiet environment like my home or office, so don't usually get volume much past 25/30%. The hiss tends to go away between tracks or when playback is paused.

If you would, do me a favor and turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth, then try playing your tracks and see what happens. Is the hiss still present? 

 

[vrapan]

  If you would, do me a favor and turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth, then try playing your tracks and see what happens. Is the hiss still present? 

The hiss is audible even on airplane mode - which is how I use the explorer most of the time, it is easier to hear it when there is a second or two of silence at the end of a song. It stops while moving to the next stop but you can hear it right before that happens. This is not the same as clicks/ticks that are probably from wifi/bt  interference.
 
Of course it is more of a problem with very sensitive earphones. my Edition S have not got an issue at all , it is almost impossible to hear with a custom set of SD2s but it is somewhat audible with the CE6P which is currently the most sensitive set of earphones I own.

 

[makethemusic]

 
The hiss is audible even on airplane mode - which is how I use the explorer most of the time, it is easier to hear it when there is a second or two of silence at the end of a song. It stops while moving to the next stop but you can hear it right before that happens. This is not the same as clicks/ticks that are probably from wifi/bt  interference.
 
Of course it is more of a problem with very sensitive earphones. my Edition S have not got an issue at all , it is almost impossible to hear with a custom set of SD2s but it is somewhat audible with the CE6P which is currently the most sensitive set of earphones I own.

@vrapan These are your earphones, correct? http://www.cosmicears.com/product/n0601/
 
Unfortunately I have never had access to test these on the Explorer, so I think that you may be correct that it is an issue with sensitivity. Strange enough, though, I have tried a number of earphones that are quite sensitive, including a QDC single BA earphone (extremely sensitive) and have not experienced any hissing. 
 
I will speak with our engineering team about this to see if they have any thoughts, but if it is a matter of sensitivity, I'm not sure there is a whole lot that we can do short of redesigning the entire PCB layout along with amplification and output, which would essentially mean designing an entirely new player...hmmmm 

 

[ElMariachi]

The hiss is audible even on airplane mode - which is how I use the explorer most of the time, it is easier to hear it when there is a second or two of silence at the end of a song. It stops while moving to the next stop but you can hear it right before that happens. This is not the same as clicks/ticks that are probably from wifi/bt  interference.

Of course it is more of a problem with very sensitive earphones. my Edition S have not got an issue at all , it is almost impossible to hear with a custom set of SD2s but it is somewhat audible with the CE6P which is currently the most sensitive set of earphones I own.

try listening to this track, can you hear hiss?

 

[vrapan]

Will do when I get home and try it with the iPhone which I know does not suffer from hiss

 

[Trager]

If you would, do me a favor and turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth, then try playing your tracks and see what happens. Is the hiss still present? 

Yes, it's still present.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to test much more because I walked away from my desk and forgot to shut down the Explorer (although I did remove my headphones and make sure playback was stopped), and now it's down to 8% battery (from almost full when I came to work this morning).

 

[makethemusic]

Yes, it's still present.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to test much more because I walked away from my desk and forgot to shut down the Explorer (although I did remove my headphones and make sure playback was stopped), and now it's down to 8% battery (from almost full when I came to work this morning).

Yeah...sorry about that, we are working on a solution for the battery life issue. 

 

[bahorn]

  I know that this isn't the most specific answer, but we are doing everything we can to address the "crackles & pops" and "wifi feedback" issues. In all honesty, we did not believe the problems to be this bad when we send out the units to the initial 45 IGG backers. I have 15 units from the exact same production run that we have been using for recent trade shows, and absolutely none of them exhibit the crackling/popping, and only 2 or 3 have a very subtle "hiss" when streaming in a crowded public area. So, this makes me curious...let's try something: 
 
SURVEY TIME!!!
 
If you are an IGG backer who has received your Explorer, please reply to this with the following questions answered: 
 
1) Does your Explorer "Crackle and Pop"?
 a) If yes, does it happen often?
 b) If yes, does it continue while playing music?
 c) If yes, during what function do you notice it the most? (i.e. charging, while on standby, when playing a track....)
 
2) Does your Explorer "hiss" while streaming over WiFi?
 a) If yes, does it happen while not streaming but still connected to WiFi?
 
 
This will help us get a bearing, both YES and NO answers are equally important! Thanks  

 
1) yes.
1a) I hear it in between songs whether streaming or listening to stored music.  I don't hear it when I set to Airplane mode.
1b) Yes but I only hear it in between songs.
1c) When playing a track.
2) No.  I'm listening using Westone ES50 CIEMS (sensitivity of 120 dB).

 

[bearFNF]

 try listening to this track, can you hear hiss?

I now can hear what you guys are talking about. there is hiss with this track. I can also hear a hiss and flutter at the end of tracks as the fade out, then silence, and then hiss/flutter as the new track starts. real tough to hear it with any higher level of music playing. The hiss is like static as it fades out. This is with my Roxanne V2 (15 Ohms, 119dB @ 1mW, 10Hz-23KHz).
 
Of course now that I know what to listen for it is more common than I thought. But it is not the same with all tracks or streams it seems.
It seems to go not be the same intensity or duration. could it be related to the buffer load sequence depending on the file being accessed?
 
This is with Tidal streaming. I do not hear this with UAPP. (WiFi still on Bluetooth off)
 
I tested Knife party - abandon ship with Tidal and With my flac files in UAPP. It has the flutter on start up but less hiss in Tidal, plays with no hiss in UAPP (that I can hear).
Interesting though, when switching from Tidal to UAPP, I could hear very faint hiss in UAPP while browsing to the tracks. Before I started the track I heard a click, like something shutting down, and the hiss went away.
Is there something in Tidal that takes time (one minute) to timeout before ending?
 
Edit: Just did it again to make sure I was not hallucinating. It is exactly one minute after shutting down Tidal (then immediately starting UAPP, not playing anything in UAPP) that something else shuts down and then the hiss goes away.

 

[vrapan]

try listening to this track, can you hear hiss?

There is definitely hiss in Tidal with this track , I played it on my macbook pro 2016 no hiss whatsoever but very noticeable on this track with CE6P.

 

[vrapan]

  @vrapan These are your earphones, correct? http://www.cosmicears.com/product/n0601/
 
Unfortunately I have never had access to test these on the Explorer, so I think that you may be correct that it is an issue with sensitivity. Strange enough, though, I have tried a number of earphones that are quite sensitive, including a QDC single BA earphone (extremely sensitive) and have not experienced any hissing. 
 
I will speak with our engineering team about this to see if they have any thoughts, but if it is a matter of sensitivity, I'm not sure there is a whole lot that we can do short of redesigning the entire PCB layout along with amplification and output, which would essentially mean designing an entirely new player...hmmmm 

Yeap these are the ones, they are fairly sensitive but my MBP 2016 has no hiss, the track suggested above is probably one where you can hear the hiss most. BTW this is a track where I can hear hiss with the Edition S through Tidal. It is unfortunate that this track does not exist on Spotify I could swear the hiss on Spotify even on slightly quieter songs is not as prominent as this track on Tidal.
 
@bearFNF your findings mirror mine.

 

[makethemusic]

Thanks for the detailed feedback on the hiss guys, this is helpful information. I will pass this on to our engineering team, but I do want to manage expectations with this. If it is a sensitivity and impedance issue, then it would be directly stemming from our amp (if I had to guess) and that is something that we really have no ability at this point in the game to correct. It is interesting, though, that there is a difference between TIDAL and UAPP with the same track regarding the hiss. I will reach out to TIDAL and see if they have any thoughts on this. 

 

[ElMariachi]

Thanks for the detailed feedback on the hiss guys, this is helpful information. I will pass this on to our engineering team, but I do want to manage expectations with this. If it is a sensitivity and impedance issue, then it would be directly stemming from our amp (if I had to guess) and that is something that we really have no ability at this point in the game to correct. It is interesting, though, that there is a difference between TIDAL and UAPP with the same track regarding the hiss. I will reach out to TIDAL and see if they have any thoughts on this. 

Thanks for the update. Can you please confirm the RAM memory for the player. In settings it says 1gb but specs say it should be 2. Thanks