What is "Smart Volume"?

[Jamesmoo2090]

i was just curious, what is Smart Volume? my Zen V:M and my Zen V have that option and i do not know what it does, i search on google and could not find what it is.

[ZenChick]

It is a teqnique for "normalizing" your music on-the-fly. Normalizing is altering the overall volume of the song so that each song has the same relative volume - so that you're not having to constantly adjust your volume when you're listening to a song that was digitized at low volume and have your eardrums blown out by the next song whose volume is much louder.

Smart Volume also attempts to remove or reduce distortion due to clipping - when a song's peaks are beyond the limits of what can be rendered in 16 bits.

[moto]

keep in mind that smart volume will also reduce your battery life. so unless you're having problems with sound quality or volume, i'd keep it off.

[BoxWave]

What other ways can you save battery life?

Chris-
BoxWave

[Jamesmoo2090]

i turned it off today, i have never turned off before, and the battery lasted so much longer... its not even funny!!

today i was studying for my final exam so i used my vision M from 8am straight until 3pm and the battery icon was 3/4 full!!!

awesome thanks

[drspark61]

Originally Posted by BoxWave

What other ways can you save battery life?

Chris-
BoxWave

• Encode music as MP3s instead of WMAs
• Encode files at lower bitrate
• Avoid using EQ or bass boost
• Keep the volume at a lower level
• Use headphones/earbuds/IEMs with high sensitivity (at least 103dB -- louder output at lower volume setting)
• Reduce screen brightness
• Avoid unnecessary power-up/power-down cycling

I think they're all reasonable suggestions with the exception of using lower bitrates. I won't go below VBR ~192 kbps or 192 kbps CBR.

[BoxWave]

Originally Posted by drspark61

• Encode music as MP3s instead of WMAs
• Encode files at lower bitrate
• Avoid using EQ or bass boost
• Keep the volume at a lower level
• Use headphones/earbuds/IEMs with high sensitivity (at least 103dB -- louder output at lower volume setting)
• Reduce screen brightness
• Avoid unnecessary power-up/power-down cycling

I think they're all reasonable suggestions with the exception of using lower bitrates. I won't go below VBR ~192 kbps or 192 kbps CBR.

Thanks for the advice, I actually see a difference in battery life!