[ShootistUK]

Just a quick question that may or may not have a correct answer.
 
If the X3 has an issue at 44.1kHz which of the following would give better 'perceived' quality.
 
Leaving the track as is and living with the 0.5 sec per minute pitch change or resample to 48kHz that might add some artifacts but would play for the correct time?
 
Resampling my 44.1kHz flac files would not take long to achieve but which would be more obvious - the pitch or the artifacts?

 

[turen009]

  Just a quick question that may or may not have a correct answer.
 
If the X3 has an issue at 44.1kHz which of the following would give better 'perceived' quality.
 
Leaving the track as is and living with the 0.5 sec per minute pitch change or resample to 48kHz that might add some artifacts but would play for the correct time?
 
Resampling my 44.1kHz flac files would not take long to achieve but which would be more obvious - the pitch or the artifacts?

it depends...the pitch is not perceivable to everybody, and also not perceivable to each type/genre of music..
Depending on the song and the software used for resampling, if you pair the x3 with a decent amp, you may hear the artifacts. 

 

[eewax]

Xduoo x3,  is my first DAP/DAC  (I purchased two).  My first impression is there isn't anything at this price point that can play this well with this sound (maybe xduoo x2).  All the old Podcasts that I've been listening to sounded like crap on my old iphone 3.  My music has life again after purchasing Sennheiser HD558 and Panasonic RP-HTF600's to match up.   I actually use my Monoprice 8323 more than both of these.
 
If you are purchasing from China you always have to remember they do not have the same standards as they do in North America. 
I've purchased many cellphones from china:  Doogee , Oukitel, Telast, Ainol Novo and the one thing I've noticed is they all have some type of flaw or function that doesn't work.  I have never purchased that cell phone from china that didn't have one small issue.
The trade off is I pay 100 CND dollars for a cell phone instead of 800 and I can work around the flaws.  I would have to apply the same thinking when it comes to the Xduoo X3 because it is built similarly.
 
The one thing is for is none of these manufactures from China will recall anything unless they want to go out of business.  If we are lucky they will provide an update, all the upset people can be silenced.
 
 
 
The second device was for a friend who wanted to grab one for him.   I had asked my friend if he had noticed the slow down on a file that we both had.  The difference is he is using a 8gig SD card and I'm using a 64GIG SD card.  
 
I took the 8GIG SD card and chucked it into my x3 and it seems the file plays fine.  
 
Has anyone noticed this before ? 
 
Does anyone have a pause before a song plays ? I've noticed that the track timer goes to zero and I have wait or press play a second time for the track to start (340MB file size). I don't think this is the same as cutting off at the start at the beginning or end of a file. 
 
Does anyone know what the maximum file size before the device crashes ? 

 

[eewax]

  I am used to buying chinese products to save pounds. I own two Elephone P8000 mobile phones - the first batch (of which both mine are from) had no notification led however the company still shipped these out and offered a $10 coupon compensation on another Elephone phone purchase if you complained. Obviously doubtful many will buy a new Elephone with the pitiful $10 compensation offered.
 
The majority of us bought the X3 because we read it sounded great and was a good price and maybe because we wanted to dip our toes in the water and try a lossless player for the first time. If money was no object we would all probably have bought something else but money is tight my end.
 
If Xduoo do nothing to fix the issue and offer no compensation or trade in then it will come as no surprise. However the player is still in my opinion miles better than my old ipod classic / touch and lets me listen to music in a way that brings the tracks to life.
 
If Xduoo do offer a fix or compensation or trade in then no doubt there will still be people who will moan about the inconvenience etc.
 
I cannot see Xduoo recalling their product nor do I think it will kill them off if they do nothing other than release a MkII and leave us MkI owners high and dry.
 
I do think however given the fact that it has been Chinese New Year that expecting an immediate fix is a bit too much to ask. Let them settle back in after their holiday and see if a proper fix can be achieved. I would rather wait to see if a proper fix can be made than having a botched fix get released too soon. I am also aware that a fix may just not be possible and if this is the case we will have to wait to see if Xduoo offer something tangible for the early adopters. They can send me an X2 if they like

I had one of the first batch pre sale ELEPHONE P8000 and they gave a choice between a 8gig SD card or a $10 refund.
 
Totally Understand ! 

 

[unbalanced]

...sigh 1st world probs

 
Those words epitomise the way this thread is going 

 

 

[j0p3Y]

...
I ripped all my CDs using EAC and am still working my way through my vinyl and tape collection using VinylStudio software on 96kHz/24 bit WAV files recorded with a Tascam DR-05....

Hi Bob,
Just last week managed to download a 24bit/96 vinyl file of Mike Oldfield's genius album Amarok. Unfortunately it's an ape file extension. I hoped to convert it to flac by EAC, but the wizard converts it to 16bit/44 flac.
Any ideas how to only convert to flac, but with same sample- and bitrate?

 

[Bob A (SD)]

Hi Bob,
Just last week managed to download a 24bit/96 vinyl file of Mike Oldfield's genius album Amarok. Unfortunately it's an ape file extension. I hoped to convert it to flac by EAC, but the wizard converts it to 16bit/44 flac.
Any ideas how to only convert to flac, but with same sample- and bitrate?

I've never faced that problem so no experience.  Did a quick net search and came up with this which might solve your problem: http://www.audio-transcoder.com/how-to-convert-ape-files-to-flac

 

[satansmutt]

Hi Bob,
Just last week managed to download a 24bit/96 vinyl file of Mike Oldfield's genius album Amarok. Unfortunately it's an ape file extension. I hoped to convert it to flac by EAC, but the wizard converts it to 16bit/44 flac.
Any ideas how to only convert to flac, but with same sample- and bitrate?

 
I've never used EAC  but on dbpoweramp you can convert it to a Wav keeping the original bit rate24/96 and then convert it from a Wav to Flac 24/96
hope this helps

 

[leobigfield]

   
It seems that the pitch error is very user dependent in how much it varies in annoyance. Really it's a major flaw, any reputable company would issue a recall and fix (if it is something that cannot be addressed firmware wise). This very action could ruin Xduoo as they appear to be a pretty fragile and infant company (ie not strongly established to take the recall hit).
 
I absolutely hate that the random shuffle feature of some DAPs SUCK! Why is it so hard to make a good shuffle? I too have experienced weird behaviour such as returning to a particular song once every 3-4 tracks
There's certainly more to shuffle than meets the eye. There should even be (commonly) a few different types of shuffling such as a shuffle all option but never replays a played track during that shuffling session vs a very complex shuffle algorythm that in theory could play the same track 3x in a row albeit rare.
 
I'd be really interested to how you compare the sound of the X2 vs the X3 as tbh the size factor of the X2 is more attractive to me. If you could report back how the X2 shuffles also that would be appreciated.
 
 
 
 
Couldn't you convert to 48khz? doesn't the problem go away at that level? It should be a smaller file size?

 
In my cellphone, the onkyo HF player shuffle function works pretty well, also my clip+ has this function working very nice so it does not requires a very specific hardware functionality to make it work properly only a good programmer. Just make a list of the whole database, and every time you play a title remove it from this list until there are no names in the list so you repeat the process. What's so difficul about it? 

 

[BruceBanner]

   
In my cellphone, the onkyo HF player shuffle function works pretty well, also my clip+ has this function working very nice so it does not requires a very specific hardware functionality to make it work properly only a good programmer. Just make a list of the whole database, and every time you play a title remove it from this list until there are no names in the list so you repeat the process. What's so difficul about it? 

 
Tell me about it. Cowon seems to get it right, as did RB. My Hippo Biscuit+ shuffle feature is beyond a joke, it's awful!

 

[ashkoy]

   
I've never used EAC  but on dbpoweramp you can convert it to a Wav keeping the original bit rate24/96 and then convert it from a Wav to Flac 24/96
hope this helps

+1
 
dBpoweramp Music Converter (includes a Batch Converter, a CD Ripper, a CD Writer and, obviously, a Music Converter) seems to cover all the needs... For example, it can be used to resample (44.1 KHz to 48 Khz)...
 
Before joining the 'resampling can cause artifacts' brigade one should try to find out for himself / herself.  Crying over the spilt milk does not usually help, does it...?
 
By the way, I have no affiliation whatsoever to 'dBpoweramp'...

 

[charleski]

  As an ITS engineer, I can provide some input. The oscillator ("clock", if you prefer) has to be set to the players lowest possible native resolution. This is in fact 44.1 kHz for xDuoo x3 design. However, contrary to what some is saying in this thread, the oscillator is not the problem itself. There is still a set 44.1 kHz native device in the circuit. It is just that (imo) the designer, when designing the circuit, somehow tweaked it in such a way that the native 44.1 kHz files will decode at a slightly slower rate, resulting in the sluggishness that someone notices. I do not think it is fixable in the software end.
 
One can always upscale a file to 48 kHz, but, as many pointed out, when you resample an audio file from their native resolution, you are inadvertently putting unwanted artifacts in it. The player will now play the file much much better (in terms of pitch) than the 44.1 kHz one, but you will here some of those unwanted artifacts in your precious music.

 
The JZ4760 SoC that's used to feed the DAC has a programmable PLL, which sets the clock rate for the DAC. If xDuoo can't work out how to set the divisor correctly to handle the required clock timings then they should do what they should have done several months ago: release the source for the kernel so that the devs at Rockbox can port it and fix the problem for them. The Fiio X1 uses the same SoC and I haven't seen any reports of pitch error there.

 

[MandoBear]

   
The JZ4760 SoC that's used to feed the DAC has a programmable PLL, which sets the clock rate for the DAC. If xDuoo can't work out how to set the divisor correctly to handle the required clock timings then they should do what they should have done several months ago: release the source for the kernel so that the devs at Rockbox can port it and fix the problem for them. The Fiio X1 uses the same SoC and I haven't seen any reports of pitch error there.

You raise a very good point, and one I'd been thinking about myself, and a feeling that this was/ought to be the kind of thing that's defined in firmware, and both the Fiio X1 and the xDuoo X3 both run 12MHz crystals (from the photos I've seen of their circuit boards).
 
What's interesting to me is that the X3 went for some while with largely positive reviews of its sound etc. without anyone appearing to notice the pitch error, and it's only after (I think) one person on a Russian forum picked it up and measured it (whether they measured it first and then heard it, or vice-versa, I don't know) and the news then spread, that this has become the "issue" it is today.  One wonders (speculating) that if it had not been noticed and measured then, for how much longer would it continued to have gone unnoticed?  It's funny, isn't it that with digital devices, we take pitch-accuracy so very much for granted, that we just assume it will be so - unlike back in the analogue days with tapes and pulleys and drive-belts.
 
For my own part, I'll admit that I don't hear the pitch error - but I haven't done A/B comaprisons.  I don't notice it in normal listening, and I'd suspect that most of us (if we had no prior knowledge of any pitch error) wouldn't pick it up either.  I'd also like to see if anyone with no prior information could pick up the difference between 100BPM and 100.8BPM in a piece of music and repeatably tell me which one "sounded slow".  Am I saying that the error is trivial? No, I'm not.  The reason we are here on this forum is that we generally seek the most accurate sound, and playing at the correct speed/pitch is part of that.  Hi-Fi is all about reducing errors and distortions of any kind, and I think it it is only natural to want to see this error fixed.
 
Far more important to me to have fixed is the lack of gapless playback and the slight cut-off at the start of some tracks.
 
That said, I have been doing a lot of listening through my xDuoo X3 lately, and finding it just glorious.  Listening to music that I know really well and finding fresh pleasures and hidden sonic gems in the reording - like Jackie Leven's Forbidden Songs of the Dying West, and realising that I can hear what I think must be his shirt buttons just catching on the back of his guitar, and the slight creaking of his chair.  Magic!  It almost sounds like being in the same room as the artist.  Made me smile and my hair stand a little on end.  And that's the point of it all isn't it?

 

[oscarcao]

Not sure which is more frustrating, the prospect of getting another defective xDuoo X3 unit or claiming insurance for lost xDuoo X3 unit.
 
Penon finally replied my emails after I raised a PayPal dispute. Funnily, they've said they've not received it, even though my local post office informs me the parcel was 'signed for'. Good thing I bought 'partial' insurance on the parcel. Won't bother dealing with Penon again. Time wasters. Happy to show all the Penon supporters, my LONG and I mean long email trail of me constantly chasing them for updates.

 

[ShootistUK]

  Not sure which is more frustrating, the prospect of getting another defective xDuoo X3 unit or claiming insurance for lost xDuoo X3 unit.
 
Penon finally replied my emails after I raised a PayPal dispute. Funnily, they've said they've not received it, even though my local post office informs me the parcel was 'signed for'. Good thing I bought 'partial' insurance on the parcel. Won't bother dealing with Penon again. Time wasters. Happy to show all the Penon supporters, my LONG and I mean long email trail of me constantly chasing them for updates.

Sad to hear your woes but I think we all expect Chinese sellers to do their utmost to make returning items a chore. It is a fact of life it seems that they are happy to have your business when everything is going well but if an issue occurs they know you are not going to be able to harass them in person.