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'Pop' Between Tracks In New iPod
joesao writes "The new iPods released last week seem to have a problem that causes an audible 'electrostatic pop' between all tracks played on it. The effect is not imaginary, as it has been witnessed by many users over at the Apple discussion forums. Now, one user has actually published a sound sample recorded the iPod's playback and the verdict is in: it's real. I hope this is a firmware issue and that it's quickly fixed ..." I just ordered a new iPod. I wonder if I should cancel my order.
You ever think that Apple might do the right thing, fess up to the problem and fix it for free to anyone who's effected?
http://www.remix.net/
and mine doesn't have any pops. (15gb)
It is a very very solid upgrade to an already amazing product. Don't cancel your order.
Well, slashdot tends to be biased. Of course, CNN tends to be biased too. (And all major media sources, for that matter)
/. just wouldn't be /. without the zealousness, no?
The difference?
CNN trys to be objective and pretend that it isn't slanted, whereas the slashdot editors love spouting out opinions. Plus,
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Remember when the Mac cube had a "crack" in the plastic which Apple said was no big deal? But it was a big deal to the people who paid extra and demanded perfection. People don't buy Mac cubes and iPods because they want something that is just good enough or gets the job done. These items are priced much higher than roughly equivalent but less polished competitors, and people expect that extra Apple polish.
I haven't done any research about this, but i'm glad i've seen somone else has this problem. Its friggen terrible. I was listening to a signfeld stand up today at work, and its INCREDIBLY noticeable with that.
I really hope something is done about this.
Some of the older Compaq iPaq and HP Jornada Pocket PC PDAs had the same issue where you would here a pop right after a sound was played. Firmware fixes were released to reduce or eliminate the problem, which changed how the mini-amp for the built-in speaker (listening to sound via a headphone didn't have the same issue or was so minor that it couldn't be heard) was powered off.
The issue with the iPod might just be that the embedded OS is possibly powering down the mini-amp between songs or could be a glitch with the sound chip between the buffers. Probably a good chance that it can be eliminated or at least make it much more subtle by a firmware fix... or it may be problems with said mini-amp.
Obviously this will be fixed if it's a huge problem (and people complain loudly enough). Just look at the "Mirrored door drive" G4 power supply issue. No need to cancel orders. In fact, lets all buy a brand new G4!!!
read in a few reviews of other mp3 players that
some seem to sound consicerably better than the
ipods (at least according to the reviewers).
{Am by no means saying that the old ones sounded
shite, only that there seems to be room for
improvement, that's all.}
So I was wondering if they improved on the sound
output quality in addition to hd capacity and form
factor and features...
just curious...
...I am simply astounded that a major corporation would just give out free sounds to the people. Microsoft could never unclench their evil moneygrubbing fists like that. I mean to be able to clearly distinguish between tracks is just the kind of brilliant useability detail that the Linux crowd fail to pay attention to but which has been the hallmark of Jobs' vision from the beginning. Just holding my ipod and thinking about it is causing a warm tingle in my pants.
ohgodohgod
yes! oh god YES!
aaaaah...
The Titanium PowerBook G4s also had a huge probelm with chiping. The band around the center of the unit as well as the screen hinges would chip (paint ?), and as a result the machine began looking very ugly. Apple originaly discounted this in much the same way as the cube. Eventually they gave in to overwhelming negative feedback from users and have been replacing them for many people (don't let them know you wear a watch). I think this, along with very poor airport signal strength, is one of the main factors that drove them to switch to the new aluminum case. So it will be interesting to see if they address, it ignore it, or ignore it then address it. -peel
People who have upgraded older iPods to 1.3 are reporting the same "electrostatic pop". This would seem to indicate that it's in the firmware and will at some point be fixed. It's not exactly a nightmarish bother; at least not to me.
I don't mean to warrant a "flamebait" score attribute, but this is why slashdot "editors" receive so much disdain. I doubt there is any reader who cares the least bit about your or Rob's or Michael's opinion. You guys always seem to shove it down our throats though.
Obviously this will leave some to wonder if they should now wait to get an iPod or canceling an existing order. Yet, the smart aleck way in which you phrase your "wonder" is just apalling. No more biased "editorializing" please...
Jeez, we post BitTorrents for stuff on AOL's unlimited-bandwidth servers, but let smaller sites get a massive bandwidth bill? At least post a BitTorrent for that 2.9MB audio file on the site; that's probably mostly what's making the site so slow.
... has released an official statement regarding this issue. It seems as if the digital output is in part constructed with rice krispies. When the Ipod is used in a humid area the rice krispies absorb the moisture from the air and produce a distinct possing sound. Apple has announced it intends to use Trix in future versions.
That's not a bug. it's a feature. the product was originally called the iPop. some dyslexic guy in the marketing department screwed it all up though.
I bought my 15 gig iPod Friday morning to make sure I could secure one, and then picked it up at 6pm. I have not had an issue with this 'popping' Audio is crystal clear and the iTunes music store rocks!
I've had a 15gb since friday, and have not heard any of this from it (even when listening specificly for it)
I can hear it on my first generation 5 gigger. I had to really strain to hear it, but it's definitely there. Never noticed it before. Have had the device for about a year. Was it always there or did it show up in firmware 1.3? If it was always there, is this really a problem? If it's the latter maybe it'll be gone with 1.3.1?
The new slim and trim iPod with smaller battery must have some very active power management to get the play times even close to the original iPod.
It probably can very rapidly power cycle the sound amplification circuitry in response to input/lack of. The electrical pop may be a blip from a momentary power cycle due to some defect in software or hardware. From what others have said you can only hear it intermittently and only when the music is quiet enough or pauses enough.
I hope Apple can fix it via a software update, or things may get messy with this one. They've already sold 100,000+ new iPods and a recall would be extremely... painful for them.
I don't know how it varies from the actual ipod, but I listened to the sound sample on the website and i had to play it twice to hear the pop, after turning the volume up and moving my head closer to my speakers. From the way it's put in the post, i was expecting to hear something much more traumatic than what amounts to little more than a whisper, when paying attention. I still want one.
I have found that you get pops when playing uncompressed audio aiff files. mp3 and aac files do not pop on my first gen iPod
And not just between tracks. Depending on the orientation of the headphone cable, it doesn't just make popping noises... it's actually shocked me. It was kindof painful, due to the fact that it was shocking the inside of my ear.
It only seemed to happen when I had stuffed it into my pocket upside down and squashed the little rubber part on the back of the minijack. Perhaps people are having my problem? Perhaps my problem got a little worse?
I'm still dying to get a new iPod... So is that negative reinforcement?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Your ipod(s) must be defective. I got a 15GB on Friday and have been using it nonstop ever since (two flights and while at work).
Smooth transitions, no pops at all.
"Electric Relaxation" - ATCQ
- Bwana
If you look closely at your SHURE product, you will see that the name of the company, SHURE, is spelled correctly, unlike in your post.
You're reading way too much into an offhand comment. If Pudge has any objectivity issues, it has to do with his idolatrous love all things Apple!
When I listened to that sample on the site, when the .mp3 finished, I also heard an almost identical click. The reason many people blame this on the iPod is that with most mp3's, they cut off without a pop, but poorly done ones, such as that test do. I don't know exactly what causes it, but i've seen that it's actually encoded into the mp3.
There's a couple ways to fix this. First, you could go into an mp3 editor and clip it off, or you could just be lazy. Most people won't hear it in iTunes because it fades from one song to the next, making the pop impossible to hear.
The other thing is that the Apple music store AAC's probably have this little pop at the end, and that's why they seem to have just started now.
I honestly don't know, that's just my crazy theory of the day.
I've noticed the pop on my 15GB, and assume it's a firmware bug as there's no reason to turn off the dac between tracks. What's more bothersome is that the unit seems to randomly assign the left and right channels whenever it starts playing after seeking or starting a new song. This make rewinding in a track with lots of stereo separation somewhat disorienting.
might not be able to get Parachute installed, but I don't have no pops!
...only time and testing will tell.
"I wonder if I should cancel my order."
You should cancel your order because you're a snivelling, little sissy that will whine about anything. It will give the iPod bad publicity if people see your faggy ass walking down the street with one.
I *have* a new iPod. It's too cool for you.
I hear pops at various times in iTunes. I believe it to be a RAM or processor issue. It might be possible that the pops heard on iPods is the result of issues involved when the files are transfered to the device. There are data files and it a bit might get dropped here or there when the files are moved via Firewire. But I could be wrong. Look at my first wife.
iPodPop.com...
Petitions, articles, and anecdotes demanding that Apple fix this clearly egregious aural violation!! Anything less than an immediate fix and a $100 rebate constitutes Steve Jobs' arrogant, utter contempt for the customer!
Oh, the humanity! How many people will have to suffer through this before Apple releases a fix?!?!?!
I have a 1st Generation Grey AirPort and it stopped working about a year after I got it. I took it down to an Apple store and had them look at it. The guy confirmed that it wasn't working, checked the serial number against a list of affected units, and handed me a refurbished AirPort immediately. No questions asked. That AirPort has been working great ever since.
I've had excellent success with Apple and repairs. If they can do it for free at the Apple Store, they do (like one time when a CD got stuck in my TiBook because I dropped it. BTW, the TiBook took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. Yay Titanium!)
Another time the videocard on my G3 Pismo burned out for some reason. It was under warranty, so I put it in for repair on a Tuesday, and had the thing back in my hands on Thursday afternoon. Apple turned it around in one day with free overnight shipping on either side.
Look, computers break, software has bugs, and people do stupid things (like dropping their laptops). The thing is, how does your computer company handle it? I think Apple has got to be one of the best in the business.
So, I don't know if Apple fixed everyone's AirPort, but I'd bet that they were willing to, if you brought it down to an Apple Store or sent it in.
---------------
Sigaliscious.
The term "outside the box" is squarely within the box at this point.
I also have this problem with my new 30GB iPod. It is very annoying.
One thing I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed. Sometimes when I'm listening to my playlist and it goes from one song to the next, I get the click/pop, then when the music comes back on I the balance between left/right ears changes. The volume level of the left ear seems to decrease significantly. It is totally random when this happens.
I noticed this happening because I listen to a lot of DJ mix tapes and in between track changes, when the balance shifts dramatically this is a big deal. I can get it to shift back by stopping the iPod (hold down play for 2 seconds until it shuts off), then restarting playback, but only sometimes. Sometimes I have to stop it several times before it will do it.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Another possibility: are you using the remote? Maybe it could rub on your clothing and build up a static charge that would be conducted to the buds when a metal part of it touched your clothing. Or something. That still doesn't explain what *part* of the buds are conducting...and I can't say I know all that much about static electricity anyway.
:-)
:-) Maybe I should register...
And I realized shortly after posting that someone else had already mentioned static buildup from the carpet. That seems much more likely than any of my crazy theories.
Finally, I have to say that I'm pretty excited that my anonymous post got modded up to 3!
HTH
WM
You can barley notice it. To me their is really no pop at all. Ofcourse you'll boo and taunt me and call me the Iraqi Information Minister, but oh well.
So you'll play one of your songs then hear a short clip of brittney spears, then play another of your songs and hear a little Nsync? Noooooo!! ;-)
My new 30gb ipod definitely clicks between tracks (electronic blip, not the touch-feedback click); it actually seems to occur at the start of a track (it happens when a playlist begins, but not when it ends). It happens with either aac or mp3; it happens whether on battery or plugged in; regardless of click-feedback or soundcheck status; with any speakers/headphones/earbuds; and it also happens when you press any button while music is playing (listen carefully, on a quiet track). But it doesn't happen on iTunes on my iMac. This has been reported on ipoding.com and ipodlounge, and folks there say it does NOT happen on older ipods. So... it's clearly a problem with the NEW ipods (software? I hope?). I really like this thing, but the clicks are starting to get to me...
fuck microsoft
All I know is, I just got a new iPod too, and have no pops between tracks.
I bought a 30GB iPod on the rollout date at the local Apple Store. Some of the first things I put on the iPod was a Mahler symphony and a Beethoven string quartet. I didn't have one of the earlier generation iPods, so I loaded a variety of music on--rock, punk, classical, jazz, an opera--to see what worked best with the machine. I have a stupidly large CD collection, and even at 30GB I couldn't fit all of my CD's on the iPod, so I wanted to see first if any genre would be unsuitable to the pod.
I started noticing the pops between tracks right away. Also, the fact that the pod puts pauses between tracks makes it very inconvenience for classical music--on one the classical lists I'm on I mentioned this and others who had iPods agreed it is almost useless for classical. The reason is that many classical CDs have large movements broken up with track points. On the iPod all of these track points of course result in breaks in the music where no breaks were intended. There's no particular reason why the iPod should do this--certainly the machine has the capability to read ahead to the beginning of the next track and go seamlessly from one to the other. This also makes the iPod extremely annoying when listen to some jazz CDs--for example, Miles Ahead, a Miles Davis CD arranged by Gil Evans with transitional music that shifts the recording seemlessly from track to track. Of course, on the iPod there is not such thing--every track ends with POP-pause.
The POP-pause is particularly annoying with chamber music--since the dynamics are lower. At least between rock tracks I can get used to the pop, but it is loud enough that between tracks of a string quartet I've flinched from it.
However, the biggest problem I have had is that I have now gone through two dead on arrival or close to arrival units.
The first iPod worked for three days, and then would no longer mount to the desktop, would not sync, and would freezed up the iPod installer software when I attempted to do a restore. I took it back to the Apple Store, they did the same tests I did (for any of you WELL YEAH, YOU WERE TRYING TO GET TO WORK THE WRONG WAY dipshits) and very nicely and efficiently replaced the unit.
I was a very happy, satisfied customer when I got home last night with my new, replacement unit. I reinstalled my tracks, let the iPod charge overnight, and this morning tried to use it for the first time. Dead on arrival. It works fine when hooked up to my iBook or its power adapter, but will not play tracks when it is running off its own battery. Instead, you can go through the menu to the track you want played, hit play or select, and the iPod then tries to play the track. However, instead of playing the track the hard drive clicks a little and the iPod promptly reboots. Tried this on a dozen tracks, same result for all of them. Plug the iPod into the adapter and everything works fine. Plug it into my iBook, works fine. On its own, dead--reboots every time I try to play a track.
Back out to the Apple Store.
At this point I am quite discouraged about the iPod--one dead on arrival and one dead in three days. I am now wondering whether to bring the unit back for another replacement, or to say the hell with it and get a refund.
The iPod is adorable, and it looks and size is so obviously above competing units that they can't really be described as competing. At the same time, I'm looking at two thirds of CD collection (classical and opera) and realizing that even I have a functioning unit I am going to be limited in which CDs I transfer to the iPod. And the quality control issues now really concern me--I can handle one defective unit, but two DOA's in a row is not at all what you expect from $500 machines.
Now for the Slashdot faction that will no doubt answer that I am doing something wrong, that I'm making up the problem, that they don't have the problem, etc., all I can say is that I took back the first unit to Apple, they did all the same tests I did (and told me they were doing the same tests I did) and replaced the unit, so obviously I have some idea what I am doing.