MicroSD Card & Sansa Clip Questions

[skip252]

If you don't have the original lossless file it's probably best to just leave things as they are. Lossy to lossy transcoding is only going to lose you quality. The quality loss happens if you transcode up or down in quality settings.

Thing of it is you may or may not hear the quality loss. It occurs but it may or may not be audible to you. ABX testing is best done by comparing the lossless source to the lossy copy but I have used it to help me make the decision whether or not to transcode a lossy files to save space. The results for me have been so inconsistent I've decided to live with the higher bitrate files if I can't get the lossless source again.

[CrowdAds]

[BruceBanner]

I see.

[WalkGood]

If you are going to re-rip, you should rip to FLAC for archiving and from there you can transcode to any other audio compression codec you wish to use for portable gear. A good tutorial for FLAC is here and once done you can use fb2k to transcode as it's very good and very fast. I use 192 VBR (-V 2 switch) but you'll know what's best for you after you test for yourself.

[BLJones]

Hi, I'm new here. I have been a regular visitor but never posted. I have a Creative Zen 20gb that I have been using for years now. I love it and the sound is fantastic. A bit heavy but I mostly use it on trains, planes and buses. I don't walk around with it. However, in this day and age, I don't seem to be able to load any new music onto it. I have lost the software during various pc upgrades.

I am planning to buy a Clip Zip 8gb. I am a bit coonfused by this thread. Is the Clip Zip limited to 32gb or can you put a 64 gb chip into it and access the extra 32gb? Also, will it matter if I use an Ultra or higher class chip?

Sorry if this is a bit redundant in regards to the previous posts. I just want to be sure. Thanks in advance for your help

[skip252]

Welcome to ABi

I believe WalkGood answers your first question in post #2 of this thread. Using the formatter linked there you format the card to FAT32 and you'll be able to use all the available space. That would be about 59 GB. That doesn't have anything to do with the formatting. If you look up "gibibyte" you'll see there's some fancy dancing with how space is listed on all portable memory.

The speed class memory only matters when it comes to speed transferring files to the card. Everything that happens inside the player is slower than the lowest class rating on any card so performance won't be affected. If the file transfer occurs while the card is in the player the file transfer speed is limited by the internal speed of the memory inside the player. When I've checked that on a Clip+ it was around 4 Mbps. On the Clip Zip I got as much as 6 Mbps.

If you use a card reader while the card is outside the player you may get the higher transfer speed. Others have reported that's how it works for them. I don't have any cards faster than a Class 6 so I can't say for sure.

You may want to be aware the sandisk firmware has a limit of 8000 files it will recognize. That can be affected by your file/folder structure, tags and some other factors that have never been fully defined. I've read a complaint by someone that wasn't able to get more than 5000 or so files recognized until they completely restructured their file system and stripped most of their usual tags.

[BruceBanner]

and i hear putting rockbox on the player (custom firmware) instead of using the stock sansa firmware helps with 'refresh database' times, especially when containing a large amount of files. You definitely want to check rockbox out.

[skip252]

Rockbox doesn't just help with database refresh time. It eliminates it unless you decide to use the database. If you do decide to use the database the refresh happens in the background and doesn't stop you from using the player while it happens like the unavoidable database refresh of the sandisk firmware.

The class of card shouldn't make a difference either way. I've never noticed a difference based on which class card I was using. It's an internal action that should occur slower than the slowest card.

[BruceBanner]

I was under the impression the initialize now feature was faster than the database refresh, and of course yer right that u can continue to use the player till the initialize database is finished.

[JK98]

Officially the player only supports microSDHC cards, which go up to 32GB. Some have reported successfully using 64GB microSDXC cards in the player if they are formatted as FAT32. With the original firmware though, the player is limited to only around 8,000 songs. With Rockbox, the song limit is much higher. Sandisk players sometimes have problems with class 10 cards(especially those not made by Sandisk), so using a class 4 card will have much less chances of problems. The card reader within the player isn't faster than class 4 anyway, so using a faster class of card won't load the card any faster when it is in the player(a class 10 card will load faster though if the card is removed and loaded using a fast card reader).

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by JK98

... so using a class 4 card will have much less chances of problems. ...

And it's much cheaper on the wallet

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by JK98

Sandisk players sometimes have problems with class 10 cards(especially those not made by Sandisk), so using a class 4 card will have much less chances of problems. The card reader within the player isn't faster than class 4 anyway, so using a faster class of card won't load the card any faster when it is in the player(a class 10 card will load faster though if the card is removed and loaded using a fast card reader).

You don't hear about these card incompatibility issues with Rockbox, though.

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

You don't hear about these card incompatibility issues with Rockbox, though.

Wait a second, isn't he one of those that speaks out about the negatives of rb or am I wrong

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Wait a second, isn't he one of those that speaks out about the negatives of rb or am I wrong

Yup, it's true.
But hey, you wouldn't want to void the warranty on your $40 player, or lose compatibility with your SlotRadio cards, would you? 6c2ba386.gif