I had bought a portbale MP3/WMA cd player by RCA (RP2450) and was quite disapointed with it. The main reason being that WMA's did not playback properly. They skipped. Though when the same cd was played back on computer, or DVD player, it played fine. So I purchased a iMP-350 from iRiver. The WMA's don't skip, but a loud crack (sounds like digital distortion) can be heard across the music during songs. It always occurs in the same spot on any given cd. But again, the origanl file does not do it, neither does the cd when played back on my computer or DVD player. Any ideas what this could be, or a solution. I've tried lowering the record speed, no different. Switched software from Nero to CDRWIN...still same problem. Could it be that the CD players have troucle reading Memorex CDR's?

What WMA encoding settings are you using?

And have you tried contacting iRiver support?

WMA9@192Kbps using WMP9.

iRiver has not responded to my emails.

Do you have the latest firmware update installed in the 350 (I believe it is 2.25)?

I don't use WMA's in any shape or form, so I'm shooting from the hip here...

There are (3) versions of WMA's that WMP9 can produce...standard WMA, WMAPro, & WMA lossless. The standard version is probably the closest to the WMA8 spec...but I don't believe they are identical. So what you may have is some basic incompatibility, hence the need for the latest firmware. Do you have a way of encoding some WMA's in the older format so that you can test them in the 350?

xen-uno

I've never known anyone want to play WMA's on an iRiver before, much less be that the main reason for purchase

Did you encode yourself ( a ) or are they downloads ( b )?
If ( a ) - If you MP3 them are they distorted in a similar manner?
Wavegain before encode, I vote.

If ( b ) - Buy the original.

2.3 is the latest firmware, IMO EDIT: For the 250 at least... Do all the iMP's get the same firmware revision number? I'll check.

EDIT: Oops, didnt see
So, no matter what song you burn, it always cracks at, say, 2 minutes in? THAT is wierd

Lev, I do own the original to all my WMA's; the compressed format is much more convient in the car. I did encode them almyself using WMP9 to rip with. I'm going to try to rip the same cd at several bitrates, both CBR and VBR. The firmware installed is 2.3. Mp3 do not have the same errors during playback. The speed I burn at does not seem to affect it at all, although use of Maxell blanks seemed to have less errors than Memorex during playback. I've sworn by Memorex for years, so I was surprised by that.

Not that it always cracks at the 02:00 minute spot, but say at 02:00 on a song it cracks, it always will on that song. So, I'm ruling out...say vibration causing a read error. The errors are consistent was the file is on disc, but only when played back on the iMP-350. the RP2450 that I owned was very random as to when it errored, but it errored often. This must sound so confusing...it is really driving me nuts, and they (iRiver) won't answer emails.

Memorex has been by far the worst CD-R I've ever used.. I'm an Imation guy, never had a problem.

Try using EAC to rip to a WAV in secure mode, then having dBpowerAMP with these plugins for WMA9 first one, then the second one, convert to WMA9. Reboot before converting.

Let's see if it's just WMP screwing up with extraction(probably), or it screwing up with encoding. dBpowerAMP is imo the best alternative WMP encoder I've seen, and EAC the best ripper.

If it doesn't work that way, as a last resort, I'd just suggest ripping to an --alt preset standard -Y MP3 since it'll be about the same filesize with better quality.

I ripped the same few songs to disk @ 192Kbps, 128Kbps, 96Kbps and a medium quality VBR. I then burnt the files to a Maxell disc using CDRWIN software and a Sony 48x burner at MAX. During playback, again errors occured with files at 192Kbps. However, all other files played back error free.

This however is odd, according to iRiver(http://iriveramerica.com/support/support_faq_recognition.asp#q1) the iMP-350 DOES NOT support WMA files of 128Kbps and DOES support WMA files of 192Kbps.

This does still require more testing to come to a conclusive answer as to the capabilities of the iMP-350.

Try a trial of nero, and try burning at 16x.

If the same thing happens.. I think that it just can't decode in realtime correctly higher bitrate WMA. More M$ crap.

!Delete this post!

Thats because Memorex cd's are usually the bottom end of the prodisc line, or worse, and Maxell's are usually (nowadays) Ritek, or TY, or (previously) Kodak... Excellent stuff, usually.


hmm, they are usually CMC (and absolute toss), and seldom TY...

I'm skipping over the main point again, but in reality (I honestly cant see why you want WMA's - I suspect I am sounding irritating), you are better off using MP3's (Lame APS) if you want ~192kbps.


lol, he started with Nero, same problem. Burning at 16x is highly unlikely to make any difference in this situation.

From the page, I think they inserted a comma accidently between 12 and 8

My personal view is that, yes, there is a problem, and out of the entire user base of iRiver, you are the only person to ever notice

EDIT: Lol, I edited my smiley and a bit of English. I'm sure I pressed Edit, not New Post, Otherwise I would have had to have pasted in my old message!

GOLD RULE


1 : WRITE A POLITE EMAIL

2 : phone them whenever possible (iRiver have 1-800-xxxx) number

Lev, I think that's quite possible abot the " , ".

The reson I use WMA
(beside the fact that all my friends say I'm the Microsoft poster-boy...I'm a soon to be MCSE)
is that in my comparrison; not with any type of equipment other than the amplifiers and speakers that it would be played back on and my ears, I find that WMA quality surpasses that of MP3 at a bitrate that is still highly compressed. I think that alot of the stereo image in the higher end is distored with MP3's.

ABX

I think this thread just went downhill

ABX

Umm, WMA may be better (to some, not to me) than Lame at the bitrates which you claimed work (128Kbps, 96Kbps). But at 192kbps? Nope.

ABX


So, you admit that with other equipment, WMA sounds worse? That lacks logic

ABX

I also don't see the logic in choosing a codec for a medium-to-high bitrate based on its low-bitrate performance.

MP3 easily outperforms WMA9 above 128kbps... kind of sad, considering it's 10 years older.

WMA9 is one of the fastest encoding audio codecs available.(dosen't mean it's the best) This is good for large collections of music.

But why choose an encoder or format based on speed when you only have to encode once, and will be listening to your collection over and over?