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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > Software, Firmware and Drivers > W800 Walkman Player hissing noise problem: software or hardware? Bookmark topic

kristianm, well it has been 2 days i sent the email to SE support, but no damn reply, they must be scratchin their heads to give a good answer, how many days will it take for them to repair and send u back the phone m8. let us know what the service center has told u abt the issue.

what i have noted is that it might not be a hardware issue (personal opinion) coz if i downgrade to R1L i will get hiss free music and all, but will lose the camera, this all started when the R1N came out, how can one expect his/her phone hardware being faulty after upgradin to R1N, as u can see in my email posted above it clearly says its software related but I have told SE support that all the music was ripped using their Disc2phone s/w, and thats when they kept mum abt the topic and said they will be releasing a new f/w which apparently has not solved the problem.

what abt the ppl who have converted their k750 to w800 s/w? do they also have this hissing issues even with the latest w800 f/w?

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Posted: 2006-03-23 05:37:07
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At work I buy loads of cellphones for my colleagues, and personally I've used P900 and several K750's throughout the last year, even a Siemens M75. I have a bunch of MP3 files ripped from CD's, which I've copied to the Memory Stick Duo of the P900, the RSMMC-card of the M75 and the 1GB Memory Stick Duo Pro that I have used in the K750's.

This week I bought five W800 phones, and opened one to test for myself. I loaded it with the 1GB Memory Stick Duo Pro taken from the K750, and suddenly the music was all crap! Very audible hissing sound on every sound clip. Of course most audible with soft music on low volume.

This is definitely a bug in the W800 phone. My experience proves it has nothing to do with the MP3 files, because the same files are crystal clear in the both the K750, the P900 and the Siemens M75.

My W800-phones are at R1AA008, I'll try to upgrade one of them later. If that doesn't help the W800's are going back to where they came from. A phone promoted as a "walkman phone", specially tailored for great music experience, should OF COURSE have the best sound quality, not sound like CRAP!
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Posted: 2006-03-23 09:13:10
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^^ Initially, I also thought that it's a firmware problem, but what worries me is SE's denial of it being firmware-related (see scorpiosb's first post), which means they won't fix it thru firmware if they won't acknowledge it's FW-related.

Have you tried testing your MP3s on all W800 phones you bought?

[ This Message was edited by: kristianm on 2006-03-23 09:37 ]
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Posted: 2006-03-23 10:34:54
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Now I know what you guys meant by hissing noise. I didn't notice it because I am always in a noisy environment and always turn the volume to the highest. Just now (well, it's midnight) when I tried the walkman again, and on low volume (4 bars and below) and I heard the hissing noise. My mp3 collection is all classical and soft music. So, the hissing noise is pretty noticeable when the music is low (pp, in musical term)and it seems to go away when the music is loud (ff, in musical term), even the walkman's volume is set at 3 bars.
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Posted: 2006-03-23 18:02:42
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Yes, higher volume tends to drown the hissing noise, which makes it unnoticeable.
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Posted: 2006-03-24 03:44:58
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You know what? I'm not too sure about what's going on here. Since I upgraded from the original F/W that came with my W800 to R1Nxxx and onwards I did notice more hissing/static/crackles - particularly between songs. However, today I had the chance to play with another W800 on it's original R1lxx f/w. The 1st thing I noticed was just how much lower the max volume was. But, if I listened carefully I could hear hissing/static type noises and could definitely still hear weak signs of the cracks and pops between songs. I reckon SE probably did us a favour by increasing the max volume but this came at the cost of allowing some of the other sounds associated with amplifying MP3's through. I say this because I did some testing today by playing MP3's on a P.C. (the same MP3's as on my phone) through the headphones that came with my w800. And, I could hear the same faint noises that are more apparent on the W800. They weren't as bad though as I could not get the 2 P.C.s I tested on to play the music loud enough. Also, upon updating the W800 we tested today from R1lxx to R1BCxx- there really is a very noticeable increase in volume. The same MP3's seemed to play the same only with a little more noise in the quieter sections and the occasional louder ‘crack and pop’ between songs - but they really did play much louder! I think the W800's worst enemy are the headphones it is provided with. I find it so much harder to detect the hissing/static with other headphones – regardless of whether they are connected to either a w800 or a P.C. And, again, I would like to remind people that we are dealing with MP3's here - they are not exactly the clearest sounding format around. In summary – I’d say ,if anything, it is a hardware issue and that the only way we will see an improvement is via SE lowering the max volume – This is something I definitely do not want.
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Posted: 2006-03-24 14:53:00
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Agree with you that it's probably a hardware issue. I've experienced similar glitches with various motherboards with onboard sound solutions, especially when you ask the CPU to do something else while it does mp3 decoding. No glitches with my Audigy 2, but then I'd be crazy to expect the same sort of performance from a phone, wouldn't I?

On the subject of headphones, I use my K750i with really good quality Sennheiser earbuds (CX300) and the hissing and glitches are quite lot worse with them than with the supplied buds. Incidentally, I've also plugged some Sennheiser HD500 cans into my phone, and while the volume is far too low to be usable, the actual sound quality is not too far off what I get out of my Audigy!
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Posted: 2006-03-24 15:24:21
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In latest issue of the German Connect magazine there was a group test of MP3 mobiles vs iPod.

They made some technical audio measurements you hardly have seen elswhere. I'd like to share these with you.

Signal to Noise Ratio:

Apple iPod: 62.5dB
Motorola ROKR E1: 63.1dB
Nokia 6230i: 56.3dB
Nokia N70 58.4dB
Samsung SGH-D600: 60.5dB
Samsung SGH-i300: 60.5dB
Siemens CX 75: 56.4dB
Siemens S 75: 57.0dB
SE K750i: 60.9dB
SE W550i: 60.6dB
SE W800i: 60.9dB

Harmonic Distortion (THD+N):

Apple iPod: 0.075%
Motorola ROKR E1: 0.071%
Nokia 6230i: 0.154%
Nokia N70: 0.121%
Samsung SGH-D600: 0.080%
Samsung SGH-i300: 0.095%
Siemens CX 75: 0.170%
Siemens S 75: 0.141%
SE K750i: 0.090%
SE W550i: 0.093%
SE W800i: 0.090%

Maximum Output Voltage:

Apple iPod: 0.195V
Motorola ROKR E1: 0.478V
Nokia 6230i: 0.209V
Nokia N70: 0.116V
Samsung SGH-D600: 0.222V
Samsung SGH-i300: 0.186V
Siemens CX 75: 0.069V
Siemens S 75: 0.071V
SE K750i: 0.259V
SE W550i: 0.172V
SE W800i: 0.257V
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Posted: 2006-03-24 15:31:31
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mongoose3800:

I think your post makes a lot of sense. After having gone through all software versions from R1L002 to R1BC002 I very much agree with you.
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Posted: 2006-03-24 17:20:53
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But how about the distorsion with new firmware? With my R1L002 I can hardly gain the bass with max volume before I can hear distorsion, and it get much worse if I use the Mega bass!
If SE have gain the amp over the limits in the new firmware there gona be much worse becouse the amp is to weak, or?

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Posted: 2006-03-24 17:32:41
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