The Shenzhen Benjie BJ-T6 / AGPtek Rocker
Oct 5, 2018 at 2:35 PM Post #646 of 775
Darn. Have been keeping my fingers crossed that something would be figured out with regards to updating firmware, but this does not seem to be the case.
As such, not possible for me to know if device performance differs/improves with other firmware.

My impression so far is that the T6 is pretty crappy if you intend to use it while moving.
I've been using it as a cyclist with BT Forza Metallo Wireless earbuds, and the interference is terrible during my regular cycling commute.
I have not yet tried an armband (I do not have one), but keeping the device in the top pouch of my rear pannier or in a top tube saddlebag results in a very choppy experience.
The distortion is not just crackling - the speed of songs playing seems to fluctuate, and there is a very lengthy delay in response when trying to pause/play from the headset controls.
While it is common to experience some BT interference issues while on the move, this is by far the worst that I've experienced (compared to iPod Nano 7th, and Android Phone).

Unfortunately, using my wired JVC HA-FR100X is even worse, because the one button on the right earbud does not work, so can't pause/play/skip songs.
It works perfectly with my iPod nano and Android phone.
As I am not able to upgrade firmware, no idea if this would be the case with 1.2 or Rockbox.

Most of all, the song scan limitation of 15000 is annoying. Half of my 256gb microsd (no flac - mostly v0 and 320) is not scanned, and thus is not accessible through play of the device database.
Have not had a chance to compile or tinker, but my hope is that I will be able to bypass this through playlists.
Is there a song limit to playlists?

To help prioritize my device database, I am using two folders in my music folder: 0_5Star and 1_4Star
This way, the 85.5gb of my 5 Star ratings music is given priority, while my 113gb of 4 Star ratings is only briefly incorporated into the 15000 limit.
Without doubt, I have very large amounts of duplicate songs, but am not certain of a good way to help reduce this without a lengthy time consuming process.
If anyone knows of any reliable ways/windows scripts to help clear the clutter (keep highest bitrate of name/artist tags), I'd be interested.

As the weather gets colder, I'll eventually have more time to tinker.

From my perspective - this device seems pretty good if you plan to use it exclusively in the same room/desk environment, but not so good if you intend to use it while moving.
 
Oct 5, 2018 at 3:11 PM Post #647 of 775
Regarding the playlists, etc.
I keep my playlists with max 1000 songs each one (not sure but I think I've read there might be such limit there) and they show up fine on the Rocker. I have 86 of them that I sync to the device - still an iTunes user - and I sync them via an extremely handy app called iSyncer / http://www.isyncer.de/en/faq

I read you had an iPod so maybe that will suit you, too (if you still use iTunes for your playlists). Here is the structure I have on my SD card:

SD Root:
Folder 1: "Music"
Folder 2: "Playlists"

Within the "Playlists" folder, I have my .m3u8 playlists that are being synced from iTunes.
Within the "Music" folder everything is sorted / filed via an "artist" folder and then via an "album title" folder.

To succeed that I have the settings of iSyncer like this:

Storage Location: subdirectory \Playlists
Config: Music/Artist/Album/Song

The above structure - actually using playlists - helps me to overcome the Rocker's database limitation (15.000).

I hope that helps you a bit.


Darn. Have been keeping my fingers crossed that something would be figured out with regards to updating firmware, but this does not seem to be the case.
As such, not possible for me to know if device performance differs/improves with other firmware.

My impression so far is that the T6 is pretty ****ty if you intend to use it while moving.
I've been using it as a cyclist with BT Forza Metallo Wireless earbuds, and the interference is terrible during my regular cycling commute.
I have not yet tried an armband (I do not have one), but keeping the device in the top pouch of my rear pannier or in a top tube saddlebag results in a very choppy experience.
The distortion is not just crackling - the speed of songs playing seems to fluctuate, and there is a very lengthy delay in response when trying to pause/play from the headset controls.
While it is common to experience some BT interference issues while on the move, this is by far the worst that I've experienced (compared to iPod Nano 7th, and Android Phone).

Unfortunately, using my wired JVC HA-FR100X is even worse, because the one button on the right earbud does not work, so can't pause/play/skip songs.
It works perfectly with my iPod nano and Android phone.
As I am not able to upgrade firmware, no idea if this would be the case with 1.2 or Rockbox.

Most of all, the song scan limitation of 15000 is annoying. Half of my 256gb microsd (no flac - mostly v0 and 320) is not scanned, and thus is not accessible through play of the device database.
Have not had a chance to compile or tinker, but my hope is that I will be able to bypass this through playlists.
Is there a song limit to playlists?

To help prioritize my device database, I am using two folders in my music folder: 0_5Star and 1_4Star
This way, the 85.5gb of my 5 Star ratings music is given priority, while my 113gb of 4 Star ratings is only briefly incorporated into the 15000 limit.
Without doubt, I have very large amounts of duplicate songs, but am not certain of a good way to help reduce this without a lengthy time consuming process.
If anyone knows of any reliable ways/windows scripts to help clear the clutter (keep highest bitrate of name/artist tags), I'd be interested.

As the weather gets colder, I'll eventually have more time to tinker.

From my perspective - this device seems pretty good if you plan to use it exclusively in the same room/desk environment, but not so good if you intend to use it while moving.
 
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Oct 5, 2018 at 4:57 PM Post #648 of 775
Thanks for your input!

Windows iTunes is my primary music database (1TB), where I use a mix of smart playlists and regular ones.
I have not used isyncer, but will check it out when I get the chance.

I created 2 smart playlists based on rating - 5Star (11321 songs) and 4Star (13327 songs), and exported using "ExportToFolder" from http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp
This script exported all of my songs into a directory of my choice, creating artist/album folders.

My iTunes library has tons of duplicates because I keep full albums.
Over the last few years, I've used Beatunes to consolidate identical song ratings and names within my iTunes database.

My listening preference would be to have something that can access all of my music, and I would then listen using shuffle.
I mostly listen to music while cycling, where I safely skip songs using the earbud button.
As of yet, I have not built too many static playlists, though I expect I will be doing so in the near future.

I have not yet found a non manual labour intensive way to get rid of duplicates within an iTunes playlist.
iTunes does a pretty good job of listing duplicates when I choose that functionality, but it would require for me to manually delete all the duplicates.
With the size of my library, this is a very overwhelming task (even when narrowed down to instances of 4 or 5 star rated songs).

My dream would be to find an app or script that would allow me automate the removal of duplicates, either within an iTunes playlist, or from scanning the exported 4+5 Star folders I have created (and copied to microSD).
I have no plans to keep complete albums on my T6, so I would love it if I could somehow batch process my music to keep only the highest bitrate of identical title and artist, with the exception of titles with "(Live)" included.

Honestly - I've really loved using my iPod Nano for listening to music (using the autofill functionality) - the only thing that has really sucked is the 16GB limitation.

To clarify - I can access all of my music on the T6 if I use the folder view option - the big problem is that I am really limited in my shuffle options.

My hope was that I would be able to overcome this by using Rockbox, but my 1.08B shipped T6 is thusfar non-flashable.
Fingers crossed that eventually something will be figured out to change this limitation.


Regarding the playlists, etc.
I keep my playlists with max 1000 songs each one (not sure but I think I've read there might be such limit there) and they show up fine on the Rocker. I have 86 of them that I sync to the device - still an iTunes user - and I sync them via an extremely handy app called iSyncer / http://www.isyncer.de/en/faq

I read you had an iPod so maybe that will suit you, too (if you still use iTunes for your playlists). Here is the structure I have on my SD card:

SD Root:
Folder 1: "Music"
Folder 2: "Playlists"

Within the "Playlists" folder, I have my .m3u8 playlists that are being synced from iTunes.
Within the "Music" folder everything is sorted / filed via an "artist" folder and then via an "album title" folder.

To succeed that I have the settings of iSyncer like this:

Storage Location: subdirectory \Playlists
Config: Music/Artist/Album/Song

The above structure - actually using playlists - helps me to overcome the Rocker's database limitation (15.000).

I hope that helps you a bit.
 
Oct 12, 2018 at 10:43 AM Post #649 of 775
For those who have been stuck with T6's 1.08B firmware, a Linux user in the Rockbox forums came up with a solution.

This is what I did to make it happen on Windows.

I changed the .upt extension to .iso, and extracted the contents to a folder (using trial version of PowerISO).
You need to make modifications to "Version.txt".
Replace "ver=1.0.0.0" with "ver=2018-10-07T00:00:00+08:00"
Using IMGBurn, I rebuilt the iso, and changed the extension back to .upt
I transferred update.upt onto my microsd, and was then able to update my 1.08B FW to AGPtek 1.2.
The interface seems pretty much the same - just more colourful.

Will play around with 1.2 today, and will explore installing Rockbox this week-end.

I was also able to resolve my duplicates problem using DigitalVolcano Duplicate Cleaner Pro.
It can be set specifically for music, and has a wide range of ways of scanning audio files to vet duplicates.
I was able to reduce my two main folders to around 16500 music files.
I then removed two genres (jazz and classical) so that I would be under the 15000 limit.
They now have separate folders, and I will use playlists to access those genres.

Naturally, my assumption is that I will not have such a limit once I install Rockbox.
 
Oct 12, 2018 at 11:57 PM Post #650 of 775
For those who have been stuck with T6's 1.08B firmware, a Linux user in the Rockbox forums came up with a solution.

This is what I did to make it happen on Windows.

I changed the .upt extension to .iso, and extracted the contents to a folder (using trial version of PowerISO).
You need to make modifications to "Version.txt".
Replace "ver=1.0.0.0" with "ver=2018-10-07T00:00:00+08:00"
Using IMGBurn, I rebuilt the iso, and changed the extension back to .upt
I transferred update.upt onto my microsd, and was then able to update my 1.08B FW to AGPtek 1.2.
The interface seems pretty much the same - just more colourful.

Will play around with 1.2 today, and will explore installing Rockbox this week-end.

I was also able to resolve my duplicates problem using DigitalVolcano Duplicate Cleaner Pro.
It can be set specifically for music, and has a wide range of ways of scanning audio files to vet duplicates.
I was able to reduce my two main folders to around 16500 music files.
I then removed two genres (jazz and classical) so that I would be under the 15000 limit.
They now have separate folders, and I will use playlists to access those genres.

Naturally, my assumption is that I will not have such a limit once I install Rockbox.
Nice job!

Any chance you could post the updated .upt to an online share?
 
Oct 13, 2018 at 12:09 PM Post #651 of 775
After a decade of using rockboxed sansa clips in the gym (still using it - with bose soundsport wired earbuds) I was considering upgrading to an agpt rocker, since it can now be rockboxed too.
What's holding me is the case. Anyone using this device in the gym / for runs? what sort of case would people recommend for this use case? I got used to the belt clip but can't find any Sony E390 case w/belt clip, nor one for zune 4gb/8gb. Earlier in the thread someone posted a link to an agptek armband - anyone actually using it with this device - does it work well with wired earbuds?
 
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Oct 13, 2018 at 2:01 PM Post #652 of 775
I'm using one of these, based on a post earlier:

https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-NW-...4,+NW-E395&dpPl=1&dpID=41WxjhP6mRL&ref=plSrch

Width and depth is perfect, as are the bumps for the jog dial and buttons. It's slightly long, a tiny piece of foam at top and bottom would take up the slack (I haven't bothered adding foam).

I use it with a lanyard, looped around a small fender washer behind the back circular hole in the case.
 
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Oct 14, 2018 at 8:06 PM Post #657 of 775
I've now had some time to play around with 1.2

Does anyone know - Is there any way to extract/backup any of the usage data from 1.2 Hiby Player?
For example, if you spend time using the player and build up "Favorite List1" "Favorite List2" "My Likes" or "Bookmarks", is there any way to export/save this data?
Would it not all be lost the moment you pop in another microsd (and rescan your database)?
My fingers are crossed there would be some way to generate some sort of playlist file, but I suspect such is not actually the case.

When listening at home (connected to BT speakers), I was hoping I would be able to build some playlists while randomly shuffling through my library.
It is pretty easy to add a song to a favourite list (though it does not seem possible to rename the list from "Favorite List1", etc).
So far, I've been actively adding to 4 favorite lists: 1 - Instrumental, 2 - Cool Keepers, 3 - Live Music, 4 - Songs from Musicals
If there is no way to backup, I guess it is foolish to invest effort with this.

I guess my main takeaway is that through use of native firmware, the device is meant only to play (and can't effectively be used to organize/create playlists).

I've also installed the latest build of Rockbox (d2cef81), and have been tinkering away.
Since Rockbox does not yet have BT functionality (fingers crossed), I've been using a separate BT transmitter that connects through the headphone jack.
It has been many years since I've used Rockbox, so will need some time to get familiar with things.
I never experienced the legendary Clip. The last device I used with it was the Sansa Fuze+, which had a very unstable (due to hardware) touch interface.

Very much appreciate the wider functionality of Rockbox.
Huge fan of being able to set which folders are included with the database scan, as well as being able to set the size of playlists.
Was able to include separate folders for Jazz and Classical genres (which I had removed so my main folder would be lower than 15000 song limit), reaching a total of 16528.
While playing through this list, I can easily add songs to specific m3u8 playlists (Instrumental, CoolKeepers, LiveMusic, Musicals) I have made in my Playlists folder.
Very easy to back this up.

Copying these playlist into the root directory of my microsd, I am able to access them through file browser using Hiby Player.
Unfortunately, songs that were outside of the scope of my 15000 scan do not not function through playlist use - it just skips to the next song.
This sucks, as it was my hope I would be able to bypass the scan limit through this.

Despite the various hiccups and functionality limits encountered, I really like this device and its basic analog interface.
Considering that the last AGPTek firmware release was about a year ago, I'm not expecting any future updates or changes.
Ultimately, my fingers are crossed Rockbox functionality works out.

Does anyone have any suggestions for low-middle range DAP that would offer better sorting/playlist development functionality?
I've been looking at the Xduoo X3ii. My understanding is that there is firmware that offers a 30000 song limit, and that Rockbox is also functional/in development.
Am still reading up, and will ask more about it in the Xduoo X series thread.
 
Oct 14, 2018 at 8:54 PM Post #659 of 775
It turns out that the change @shikotee mentioned also works for the benjie 1.07 firmware. I'm now running agptek 1.2 on my benjie.:o2smile:

I'm also crossing my fingers for BT on Rockbox, since I use BT all the time.
 
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