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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: JasonSobel on January 04, 2004, 10:01:08 PM
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interesting thread over at Oade's board, and I thought I'd start a conversation here about it, because that conversation never really answers anything about the Archos unit, it turned more into a discussion about the JB3. I haven't seen anything on this board about it yet, sorry if I just didn't see this being discussed...
here's the link to the post on Oade's board:
http://www.oade.com/Tapers_Section/Forum/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=100&topic_id=570&mesg_id=570&page= (http://www.oade.com/Tapers_Section/Forum/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=100&topic_id=570&mesg_id=570&page=)
basically, the archos Gmini 120 is a 20gig HD mp3 player with recording capabilities. it says that it has a digital S/PDIF input, and although the manual states that it can only record in .mp3 format, if you look at the firmware revisions, it says that .wav recording has been added with firmware V1.4.0.
http://www.archos.com/download/firmware/Gmini100_OS_History.txt (http://www.archos.com/download/firmware/Gmini100_OS_History.txt)
it doesn't have too much info on their website. I just sent an email to the tech support, with the standard questions...
file size limitations? what kind of S/PDIF connections (RCA, optical toslink, optical mini)? what bit depths and sample rates does it support? bit accuracy? etc...
so we'll see what they tell me. but I'm posting here because I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with this thing? please post if you've got any info or anything to add to the discussion.
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looks very promising,
copy/paste from PCmag.com
"according to the company, the first modular MP3 and WMA player, meaning you can customize your device with plug-ins—Audio Recorder/Voice Recorder ($19.95)" By that i'm guessing they mean a ultra shitty mic, but it could be a bay that gives you the proper connections to record.
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at least one nice thing about this unit: (from manual)
"The Gmini runs the wire based protocol (Not Optical Fiber)." and it even comes with a digi cable. ;D
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Capacity:
20 GB Hard Drive (300 hours* MP3 at 128 kbps, 700 hours* of voice recording(1) at 64 kbps or 20 GB of data)
*on average
Internal buffer: 8 MB
Interfaces: USB 2.0 High-speed (USB 1.1 compatible). CompactFlash™ reader - compatible type I and II (1)
Format supported:
MP3 playback (30 to 320 kbps) - WMA playback, high and mid bitrate - WAV (PCM) playback.
MP3 recording (1) (selectable 32 to 192kbps CBR - real-time encoding from audio source).
Copy JPEG images all types of files through CompactFlash™ interface into Gmini (1)
Display:
Black&White LCD with blue backlit 128x64 pixels - 5 lines of characters and an icon bar
Audio Specifications:
Stereo SPDIF Digital Input/Stereo Analog Line-in (1), Stereo Analog Line-out/Earphone Jack.
Buil-in microphone(1)
Playback autonomy: Up to 10 hours
Firmware interface
User-friendly graphical interface with icons. Delete, rename, copy and move files without computer
Upgradeable plug-ins from www.archos.com
Power source: Internal Power : Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery. External Power: AC-DC Charger/Adapter
Dimensions: 4.45"x3.07"x1.02" - 113 x 78 x 26 mm
Weight: 8.61 oz - 244 g
System requirements:
PC*: Pentium® 233 MHz or higher, Window 98 SE, ME, 2000 or XP. 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended). CD-Rom drive with digital audio extraction support.
Mac*: 9.2 or X (10.2.4) USB Manager version 1.2 or higher
Package includes: Gmini, USB cable (MiniB/A), AC-DC adapter, rechargeable Li-Ion battery (already installed in the Gmini), audio cable, stereo headphones, MusicMatch™ Jukebox software and driver on CD plus manual.
(1) Optional functionality downloadable from www.archos.com
1,1GB = 1 Billion Bytes. The actual formatted capacity is inferior
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Looking at the PDF manual, the "S/PDIF in" is 1/8", but it's by this clunky-looking proprietary "Multi-connect Adapter Plug" thing. Doesn't look stable at all. Also, this doesn't give me a great amount of confidence:
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5.4.2 Line-In Recording
You can record from any line-level audio source into the Gmini. Use the included audio cable (Red/Right, White/Left) to connect to your Hifi system, home CD player, etc (do not use the yellow). Plug the Red and White RCA type connectors into the Line-Out of your HiFi. Plug the adapter (shown on the left) into the Gmini headphone multi-connect jack. Plug the other end of the cable into the Line in - s-pdif labeled side of the adapter. To record from a source such as a portable CD player, you will need to buy a cable with mini-jack (3.5mm) male connectors on both sides. Be careful that the source audio is supplying a line level and not an amplified signal (usually turning down the volume on the player will work). An amplified signal will make for a terribly distorted recording. Make sure that you have selected Line-In as the input Source in the pre-recording Settings screen. For an input, you can also use a high quality pre-amplified microphone, such as the one Archos sells as an option.
5.4.3 SPDIF Input
This digital input is for SPDIF enabled audio devices. The Gmini runs the wire based protocol (not optical fiber). To record via the SPDIF digital audio connection, you will use the Yellow RCA connector on the delivered cable. Plug the above shown adapter into the Gmini headphone multiconnect jack. Plug the mini-jack end into the Line in - s-pdif jack. The Gmini abides by the copy protection scheme of the SPDIF digital connection protocol. That is, an SPDIF copy is allowed from the original source only, not from a second generation digital copy.
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In other words, the analog and digital signals both go through the same side of that adapter plug (the other side is line out). Is that possible? I know some old Aiwas (like the Aiwa HD-S200; Suicide Todd from NYC has one) have S/PDIF over a 1/8" jack that's also used for analog in, but it's an optical signal, not coax...
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Greenone - Looks to me like a standard mini-stereo / dual-RCA adapter used for both analog and S/PDIF coax digital input. I remember seeing an old Denon DAT this past summer that used the same kind of setup. No more dumb-ass 7-pin cables, or fragile optical a la JB3.
As I understand it based on the PDF manual, this is a Good Thing in my book.
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well, all this still looks ok. I have yet to hear back from them about file size limitations, bit accuracy, and all that stuff. keeping my fingers crossed. is it too much to hope for 24/96 from this thing? even if it only did 16/48 (reliably), it would still be worth it for me for a few hundred...
as for the connector:
"but it's by this clunky-looking proprietary "Multi-connect Adapter Plug" thing"
it seems no worse than a 7-pin in my head.
we'll see, it'll certainly have to undergo plenty of testing while running the trusty D8 from the other digi out of my v3.
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how about visable levels...and file size?
Very interested.......
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Greenone - Looks to me like a standard mini-stereo / dual-RCA adapter used for both analog and S/PDIF coax digital input. I remember seeing an old Denon DAT this past summer that used the same kind of setup. No more dumb-ass 7-pin cables, or fragile optical a la JB3.
Hmm. I've attached a zoom-in on the connector as pictured in the PDF. Looks to me like the right (far) side says "line in/spdif" and the left (near) side says "line out". It also says on the next page "Plug the mini-jack end into the Line in - s-pdif jack." If that were a dual RCA I can understand being able to send a S/PDIF signal over it, but I've never seen it over a 1/8" connection unless it's one of those TOSLINK to miniplug connectors...
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doesn't the zefiro inbox/denecke ad-20 have that same connection for it's S/PDIF out?
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Damn these words taste good. Could use a little salt... ;)
Have to say I've never looked at an AD-20 close up before (and for what it's worth, a Google image search for "zefiro" yields some interesting results) but I think you're right. I wonder if a mini-plug can be used for S/PDIF I/O, or if it's just in or just out only? If that's the case, the "adapter cable" with the Archos must be single RCA-to-mini S/PDIF, the reverse of what Len provides with the AD-20s. Nice!
--Dave
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Hmm. I've attached a zoom-in on the connector as pictured in the PDF. Looks to me like the right (far) side says "line in/spdif" and the left (near) side says "line out". It also says on the next page "Plug the mini-jack end into the Line in - s-pdif jack." If that were a dual RCA I can understand being able to send a S/PDIF signal over it, but I've never seen it over a 1/8" connection unless it's one of those TOSLINK to miniplug connectors...
Quad ring 1/8 inch mini plug to dual stereo would be my guess.
pro'lly could make a custom Y-cable that would be more flexible and easier on the quad-mini socket.
I'd test it before trying to 'brew something up.
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I used to run an Aiwa HD-S100, and it had SPDIF in and out on a standard 1/8 stereo mini - to - stereo RCA's cable. The right RCA (red) was the in and the White was the out. It accepted and successfully passed on signal to every deck in every chain I was ever in, including all the Sony miniDATs, DA-P1, etc. I simply used a cable from my stereo, not even a "digital" cable, never had a single problem. Wish I could say the same about my d-100...
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It looks like a FAT filesystem too, PDF manual says you just plug it in via USB2 and it acts like a regular hard drive for some drag and dropping of data files, etc. Very nice.. looks like the most promising upcoming "HD recorder" to date.
Concerned how well that SPDIF attachment "attaches" though, would hate to break it off or have it unplug itself on accident. Someone try one out and report back pronto ;D
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I'm very close to buying one and testing it out. if you buy from the archos website, it's $250 + shipping. the only thing holding me back right now is the fact that they haven't returned my email. I asked some basic questions about battery life, file size, and some not so basic questions about bit accuracy, sample rates, and all that. I don't want to buy it only to find out it only has a 20min limit or something stupid like that. but I'm real close to checking it out. hopefully soon.
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well, I spoke to a guy from their tech support...
the good news:
it seems like this would be a great DAT replacement. He told me that, while it cannot do 24/96, it does not have a file size limit, it does not resample the S/PDIF input, the internal battery should last 5 to 6 hours for recording. all of this seems promising.
the bad news:
the guy I spoke with didn't seem to be the smartest person in the world (in fact, he didn't sound too bright at all). Each question I asked him, he didn't know the answer right away. He put me on hold to look it up, but he did get back to me within 30 seconds to a minute after puting me on hold.
so the question is, is everything they told me the truth. there's some testing to be done. several major retail stores carry this, so I'm sure I'll be able to find one locally (in Boston). I'm planning to go pick one up in the next few days, and begin testing it. This will also give me time to solder an S/PDIF cable with a right-angle RCA to come out of the V3, and an 1/8th inch mini plug on the other. I'll be running my D8 out of the V3's AES, to have a basis for comparison.
I'll be sure to post here with any more good (or bad) news.
and if anyone else wants to start testing this device, feel free :)
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Jason - good stuff, thanks for keeping us updated. And man, is that thing *small* - I like it! As for the guy with whom you spoke, at least he spent the time to find the answers instead of blathering on while not actually knowing just so he could get off the phone and/or shut you up.
I wonder, though:
[1] 5-6 hr battery time - numbers from the manufacturers always seem ludicrously inflated with respect to real-life usage; but, it looks like it can be powered externally, am curious about the VDC requirements and current draw
[2] no filesize limit - I'm betting this is correct for files copied onto the device, but I bet while recording there's a limit
Keep us posted and thanks for doing the legwork on this one! I'd test myself, but I'm locked into the JB3 route for the moment.
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he first told me that the battery life is normally over 10 hours, and when I asked him about continuous recording for long periods of time, that's when he said 5 to 6 hours.
and as for the filesize, well, after he told me that there was no limit, I specifically asked him "so, I could record to a .wav file for 3 or 4 hours with no stopping" (obviously not verbatim, but more or less that question) and he told me it wouldn't be a problem. we'll see. I almost ran out to a few stores as soon as I got off the phone with him, but then I remembered I had to get a few things done before I went out tonight :) hopefully I'll find the time to pick one up in the next couple of days...
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any news from Archos on level meters?
I am really interested in the unlimted file size limits....
Been using my Iriver 120 that only has 75 min file size, annd while I don't leave my stuff unattended, it's still a little bit of a hassel to wonder if you're missing any of the show........
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you know, I never asked about level meters. I'm planning on using mine with my V3, which has great meters, so level meters aren't really a concern of mine.
the first store I went to didn't have any in stock, I'm planning on checking out a couple other major retailers around here, and if I can't find one locally, then I'll buy online.
Today, I also received an answer email to my initial questions. here is the emai lthey sent me:
(1) We only support the SPDIF RCA connector type. Our unit doesn't support optical digital.
(2) Here are some specs might helps:
The unit will record into WAV(PCM) format, the quality will depends on the source using:
If the source is set to 'Mic' (built-in microphone), it will record the WAV into 352kb/s @ 22.0kHz.
If the source is set to 'Line-in' or 'SPDIF', it will record the WAV into 1411kb/s @ 44.1kHz.
When record into MP3(CBR) format, the quality will depends on the source using as well:
If the source is set to 'Mic' (built-in microphone), you can set the 'mic birate' to 16kb/s, 64kb/s, 96kb/s, 112kb/s with all @ 22.0kHz.
If the source is set to 'Line-in' or 'SPDIF', you can set the 'Line-in & FM radio bitrate' to 32kb/s, 96kb/s, 128kb/s, 192kb/s with all @ 44.1kHz.
(3) We belief it will resample the signal and write them to WAV (PCM) format.
(4) No, there's no any file limitation. And it's easy to start a new recording.
there are many things in this email that don't sound too good. their answer #3 is in response to whether or not it resamples all digital input. there answer doesn't really make any sense, so I'm not going to discount this thing until I test it for myself. too bad that they don't have some knowledgable folks over there. oh well.
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you know, I never asked about level meters. I'm planning on using mine with my V3, which has great meters, so level meters aren't really a concern of mine.
the first store I went to didn't have any in stock, I'm planning on checking out a couple other major retailers around here, and if I can't find one locally, then I'll buy online.
Today, I also received an answer email to my initial questions. here is the emai lthey sent me:
(1) We only support the SPDIF RCA connector type. Our unit doesn't support optical digital.
(2) Here are some specs might helps:
The unit will record into WAV(PCM) format, the quality will depends on the source using:
If the source is set to 'Mic' (built-in microphone), it will record the WAV into 352kb/s @ 22.0kHz.
If the source is set to 'Line-in' or 'SPDIF', it will record the WAV into 1411kb/s @ 44.1kHz.
When record into MP3(CBR) format, the quality will depends on the source using as well:
If the source is set to 'Mic' (built-in microphone), you can set the 'mic birate' to 16kb/s, 64kb/s, 96kb/s, 112kb/s with all @ 22.0kHz.
If the source is set to 'Line-in' or 'SPDIF', you can set the 'Line-in & FM radio bitrate' to 32kb/s, 96kb/s, 128kb/s, 192kb/s with all @ 44.1kHz.
(3) We belief it will resample the signal and write them to WAV (PCM) format.
(4) No, there's no any file limitation. And it's easy to start a new recording.
there are many things in this email that don't sound too good. their answer #3 is in response to whether or not it resamples all digital input. there answer doesn't really make any sense, so I'm not going to discount this thing until I test it for myself. too bad that they don't have some knowledgable folks over there. oh well.
If you really want quality answers, IMO you'll have to call them and deal with the BS of bumping up 2-3 levels in the support hierarchy before you can find someone competent. Even then, it's a crap shoot, though you have better odds. And, of course, you'll want to confirm with your own testing. Thanks for keeping us posted, keep up the good work...
As for this:
will record the WAV into 1411kb/s @ 44.1kHz
What is the bit-rate for WAV, anyway? Is it even an applicable measurement? I'm clueless...
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If you really want quality answers, IMO you'll have to call them and deal with the BS of bumping up 2-3 levels in the support hierarchy before you can find someone competent. Even then, it's a crap shoot, though you have better odds.
unfortunately, I don't have time for that BS. I figure, for $250, I can buy it, test it myself, and worse case scenario, it doesn't work well for recording, and I either use it as an .mp3 player (or, in my case, a .wav player), as I've been thinking about getting one to use on the subway anyway...
What is the bit-rate for WAV, anyway? Is it even an applicable measurement? I'm clueless...
I've never heard anyone ever use a bit-rate when talking about .wav files. that was one of the reasons that lead me to believe that the tech person who answered didn't really have any idea what he (or she) was talking about.
once I get my hands on it, and do some testing, I'll let you all know...
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>>so, I could record to a .wav file for 3 or 4 hours with no stopping" (obviously not verbatim, but more or less that question) and he told me it wouldn't be a problem<<
well, the wav format has a limitation at just a bit over 3 hours when i hits 2 GB. so if it records in wav, the only way to NOT have a limit is if the unit starts a new file on the fly at 2GB. doubt that's the case. so i'm thinking 2 GB limit
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worst case scenario, you could always take it back. i bought a jb3 from circuit city when they first came out, used it for a couple weeks then took it back, no questions asked. i think it was $400 at the time. if i had the $ to throw around right now i would go test one too. i say this as motivation to any others who are willing to test it. :)
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will record the WAV into 1411kb/s @ 44.1kHz
What is the bit-rate for WAV, anyway? Is it even an applicable measurement? I'm clueless...
(Depth) x (rate) x (tracks).
16 x 44.1 x 2 = 1411
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Reviews at Circuit City site complain that battery life was less than half of advertised, and it seems to be of the non-removeable type. So powering this thing may be a major issue.
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yeah, it is a non-removable battery. it also says it takes 5VDC in. when I get it, I'll also test the output of the ac/dc wallwart, to see what voltage that actually outputs. with any luck, it's be closer to 6 and the thing will run off of my 6V SLA. we'll see how it all works out.
and I ordered one online, for a total of $218 after shipping. it should arrive next monday or tuesday, and the testing will begin :)
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+T for testing!
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right on...as for power, I have a really nice little PDA battery back up that has selectable vlotage outputs, and supposedly can kick out 5V for 8+ hrs...very small and perfect for my IRIVER,or this ARCHOS..
Hell I may go buy one to play with,,,as was said, you can always take it back........
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What is the bit-rate for WAV, anyway? Is it even an applicable measurement? I'm clueless...
(Depth) x (rate) x (tracks).
16 x 44.1 x 2 = 1411
Learn something new every day. Thanks, Zowie. :)
Another external power option, Jason, in case 6v doesn't work: RC battery pack with a 5v voltage regulator. Smaller and lighter than an SLA, as well.
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any news from Archos on level meters?
According to the manual. There are recording level meters when recording MP3. So I asume there would be meters for WAV too.
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def see some left and right meter readings in the pix. thank you for pointing that out...
Now I have a quick question about it's SPDIF input...do most pre-amps put out a SPDIF signal? I see most have XLR, and some optical, but none have a out that says SPDIF. Is it also called something else?
Thanks
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do most pre-amps put out a SPDIF signal?
NO preamps put out a S/PDIF signal. Preamps are analog gear. Many analog to cigital converters (ADCs) - sometimes paired with preamps in all-in-one boxes - output a S/PDIF coax signal.
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rightright...I knew had to be the AD pre amps, just don't see SPDIF on the pictures of the backsides of the amps, just coax, XLr or optical..the only I've seen that says SPDIF is the Denecks...I just don't don't know what to look for..........
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SPDIF is Coax.... either RCA or mini 1/8 (i.e. Denecks) inputs/outputs
Digital XLR = AES/EBU
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Well, technically, S/PDIF can be RCA, TOSLINK, 1/8", BNC, etc. S/PDIF is just a format; the type of connector is irrelevant.
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thanks digging thru the archives, learning alot.........
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got one today at C.City....just seeing how it wil work/batt life/ease of use....Taping my freinds band practice Sun eve...will report back on file size limits etc.......
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cool, it's good to know I won't be the only one testing this. I expect for mine to be delivered sometime this week. What other equipment are you running? and how will you be testing for bit-accuracy? just curious...
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that's right you can have either coaxial (rca, mini jack,or even xlr or bnc) or optical (toslink, minijack) S/Pdif. The alternative is AES/EBU (balanced in XLR)
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Does the Gmini 220 have all the same inputs/outputs as the 120?
If so, then I may have to wait on that one. Looks to be the same, but much smaller and a backlit LCD.
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no the Archos has a wire based SPDIF in and analog outs, while the IRIVER has optical in AND optical out, one of the only really nice things about the iriver(and it's Tiny size) still trying to figure out what kind of wire I need to run from my Denecke AD-20 coax./SPDIF out>my ARCHOS SPDIF in...both seem to be 1/8th in. mini plugs, but no one can tell me for sure at 2 RadioShacks and a Tweeter store........
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I'd just grab a mono mini-to-mini, that way you don't have to worry about whether the S/PDIF comes over the tip or the sleeve of the mini plug. I can't find any info anywhere that explains which carries the signal on the AD-20...does anyone know if it matters?
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Does the Gmini 220 have all the same inputs/outputs as the 120?
If so, then I may have to wait on that one. Looks to be the same, but much smaller and a backlit LCD.
Wow...Amazon's info says that it does have S/PDIF I/O...that's a good sign. Dimensions of the 220 are 2.66"x3.07"x0.9" - 120 is 2.99"x4.33"x0.98", so slightly thicker and taller but only 2/3 as wide! Same HD capacity (20GB). Wonder when this thing comes out? Archos' web site says the 220 was due in November...
--Dave
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mono mini- mono-mini is what one guy said too...going to try later..
the Archos will just record when set on 'Mic' or 'Line In', but when you choose SPDIF in the "Record Settings" mode and don't have line in, it says 'NO SYNC" on the screen. Sooo, hopefully when I try it with the 2 mini plugs it will show "SYNCED" or something like that......
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Spreadahead -
I have read somewhere that it is not available in the US until late January or Feb.
Its not even shown on their US webpage yet. If the Gmini 220 does have all the digital I/O that the 120 has, than I will definitly go with the 220; being how small it is. Size does matter!
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So what is the difference in the 120 and the 220 if the hard drive is 20g in both?
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Does the Gmini 220 have all the same inputs/outputs as the 120?
If so, then I may have to wait on that one. Looks to be the same, but much smaller and a backlit LCD.
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yeah, size does mater... and I'll prob end up keeping my very little IRIVER for those super stealth runs, and it's great to have 20gb of Mule with me wherever I go......
edit: I feel like I may have jumped the gun on this new tech...2004 is prob goig to be full of HD recorderd that have all sorts of bells and whistles.... all I need is something that can do a decent file size, decent battery life, and is easy to use, and so far the Archos is just that, for a decent price...and I have 2 weeks to take it back.....
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the 120 has a backlight and is pretty small...can't figure out what makes the 220 beter...maybe record is already a loaded function and a mulitple type card reader?....
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I got mine today. Testing begins tonight. I have also been exchanging emails with their tech support (although it takes 2 to 3 days for any kind of response). here is their latest email to me (in response to continued questioning about resampling all input, and whether it will record a 48kHz .wav file.
The signal will be resample when recording.
We will test on the 48kHz signal just to double check. At this point, we would say it will still record the signal to 44.1kHz. Once we tested it out will let you know.
based on their response, it doesn't look good for bit-accuracy. but at this point, my own testing will take over, so we'll see.
I'm going to test it all as if I were at a show. just set up my rig in front of my stereo speakers, with the AES out from the V3 going to my D8, and the coax S/PDIF going to the Gmini 120. then I'll transfer everything to my computer, invert, mix, and see if they are the same or not. The basis will be the .wav file recorded from me D8 via the Egosys Waveterminal 2496, which I have tested before for bit accuracy.
crossing my fingers.
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transfer everything to my computer, invert, mix, and see if they are the same or not.
Thanks for the update, Jason. Consider running a WAV File Compare in EAC as well as inverting and checking - you won't have to rely on a visual check, then, and it's awfully damn fast taboot. Just a thought. Looking forward to hearing about your results...
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If you record at 44kHz will it still resample to 44kHz? I'm hoping that its bit-for-bit at 44kHz at least.
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Brian,
thanks for the suggestion. I guess that entails downloading EAC :) I haven't bothered since i got my new computer a month ago...
Rick,
I'm hoping for the same thing. I don't entirely trust their tech support, because their first email made it sound like they didn't really know what they were talking about, and in this email, well, they didn't have an answer for me about the 48kHz signal.
I'll post my testing results as I do them.
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Thanks and as always, +T for guinea pigs. :) Looking forward to (positive) results!
--Dave
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Brian for wave compare to work wouldn't Jason have to cut those two waves (one from D8 and one from Gmini) in exactly the same places? Sounds kinda like a PIA but i'm not really sure..
I'm trying think of a way to record a single wave with one of the records and then play it back for the other to get them "equal" but I gotta run to my philosophy class :P
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Brian for wave compare to work wouldn't Jason have to cut those two waves (one from D8 and one from Gmini) in exactly the same places? Sounds kinda like a PIA but i'm not really sure..
Yup. It's not as difficult as it sounds - I found it quite easy and fast to do.
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yeah, cutting in exactly the same place isn't too bad. and if I go the inverting one wav and mixing together, I'd have to do the same thing anyway...
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initial, preliminary, very very preliminary results.
upgrading to firmware 1.5.0 is very simple, straightforward, no hassles.
installing the recording plug-in is simple, straightforward, no hassles.
I have recorded, with my field rig, two one minute .wav files.
obviously I have not checked for bit accuracy, but I have found that it will lock onto, recognize, and record both 44.1 and 48kHz signals. (and play them both back properly). the 48kHz file makes it seem more promising to me, as that means that it is not automatically resampling down to 44.1.
tomorrow evening, after work, and after my pottery class, the first real tests will begin, with 48kHz recordings made to the gmini and the DAT. results will be posted.
stupid work, if I didn't have to wake up at 6AM, then I'd be up all night playing with this thing :) ahh well.
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Jason - not that I wouldn't trust the DAT, but why not just run straight from the V3's AES to your sound card/hard drive, at least for your initial tests? That way you're getting two hard drive-based recordings and not throwing additional x-factors in there (the D8's digital i/o and any errors that might occur on the tape). So far, so good though...thanks for keeping us posted!
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From what I've just red, 120 and 220 are the same, it's just the design and the pric which change. It seems like the 120 is targeting the north-american market while the 220 is targeting the european one.
I'm curious about his bit-accuracy test.
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greenone -
good idea about running the AES output directly to the Waveterminal 2496. it makes perfect sense, just something that I didn't think about. in addition to what you mentioned about possible tape errors (although I think they are rather low), it will also save me several DAT tapes :)
good thing I have you guys here to give me these testing ideas :)
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Jason- thanks for testing this for us. Seems like there are quite a few of us waiting intensely for you results! Appreciate your work dude.
+T
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I second that; thats for taking the time Jason.
220 differences:
from what I've read, it seems that the 220 adds a lot of features for free that the 120 requires through add-ons. Like, recording and picture storage.
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They have a ton of info on their web site about the 220. The biggest difference is that not only can it store photos, but you can actually view the photos on it. It looks like you can buy it direct from them for $349:
http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500452.html
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I'm not sure its worth the extra $100 but it looks much smaller... It also dosn't mention anything about a SPDIF Digital Input in specs like it does for 120.
Also... does anyone know if there's a firmware update for the 220 for WAV recording? I would assume there is.
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It *is* much smaller - the 120 is 4.5" wide while the 220 is 3" wide; other dimensions are identical.
That S/PDIF missing isn't a good thing. There's no firmware update because the 220 hasn't been released yet, but this review (http://reviews.cnet.com/Archos_GMINI_220/4505-6490_7-30586668.html?tag=txt) says that the 220 won't support other formats and confirms that there's no digital I/O. Booo...
EDIT: This site (http://www.datamind.co.uk/Templates/frmTemplateM1.asp?SubFolderID=116&SearchYN=N) gives 220 availability as mid-February. Also checked Amazon's site and while there's a manual download for it, the manual is for the 120, not the 220. :P
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From the looks of Archos site you can order the 220 from them now. I clicked on the "add to cart" and went all the way through the check out process up until it needed credit card info.
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Hmm, interesting. Just realized that the site I linked to is a UK site so that may explain the difference - though if what Kelso says is right, it would release to Europe first (unless they're using the US to beta-test for the European market :D). Either way, no S/PDIF = no thanks...
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Europe is always a great testbed for technology in america. Wireless Internet, Digital FM radio were both well tested and established long before coming to the US (digital FM is coming just now).
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used my 120 last eve and got some great sounding recordings........
no worries about file size or tape flips...able to adjust the level during to drum solo..and listened to the show on the ride home...now all I have to do is figure out the software to track it out.....
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spreadahead:
that sounds promising. what was your full rig? were you running 44.1kHz or 48kHz? were you also running a DAT to compare the .wav files? Have you done any bit accuracy tests? let's hear some details...
I just got mine yesterday, I'll post details of my findings after I run a few tests.
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Not a pro-level tapir here, yet..........
I have the Sound Pro's AT933 mics at batt/box pre combo...Perfect for learning...
Major investment coming in Feb (mics, V3 etc...)
I recorded in 44.1.... looking on the manual to see where I can change it to 48
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Waiting anxiously at the edge of my seat to hear how your research goes Jason, thanks to both you and spreadahead for running with the ball on this project!
Might put the JB3 to work as my cars jukebox if this model seems like a winner.
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no worries about file size or tape flips...
I'm asuming the battery is not an issue then either if you don't have to worry about file size? How long did you let it record?
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I have taped with it twice so far.
1- Mon day I let it go for 3hr 22 min...fine
2-Wed I did 2 files (sets) 1 was 1hr 44 min, 2nd was 1hr 27 min...
both times I was on the last bar on the batt meter, but I have a real simple PDA battery backup that is the size of the unit and gives it another 8hrs+
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Can you post a link for this battery Spread? What are you feeding it? 5v?
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I bought it awhile ago, so will dig around a bit...
feeding it 5v..
I found a few different options..some have only 3 batteries, and will only power the machine, not charge.
The 4 batt one I have will recharge yr unit as well as run it.............
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Any indication in the manual how user-replaceable or proprietary the internal battery is?
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I recorded in 44.1.... looking on the manual to see where I can change it to 48
going analog in, I haven't found where to set the sample rate either. but I do know that it will lock onto a 48kHz signal from my V3, and it will play the file back correctly.
because you're going analog in, you don't really have to worry about a bit-accurate recording. but your tests will be much more revealing about the quality of the internal A/D conversions.
after I do some bit accuracy tests, I'll be doing some battery tests as well. see how long it records until the internal battery dies. but I'd also be very interested to hear more about your 5V PDA battery. I did a test on the output of the AC adaptor, and I found that it was 5.15 VDC. so with that output, I don't want to feed my 6V SLA battery to it, I'm afraid I might fry it.
can you post a link to some more detailed battery info?
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This one is beefy 8800mah @ 5V, and $119 :o
(http://store4.yimg.com/I/laptopupgrade_1772_796146)
This looks neat. "contains Li-Ion Cells that provide 3.5 Amp/Hour at 5 Volt" Sorry for the large size but neat to see battery meter and voltage adjustment thing. There's also a deluxe version for $109 that is 6300mah :o
(http://store1.yimg.com/I/laptopsforless_1775_4867027)
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still digging for the one I bought for 35 bucks..
i saw something real similar at Shaper Image while Xmas shopping....
will find the box this eve and post the info.....
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Nice! the one on the bottom is only $59 and comes with
Car Adaptor
Wall Plug
A coiled cable
four conectors
and Leather Pouch
3.5 Amp/Hour at 5 Volts (Is that good?)
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This one is beefy 8800mah @ 5V, and $119 :o
:hmmm: hmmmm....5 volts, 8800 mAh you say ....that thing could power a JB3 recording in wave format for 13 hours. Very interesting power option...
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This one runs for ~$48 and has a 1800NiMH and a 1400LiIon. (http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/PB/PBA.HTM)
It's curious because it is a 6V and to use it with 5v cameras they sell you a "Step Down cable". You can buy replacement step down cables for $7.90each.. I wonder if just buying the "step down cable" and hacking it we could build something for the 3600mah Air soft NiMH I already own ;D ;D
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ok, I just couldn't wait until after my pottery class, so I decided to run a quick test. 20 minutes. my rig set up in my room, recording "Remain in Light" from my stereo.
mics -> V3 -> gmini 120 via RCA S/PDIF
and V3 -> Waveterminal 2496 via AES output to a 110ohm to 75ohm impedance converter recording into Cool Edit 2000.
again, this was a very preliminary test, but, unfortunately, the results are a bit less than satisfying. I didn't even bother to invert and mix (or use EAC compare .wav feature), because there were several visible spikes and glitches in the Gmini recording.
I trimmed both files, so both are exactly the same length...
I've uploaded screen shots (and I've never posted a picture here, so hopefully this will work)...
edit: I should note that the spikes in the computer recording are me snapping in front of the mics, or closing the door as I leave the room, or something of that nature. however, the gmini recording shows many more spikes on top of the ones that should be there.
the first one is the computer recording:
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/testing/comp01.jpg)
this next one is the gmini recording.
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/testing/gmini01.jpg)
hopefully it will be clear that there were some definite issues with the gmini recording. again, this was just the first preliminary test, and I'll continue to test it some more, but the first test doesn't make me too happy :(
I'm headed out now, so if any of you comment, I won't check it until at least 10 (eastern) oclock...
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and here's one more image, this one is a close-up of one of the glitches in the gmini recording
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/testing/gmini-zoom.jpg)
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:'(
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Well that stinks
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Jason,
for shits and giggles, can you do the same comparison, but this time record in the 120's highest mp3 setting? I wonder if it has something to do with the wav format that is causing the spikes. The unit may be better at handling mp3 compression than wav's.
Sharky
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Jason - a few things:
[1] Do the EAC WAV compare, anyway. I encountered some apparent visual differences between my two recording sources (though not as extreme as yours), but the WAV compare showed they were bit perfect.
[2] Assuming you're using the AES1 output, confirm your AES/EBU output from the V3 is set to a consumer signal, not pro.
[3] Try repeating the test but switching the outputs, i.e. V3 AES1 > impedance converter > Gmini and V3 S/PDIF coax > WT2496 > CE2K.
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thanks for the suggestions guys. obviously, my testing isn't done yet.
Brian,
I just went to try the EAC wave compare, and it said that it wouldn't let me. my initial 20 minute test was at 48kHz, and EAC said it would only compare 44.1kHz files. also, a thought I just had, was to generate .md5 files for both the .wav files. if the .wav files were exactly the same, in theory, the .md5 files should be identical. When I did this, I got two different .md5 files :( and I am using the AES1 output, and I am 100% positive that it is set to a consumer signal.
so, here's a list of the tests I will do. at first, they will al be 20 minute tests. if any one is successful, I'll run a longer test.
(1) run the same test, but record at 44.1 kHz
(2) Switch the outputs of the V3, so the AES goes to the Gmini, and the RCA S/PDIF goes to the WT2496.
(3) I'll record a 20minute mp3 file, and listen to it for spikes and glitches.
so, anyone have other testing suggestions?
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I've now completed the same 20 minute test, this time at 44.1kHz
I basically had the same disappointing results. this time, I went ahead, inverted one of the files, and mixed with the other. each spike represents a glitch. the second image is a close up of one of the spikes. as you can see, everything is dead-flat, 0dB, except for one misplaced sample. at least the thing is not resampling everything. it is bit-accurate, except for these misplaced samples.
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/test02/invert.jpg)
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/test02/invert-zoom-glitch.jpg)
the nest step is to run a 20-minute test, with the AES out going to the gmini, and the RCA going to the computer. here we go...
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oh, and here's one more pic. because test #2 was done at 44.1 kHz, I was able to run EAC .wav compare tool. this is the result:
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/test02/EAC-wav-compare.jpg)
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so I reversed the digital outputs from the V3, and ran a 20 minute test. This time the AES went through the impedance transformer to the Gmini, and the RCA S/PDIF went out to the Waveterminal 2496 to be recorded by Cool Edit 2000. No luck. same deal, with glitches ranging from a few times a minute to every few minutes. this will be my last test of the night, maybe I can do some more this weekend, although, at this point, it doesn't look too promising.
(http://img5.photobucket.com/albums/v22/jasonsobel/test03/EAC-compare.jpg)
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Hmph. Well, that's disappointing, to say the least. Not that it matters, but are these glitches audible?
I wonder if this is something they'd consider working on for future firmware updates - I seem to remember that the JB3's bit-accuracy improved over several updates, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part. :(
--Dave
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I wonder if this is something they'd consider working on for future firmware updates - I seem to remember that the JB3's bit-accuracy improved over several updates, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part. :(
I'm kinda wondering the same thing.. Also curious how it'd handle a different A/D, Jason--have you tried giving it a signal from your Waveterminal? Not sure if it has coax out or what have you...
Maybe they can get tweak it via the firmware if we provide enough interest or something...
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wonder if it is making the spikes when the HD is saving the music? could it be a bleed over from the whir of the drive?
I have heard on iriver forums where people did similar test with it and had spikes and such every 30 seconds or so and longer evry 60 seconds...just a thought...
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spreadahead:
I've thought the same thing myself. but the glitches seem to appear at random intervals, so I don't think that's it.
Also, have you experienced that? I know you're going analog in, but if the glitches happen because the harddrive is writing, it shoudl probably happen regardless of whether you go analong in or digital in.
Hmph. Well, that's disappointing, to say the least. Not that it matters, but are these glitches audible?
I wonder if this is something they'd consider working on for future firmware updates
yes, they are audible, and sound like small clicks.
and it would be nice if a firmware upgrade is all that it takes. perhaps not even a full firmware upgrade, but an upgrade to the recording plug-in? I'm going to get in touch with their tech support and see what happens, but I know by email, it will take at least 2 or 3 days to get any response. and I think if I'm going to try to get them to fix this and release a firmware upgrade, than I'll probably have to be in touch with someone a little higher up than the folks who have been answering my emails...
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I just picked one of these up last night and plan on doing some testing this weekend. I've got 14 days to decide to return it so I should have some results pretty quickly.
I'll be running my MiniMe's USB into a Vaio and the SPDIF into the 120. I plan on starting at 16/44.1 and moving up from there. Jason's comment about seeing the 120 lock onto a 48 khz singal from the V3 is very intriguing to me. Great work, so far!
Keeping the fingers crossed as I'd love to have an option other than lugging a laptop from show to show.
more to come.
Rusty
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Boy, now I feel like I should pick one up anyway just to have everyone in Massachusetts testing one (no offense, spread ;) )...
--Dave
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This morning, I also sent an email to their tech support, with details about my testing and what I have found. I asked them if it could be fixed with a firmware upgrade or an upgrade to their recording plug-in. I also offered to help test any future firmware upgrades that may fix this issue. we'll see how they respond and what happens.
Rusty, please post your results here.
I ave tried send it these signals:
16/44.1, 16/48, 16/96, 24/48, and 24/96.
it won't sync when I send it a 96 kHz signal. with the 16/48, it says it's recording 48khz, and it plays back correctly. and with 24/48, it will lock onto the 48kHz signal, but it says that the recording bit-rate is the same as when I send a 16/48 signal, so I'm assuming that it would just truncate the 24bit data down to 16. I haven't tested this yet, however.
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For the 24 bit testing WaveLab's Bit Meter is a great way to see which bits are actually set. You'll want to turn on the mode that lights the bits based on the amplification (intuitive mode, maybe? can't remember and I'm at work now so I can't check).
and I will definately post my findings.
Rusty
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can someone test the analog \ line in method of recording , I wouldnt mind the digital drwbacks if it takes a 16\ 48k or 16 \ 44.1
via line in with no glitches. also some feedback on the level meters...
thanks in advance
& plus "t's" in spirit.
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here isexcerpt from an IRIVER forum where a guy is doing similar testson the iriver 120, and getting the same spikes...just a little more for the mix...
1.........
In my own recording experiments, there glitches occur with mic-in and line-in. I did not test optical. Basically, I recorded a pure 440hz tone (sound editor generated). Then I uploaded the WAV recording to my PC and examined it. The glitches seem to happen when the IHP is trying to write the recorded audio to disk (every 30 seconds or so), so I presume that input type does not matter.
In my tests, the glitches show up as small clicks or as slightly distorted waveforms. BTW, the distortions are not easy to see.
When recording to MP3 format, the disk writes occur less often (once every two or four minutes).
2.......
I did some further tone testing of the IHP-120.
With a silent line-in (very low level signal), the WAV recording was free of clicks and noise. When the signal level approached 0db (max), the clicks appeared. They seem to appear at 30 seconds and 90 seconds and 150 seconds and so on (plus or minus ten seconds).
When I tried recording at 320Kbps MP3, the clicks seemed to appear less often.
When I tried the optical-in with a present but paused signal, there were no clicks, but when I input a song I did detect a click.
So it seems that the clicks/glitches are not hardware noise but are problems with processing the audio signal into a digital format. No signal means no glitch.
BTW, a signal level that is appropriate for the NJB3 line-in input seems to overload the IHP-120 line-in input. When testing a tone signal, it is easy to discern an overloading/clipping signal when monitoring the IHP-120.
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as for the levels... I ran them buppin the top bar and came out with no problems....
as for testing the analog line in...not sure how to yet, sorry, learning alot as I go..........
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I just went to try the EAC wave compare, and it said that it wouldn't let me. my initial 20 minute test was at 48kHz, and EAC said it would only compare 44.1kHz files.
If you like the EAC compare feature, you can trick it. Because it's based around CD audio, that 44.1 restriction is in place. Just save your file with a 44.1 header - this will affect the pitch and playback speed of course, but for testing purposes it will let you use EAC to compare bit-by-bit.
In CEP, go Edit, Adjust Sample Rate, change it to 44,100 and save the file. Now it will load in EAC.
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specs and pics of the gmini 220 are online now.
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as for testing the analog line in...not sure how to yet, sorry, learning alot as I go..........
because you're going analog in, you don't have to worry about it being bit-accurate. Bit accuracy is if the unit will record the incoming S/PDIF signal exactly. you don't have an incoming S/PDIF signal, so the issue is moot in your case.
as for glitches, well, there are audible as very short clicks. do your recordings have clicks throughout them? if so, it means that the issue is related somehow to the writing of data to the hard drive, and all inputs are affected equally. if you're recordings sound clean, it means that the device is capable or recording a continuous .wav file, and the issue is solely with the S/PDIF input.
so, how are your recordings coming out? clicks?
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no, they sound really really nice.....no clicks or pops..
but it was in a club...
will set up my mics across the room, away from any noise the Archos may make with the HD whir, and recod silence and see if it gets pops and such...
people were using their iriver 120's internal mic to record lectures and such, and getting HD noise picked up from the internal mic...and it seemed to be at the same as the spikes and pops in the wav tests...
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I just got off the phone with their tech support, because I knew it would take a few days for them to reply to my email. The guy didn't really know what to do. He asked me if I had the same problem when recording from the internal mic. I told him that I hadn't tried that because I am not interested in making recordings from the the internal mic. I bought the unit to record in .wav format via the S/PDIF input. He then put me on hold for a few minutes. when he returned, he said that they have not heard of anyone else with this issue, and that I may have a defective unit or cable, and that I should return to the store that I bought it and replace it for another unit. I told him I bought it online, and it would be a bit of a hassle to return and get a new one. I also told him that I doubted anything was defective with the unit or cable, and that I thought the problem was either with the firmware or the recording plug-in. I then asked to speak with someone more knowledgable about recording via the S/PDIF input, anf he informed me that they all knew the same amount about it. So he wrote down my info and sent it off to the "front offices" I should expect a call back from them on Monday...
just an update...
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Jason,
You da man! Keep us informed... I was all excited to replace my Nomad, but it looks like I'll be waiting a while longer!
Terry
PS thanks for the SHNs...
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It's definitely good to hear that they escalated you pretty quickly, even if they weren't able to give you any more information. And good call on mentioning that you think it's a firmware issue instead of just jumping at the chance to get a new unit and/or cable...get the idea in their heads that there are knowledgeable users and uses for the firmware that they hadn't necessarily concentrated on!
--Dave
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Jason, keep pressing them, when I was testing the nomad firmware early on, it had the same identical misplaced sample issues, which were solvable in firmware. the fact that the iriver seems to have the same issues, makes me think its trivial
a few things I've learned from 100's of hours (1000? :P) of testing, that can save you some time:
-first and foremost, establish that the unit doesnt resample inputs at all sample rates. You've tested 44.1, confirm it with 48K, and you'll never have to do it again (for this firmware)
-once a soundcard is established to not resample, youre only looking for glitches, this is easier than full bit-accurate testing. the 'glitch-free' testing is the testing you should be doing whenever you install a known-good soundcard in a new machine. There are several methods for this, but I'll give you mine. This is the long, detailed version, it assumes you have soundforge, but you should be able to do it with any wav editor:
I generate a 440hz sine wave using wavelab. its a 5 sec wave. I then take the 5 sec wav into soundforge and copy and paste it out to a 5 minute file, then save that file. whenever I need a wave for testing, I take the 5 min wav, can quickly copy it out to a 7-8 hour wave. (keeping it stored as a 5 minute wav keeps me from eating up several GB's on my drive, and it only takes about a minute to copy it out to a long file). Anyway, once you generate the long file, go to the beginning and 'insert silence' (10 sec.). OK, now I have a reference wave file, with silence at the beginning. You will be playing back this test wav and recording it on the device you are testing. Start the device recording while rolling the silent intro. This makes it super-easy to cut it to a known point to compare it with the original wave. OK, to do a test, play it back on the computer, digi out of soundcard, then into the gmini. The only variable here is whether the digi-out on your soundcard is good, and wont drop samples (dont do anything else on the computer while playing it back). after you record a long file on the gmini, transfer it back to the computer. at this point, you can do the quick trim and compare it with the original for bit accuracy, or just do the search for glitches (much quicker). to search for glitches, move the cursor to the beginning of the file, and do 'find'>'glitches' (the following settings will find all audible glitches: -25db slope, 80 sens.). It takes all of 10 seconds to execute this command, then come back in a few minutes. it will either stop at a glitch, or go all the way to the end of the file and say 'no events of the specified type were located'
this is really good once you get the bugs resolved and it is working well, it is trivial to do 10, 50, 100 hours of testing on the unit, which should give you complete confidence in the field.
to test the effect of different spdif sources on recording stability, just go analog out of the computer, into dat, a/d converter, etc. the sinewave is still a sinewave (tho not digitally the same), so you can do glitch testing, but not bit-accurate (like I said above, you really only need to do bit-accuracy once for each sample rate in a given firmware on a given device).
I am currently doing testing as follows:
sine wave>mini to rca cable>r500>xlr out>v3 or ad2k>2 outputs feeding nomad and vx pocket (testing both). While the procedure above seems complicated, once you get it going, its a breeze. If youve got a lot of testing to do, its the only way to go. I've done 30 hrs of testing on each of the devices in the last 2 days, spent prob 1-2 hours total doing it.
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Jerryfreak,
that seems like a good methos for long tests. but I'm not quite at that point yet.
I have tested 48kHz and 44.1kHz with the Gmini, and have gotten the same results with both. I have established already that it doesn't resample the digital input, the only problem is the glitches.
but before I run extensive, long hour tests, I want to get a positve result with my short 20 minute test. if the thing can't record for 20 minutes without glitches, there is no point for me to run a 4 hour test. the idea a single-tone 440hz sine wave is good, and should make it easy to spot the glitches. and I wouldn't have thought to run analog out into the V3 and then digital into the Gmini. I would like to do all my testing with the V3, as that is what I'll be using in the field.
hopefully I'll get some kind of positive feedback from their tech support and we can ge the kinks worked out...
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well its definitely just as useful for a test of any length
yeah, i'm of the optimistic varitey that they will get past the misplaced samples, and you'll be doing long testing sooner. It seems that archos is into tailoring their products to suit their customers. If you can, ask to speak to an engineer who works on firmware, thats really the only effective way to communicate bugs effectively, as youre familiar with the experience level of the lower level techs.
I like to try as much gear as I can get my hands on, as their are definitely subtle differences in spdif streams that cause issues. jb3, d8, and m1 are all good examples of this. Its esp. important when you have a piece of gear that would likely be used by patchers. Even if the only other piece of gear you have is a soundcard or a home dat deck, you can get an idea of if the device works well universally.
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Well, I couldn't stand it anymore. I had to try it out. I went out and bought one yesterday and we tried it out to tape our band practice.
Here was the setup: AKG 451EB's -> Warm-mod UA-5 -> Gmini 120
Everything was recorded at 44.1kHz. I haven't done any in depth tests yet, but I haven't as of yet noticed any audible pops or clicks in any of the recordings that we made. I will probably do some other tests before my two week window of opportunity for returning it are up, but so far I'm really impressed. The only problems that I noticed is that the interface seems to be a little bit quirky. I also didn't know that the backlight on the screen doesn't work while recording, so if you get one make sure to bring your flashlight to the show.
Peace,
Riley
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Riley,
cool, it's good to have more testers. I assume you're going S/PDIF into the gmini. did you run a DAT as well? or into a computer? or any other recording device, so you can test for bit-accuracy? please post some more details...
and +t for more testing.
Jason
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Yes, I was running S/PDIF.
Initially, I didn't have much time because we were about to start practicing and I needed the equipment for recording. However, in the time that I did have, I did do one test:
I took a digital out from my D8 via an Oade active 7-pin into the Gmini. I recorded about 10 minutes of a show that I taped. I haven't done any bit accuracy tests yet, but I was just looking for the audible clicks mentioned in earlier tests. I'm not saying that they weren't there, but I didn't hear any. I also didn't hear any in over an hour of audio that we recorded during practice using my UA-5.
Also, here's a thought. The cable that came with the unit for S/PDIF input was not of the highest quality (actually it was garbage). Let's just say that it was not a so called digital cable. I'm going to build a cable for input that uses shielded digital microphone cable instead. To my knowledge, it could be possible (probably unlikely though) for these clicks to be an electromagnetic phenomenon, which a better cable may help.
Bit accuracy tests to follow. I'll keep everyone posted.
Riley
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heads up to all that archos has free recording and photo wallet plugins on their site right now.
although the supplied digital cable is poor, I wouldnt expect it to be the source of the clicks. SPDIF is very tolerant of interference on unshieled cable, the problems mentioned by others are too symptomatic of firmware issues...
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right if it's one meter long, you shouldn't have trouble even if the cable isn't designed for digital transfert. But if you want to be sure use video cable that has the necessary bandwidth and is 75 ohm, like a digital cable should be, and stay away from any magnetic source. I doubt the cable causes the drops.
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while the supplied digital cable is cheap and flimsy, it does specify right on the cable that it is a 75ohm cable. I haven't had time to make my own 75ohm S/PDIF RCA to mini yet, but I don't think the cable is causing the problems I'm experiencing...
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I attempted to do some testing this weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't get anywhere near as close as you guys did. I was unable to get the thing to lock onto any signal via spdif. I fed it the coax out of my minime and a singal from my d100 and both times it was unable to lock on. I was able to do some line-in recording, although I didn't dwell on it long as I don't have intention of ever using the line-in option. I'm not giving up yet, but hoping one of you guys who is farther along can answer some questions for me that might get me further along:
1) The recording format seems to be set to MP3 all the time... I was unable to change this to WAV. Is that correct? Is it supposed to detect that the incoming SPDIF singal is a WAV and then automagically dump a WAV to the harddisc?
2) What is this 'supplied' digi cable you guys mention. I got the little adapter that gives a an output and a SPDIF/line-in option, but there were no other cables other than the USB interface. I ended up using a radio shack phone plug to 1/8" mono. I was able to use the cable (along with an 1/8" to phono adapter) to feed my d100 from my MiniMe, so I don't think the cable is the problem.
3) I have to push the shit out of the 'Right' button to get it to work. This tells me their quality control ain't that great. Anybody have any other obvious flaws like this?
I guess that's all for now. If anyone could chime in on these questions or share any other experiences I'd appreciate it. Hopefully I get over this stumbling block and can get to some accuracy testing.
Rusty
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did you update the latest firmware? it allows you to record in wav and may allow you to lock into it w/ yr mme...
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http://www.archos.com/download/firmware.html
here it is... did you already have this?
hope not........
when you have this firmware installed, you should be able to pick mp3 or wav and the kbps..
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I did grab that but I'll admit that I didn't see anything happen after I copied it to the root drive and rebooted. I'll try to update it again tonight. Thanks!
Rusty
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Rusty,
the latest version of the firmware is 1.5.0
they said that if you had anything less than 1.2.0, you should update to that before updating to 1.5.0
Mine came with 1.2.0 already installed, so I just went ahead and upgraded to 1.5.0 with no problems.
you can check which version of firmware you have by going into the system information section...
the supplied cable is a set of RCA to an 1/8" input. there are actually three RCA plugs, red/white, for line level recording, and a yellow RCA for the S/PDIF. All three RCA's terminate into the same 1/8" plug, which, if you look, is divided into 4 areas...
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OK, I have some time tonight, so I'm going to do some testing.
I only have a UA-5 for A to D, which resamples. I also don't have any way to get a digital input into my computer except through my Gmini. So here's the plan:
I record from mics through the UA-5 into both my D8 and the Gmini. Then I transfer the recording from the D8 to the Gmini and then get both recordings off of the Gmini and compare for bit accuracy.
That's the only way I can think of to get some test data with the equipment that I have. Anyone see any flaws with this methodology? The only thing I can see that could introduce error is if the signal from the D8 to the Gmini isn't a good signal.
Riley
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Errors on DAT playback could be an issue as well. The results are likely to be inconclusive.
-Matt
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Yes, that's essentially what I meant by getting a bad signal from the D8. Sorry, should have clarified that.
Well, the test is done. I recorded 15 minuites of audio from my UA-5 to both the Gmini and DAT at 44.1 kHz. I then transferred the recording from the DAT to the Gmini and then copied both files to my computer. I took both WAV files, inverted one and mixed it with the other to find any inconsistencies. Result: YES there were some inconsistencies. They were pretty much the same as those reported earlier. I have a nice picture of them to post but I can't figure out how to get it into this message. Any advice?
To rule out whether or not the DAT was the problem, I listened to the origial recording from the Gmini at the points where the inconsistencies occoured. I haven't checked all of them, but YES at least some were present in the Gmini recording and were audible. As mentioned earlier, they sound like little clicks or pops in the audio. They aren't very long, though. I check the length of a couple of inconsistencies, and each was just one sample in length. Some of them were in both left and right channels, but others were in just one.
Well, what now? Is it time to talk to Archos and battle with tech support to see if we can make them understand what's going on here, or should we do a little more testing first?
On the upside, my Gmini has been running for almost 6 hours now without dying on me (while playing music on headphones or recording). I read a post somewhere that someone did in response to prople complaining about only getting 3 hours or less out of the battery. He said to "prime" the battery by running the thing dry right out of the box, fully charging it, and running it dry again several times. That's pretty much what I do. He claimed that he got about 10 hours out of it. We'll se how long this thing runs, but it's doing pretty well so far. I'll do another post when it dies to let everyone know how long it went.
Riley
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dang... not the best news about the pops and such... I already have 1 so-so recorder in the IRIVER......
only have 4 days to take my ARCHOS back, and am not sure what to do...
this could be formware or it may be the HD, either way it's a bunch of cash.....
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HEY!! Here's something really interesting. I have been playing around with the file I created that shows only the pops. I amplified it so that each pop was at peak level so I could see them better and checked the amount of time between them. There were a total of 16 pops in the 15 minuite recording. Here are the lengths of time between each pop in seconds.
19.3
19.9
19.3
38.6
96.6
38.1
39.2
38.1
77.3
77.3
19.95
57.5
121.5
38.1
Notice anything? Every single number except for 1 of them is almost exactly a multiple of 19.3 seconds.
This indicates to me every 19 seconds there was something that happened during recording that gave an opportunity for an error to occour.
ALSO, THERE'S MORE. While recording, there is a little red light that blinks occasionally during some kind of hard drive operation. I listened to a WAV file on the recorder and timed how long it was between when the light starts to flash. Here's the times in seconds
34
38
37
35
39
Again, about every 38 seconds it does some kind of hard drive operation. 38 is also a multiple of 19.
Could these pops maybe be related to some kind of hard drive writing operation that occours during recording?
Riley
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Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. The battery finally died. It lasted just about 7 hours. That's about as long as I'll need to record anything. Might not need an external battery after all.
Riley
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Here's another thought. This thing has an 8MB buffer, right? If it is writing at 44.1kHz, that's 180.15kBytes/sec or 1411.2kbits/sec. At that rate the buffer will fill after about 44 seconds. It will need to write before then to keep the buffer from overflowing. Then it would make sense to start writing at about 38 seconds.
I don't know. I might be out on a limb here. It would be interesting though to try the same test while recording at 48kHz. This might decrease the amount of time between hard drive writes. Then we could check to see if the amount of time between the pops decreases. YEE GODS! LOOK AT THE TIME.
Maybe tomorrow.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Riley
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picked one of these up today. first off, I gotta say its heads above the creative products if only for the following reasons:
1. logical fat32 volume, no special software/drivers required
2. installing new firmware and plugins are a snap
3. since it acts like a drive, you can decode shns to wavs written directly on the drive, whereas with the nomad, you must decompress, and then load the wavs onto the device
4. coax beats optical any day of the week
5. size and weight are better than the jb3 (who ever decided a device needs to look like a cd player anyway?)
6. the gmini acts as a self-powered usb2 drive (for those of us who use laptops, this is a real nice feature
7. The power jack is the same size and polarity as my mini firewire external drive, which draws 5V off a usb>coax cable. This charges the gmini fine. Always nice to have gear that shares common cables.
8. It can actually write a 96K file (albeit 16/96). If I switch the spdif sample rate from 48 to 96, it starts writing data in double time without errors. Too bad its limited to 16-bit. it obviously has the potential to do 24/48 and possibly 24/96.
the only downside is the fact that you must use that goofy adapter jack to get spdif in. unfortunately, the spdif signal is coming in one of the odd proprietary 'wing' jacks on the side of the trrs jack. but at least we can make a custom trrs plug to take spdif right to the adapter jack and lose the multi function line in/spdif in cable.
one more downside is that it doesnt playback wav files seamlessly, but this will come in time I'm sure.
I'll report more results as they happen
I've been doing tests, and so far everything looks good with my unit (out of the box+1.50 firmware), I have run 40 minutes out the ad2k with no errors whatsoever, and also did a short test with the v3 (4 minutes) that worked perfectly. I'm currently doing a longer test with the v3 now.
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alas, the longer test (23 minutes) with the v3 indicated a series of glitches around 12:00, a combination of random noise and dropped samples. I'm doing an ad2k test overnight...
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I was able to update the firmware successfully last night. It looks like I somehow managed to save it as a different name when I did this a few days ago. I now can select WAV from the recording option.
I still haven't successfully fed the thing a spdif signal, but I only tried using my d100 which is on it's way out and could be the problem (although I think I should have seen _something_ anyway). I am now using the included cable (don't know how I missed that before). I'll get the apogee out but it may not be for a couple days as I've got a full week ahead of me. Pretty cool that the AD2K seems to be more reliable than the V3... gives me hope that the MME will behave differently than the V3 and possibly give a flawless recording.
I think either way I'll keep this thing around as it is pretty nifty to have a tiny 20 g harddrive that I can offload files to while taping on my lappy at a festival or other situation where the internal drive isn't cutting it.
Rusty
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Hey guys, thanks for testing this thing wtih me... Riley, interesting thing about the 19 seconds...
Well, what now? Is it time to talk to Archos and battle with tech support to see if we can make them understand what's going on here, or should we do a little more testing first?
YES, definitely. I've been calling them and emailing them, with no real results. it takes a few days for them to answer each email, and I don't think the same person is reading and responding to my emails. and the phone conversations I've had with them don't seem to help either. They'd like to write me off as an isolated case. I think it would be great if everyone who is testing this thing calls and emails them and bring to their attention the deficiencies that currently exist, and that could probably be fixed with firmware updates...
I think the first priority is to get it to reliably record at 16/44.1 and 16/48. once it does that, maybe we can get them to record 24/48 and 24/96...
if anyone has any more test results to post, keep them coming. and also, please post if you have any positive (or negative feedback from archos)
I ran another quick test last night. I generated a 5 second 440Hz wav, put it on repeat, and played it analog out of my computer, into the V3, then digi into the Gmini. I recorded this for just over 10 minutes. I wasn't testing for bit-accuracy, but simply the glitches. I had the same results, although I didn't take the time to note exactly where the glitches occur. sometimes the glitches were just one sample, but I've seen errors up to 6 samples in a row. usually happens in both channels, but, again, I've seen it in just one channel as well.
I may take it out tonight, because, hey, what do I have to lose? if anything, it will be a good test for the battery.
and +t for everyone else who's also testing this
> Jason
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I really think that the pops and such are from the HD spinning...if it spins fast enough, couldn't it work up a charge or something that messes up the recording...
People with IRIVER mini HD recorders are experienceing the same pops and clicks, timed when the HD spins....
(edit: the iriver has a light that comes on only when the HD is spinning, and you can time it out to where the pops are....)
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I may take it out tonight, because, hey, what do I have to lose? if anything, it will be a good test for the battery.
and +t for everyone else who's also testing this
> Jason
+t's indeed, if its not too much to ask can you run 1 set via analog line in , (I'm in a huge minority here) but I dont use a a\d or pre just mics and deck and if it can approach the quality of the dats a\d I'm sold .
if the audible clicks occur via line in I'm out but ...
tia!
CB
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+t's to all the testers!
i am very curious to see how this turns out. this dropped sample business is a bit disconcerning although creative overcame this through firmware updates. hopefully archos can do the same, but you have to remember how small and complex these things are, and that electromagnetic fields are generated by basically anything that can carry a charge in there. i think this is one of the major problems in making audio gear in such a small package, but i am hopefull that this will get worked out so maybe i can get rid of my d8.
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Jason, spread, et al - Chase's post leads me tp ask this: are they *dropped* samples, or are they glitchy samples? I.e. are the files identical in length over time and match up at arbitrary points throughout the recording?
This may just be a red herring, of course - when Jamie Lutch claimed that the JB3 mis-recorded samples it turned out to be the CO2 (at least based on Brian's use of the Hosa ODL-276...I may have that number wrong). Still, if the Gmini is dropping samples then I'd say that's a more serious problem than glitchy ones...
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from the results I've seen with others testing, it is *misplacing* samples, not dropping samples.
the nomad didnt drop samples either, it also misplaced them (and still does with many spdif sources)
misplaced samples are much harder to detect in a live recording situation, becasue it could be mistaken for a clap, a drum hit, crowd noise, etc. whereas a dropped sample is really evident as a 'skip' (part of the data is missing)
my ad2k test last night didnt work out, I guess the device died before saving it. there was 4gb less space on my drive this morning, but no file. I did find a 4gb temp file with a recovery program I had, but it claimed it was corrupt.
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my tests indicate that they are just misplaced samples, not dropped samples. with my bit-accuracy tests, when I trimmed the two .wav files at the exact same starting and ending point, resulted in two files identical in length. just that the archos recording had glitches in it.
if its not too much to ask can you run 1 set via analog line in
right now, I don't have any XLR to mini cables... I've been meaning to make a set of right-angle XLRs to 1/8" to go analog out of the V3, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. but I guess I could analog out of the D8, with my mini to mini cable... as always, I'll post all results here.
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I'm going to record silence and see if it shows any glitches.....
fingers crossed.............
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I did 2 tests vis line in, with my mics in a slinet room with pillows and a blanket on them for silence, each 5+ minutes and all got when I put them into wavelabs all I got was flat line. So, this should mean good news for analog recordings.............
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I did 2 tests vis line in, with my mics in a slinet room with pillows and a blanket on them for silence, each 5+ minutes and all got when I put them into wavelabs all I got was flat line. So, this should mean good news for analog recordings.............
I'd suggest a bit more testing before declaring all is well for analog-in recordings. And why the silent room / pillows / blanket? Doesn't seem like a very realistic field test to me. Just curious...
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I was trying to see if it would make skips and pops while in silence...
def don't want to jump the gun with it at all, just have made some analog recordings that I listened to on decent headphones and can hear no skips or pops...
what would be a better way for me to create a clean test? just trying out ideas..
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I was trying to see if it would make skips and pops while in silence...
def don't want to jump the gun with it at all, just have made some analog recordings that I listened to on decent headphones and can hear no skips or pops...
what would be a better way for me to create a clean test? just trying out ideas..
Well, since it's analog-in, there's no real way to compare the recording against a control. So I think just more time testing is a good idea, and in more realistic conditions - a loud sound source, using different levels of gain on the Gmini, etc.
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right on. I was thinking that if it was making skips via SPDIF in when the HD saves every 30 sec or so then it might make the same skips via line in, and they would show up as pops or skips
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bunch of things here:
I did a longer test with the ad2k>gmini today, and got the following results:
48K wav
3:21:00
14 misplaced samples
2 regions of errors, consisting of bursts of random digital noise increasing in length, then finally resuming normal recording.
it will continue to record over 2gb, but it wont have a proper header, and you'll need to open it in .raw mode.
a thought on the 'recording silence' tests. You will notice that a lot of the misplaced samples are either -inf (0) or full scale digital (1). By recording silence, you wouldnt notice misplaced zero samples, so the test is flawed by definition.
FWIW, 12 misplaced samples in over 3 hours of recording is not really evidence of hd spin up interference. the entire notion of such a thing is a bit silly, you dont think they would address that with a hard-drive based mp3 player? it would occur on playback as well.
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I spoke to someone at Archos, who told me that all of the firmware is written by engineers in france. I was able to get an email of a technical contact over there, and sent him the email below. Hopefully, if he's not the person, it will get to the right person.
Hello xxxxx,
I was given your contact information from the American division of Archos. I
am looking to establish a technical contact in order to discuss issues with
the Gmini 120. Ideally, it would be most efficient if I could speak to the
engineer(s) in charge of writing firmware revisions and plug-ins. If youre not
the right person, if you could forward this along it would be greatly
appreciated.
There is a large group of consumers who are currently without an acceptable
product for mobile recording of .wav files from a S/PDIF source. Many former
DAT (digital audio tape) users have switched to using laptops to record audio
in mobile environments. While this works well, and offers both higher
resolution and the advantages of hard disk recording, portability and powering
become issues.
For several years, the market has been ready for hard-disk recorders. At this
point, the designs available fall into one of two categories:
1)professional units that are too large and/or too expensive for the average semi-
pro or hobby recordist:
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/7.htm
http://www.oade.com/digital_recorders/hard_disc_recorders/hhb_portadrive.html
http://www.zaxcom.com/audio/deva.shtml
2)consumer mp3 player/recorder units which offer the correct functionality,
but reliability is not suitable for recording use:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?prodid=296 (recording glitches)
http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iHP-120.asp (limited to 800mb files)
At this point, there are no affordable solutions for recording spdif audio reliably at 16-bit, and no affordable options at all for recording 24-bit spdif. Based on Archos' history of responding to consumer demands and providing advanced functionality, I have hope that the Gmini 120 can be revised through software to enable these applications.
There are a handful of people who have been testing the .wav recording functionality of the Gmini 120, and all report similar problems to various degrees. The following tests were done with another relaible spdif recording device (soundcard or dat) in parallel to isolate the problem to the Gmini:
1) the device will write 'misplaced' samples in one or both channels. The net result of this is a point far off the waveform, which results in a steep slope in the waveform and an audible 'pop' or 'click' when played back
2) the device will record random digital noise instead of the actual waveform. The pattern of error is similar from instance to instance. After these short bursts of digital noise, the device resumes recording normally
I would like to offer our assistance in testing future firmware releases in order to alleviate these issues. We are offering this service and requesting no compensation, our only goal is to further the advancement of the technology. If the Gmini can be proven to be a reliable .wav recorder, we would be glad to promote it as such to our colleagues, which would result in increased sales for your company.
Resolving the recording issues are a priority for us, beyond that, there is another list of firmware requests, such as:
-proper playback of .wav files without gaps or glitches between tracks
-adoption of the .flac codec, an open source lossless codec
-support for 24-bit recording
-support for recording at higher sample rates (96K or above)
-quick starting of another file when recording, without the 5-10 second period of lost audio between files.
I look forward to hearing from you!
----------------------------------
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Nice, Jamie - let us know how it goes!
(Though with respect to the NJB3 unreliability, my V3 AES/EBU > Hosa ODL-312 > NJB3 has been bulletproof so far. YMMV.)
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Jamie,
yes, definitely keep us updated. I've written similar emails to their tech support, but I'm guessing that the right person hasn't read them yet. hopefully yours will get through.
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This is kind of off the subject of testing, but I have a couple of questions for anyone that might know about making a digital cable for the Gmini.
First, I wanted to build a better cable for the Gmini for just digital input (RCA to 1/8" mini), so that I wouldn't have all the loose ends flapping in the breeze like on the cable that came with it. I spent some time with a multimeter and determined that there really isn't a way to do it without one of those special 4-contact 1/8" mini plugs like is used on the factory cable. Anyone know where I could pick up just the end for a 4-contact mini plug?
Also, there was some discussion earlier about a digital cable being 75 ohms. What exactly is meant by that. Both the digital cable that I use for DAT recording and the cable that came with the Gmini register really low (0.1 or 0.2 ohms) using a Fluke 87 III. So, what's the story with the 75 ohms?
Riley
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I just checked something on my earlier tests. from one of the images I posted of the EAC compare .wav results, it listed the times at which the glitches occur.
similar to Riley, all of those glitches occur either 19.3 seconds apart, or some multiple of 19.3
primarily multiples of 1, 2 or 3. but some at intervals of 5 or 6 times the 19.3 second interval. one glitch even at 3:51.8 from the previous glitch, or exactly 12 multiples of 19.3 seconds apart. for whatever reason, at that time interval, it appears as though the gmini is more likely to record a misplaced sample. although it sometimes get's it right and gets through that time period with no problems at all...
hopefully archos will be able to get this figured out. I sent them another email with this information as well. hopefully it won't fall upon deaf ears.
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+T Jason!
Wow, I'm really glad to see that this was verified by someone else. I really spent a lot of time poking around the data trying to find some kind of correlation between the pops. I'm happy that it payed off.
Now, were you recording at 44.1 kHz or 48?
Riley
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Riley,
that particular test was done at 44.1 kHz. on page 7 of this thread.
Reply #93 on: January 15, 2004, 10:23:55 PM
I posted a picture with EAC's wave compare results. I just grabbed those numbers from the posted picture and did the math. the first glitch is not at an interval of 19.3, presumably because I had trimmed the start of the file to match exactly with the file recorded on my computer to do the bit-accuracy tests...
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Good stuff, guys...keep pressing on!
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Jason,
Here's another thing you might mention to Archos to add. Tell them to make it so you can use the backlight feature while recording. This would come in really handy at a dark show if you forgot your flashlight or something.
Riley
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aside: I know this isn't at all the same as the ARCHOS, but here is link to some pics that a German dude took of the inside of his IRIVER 120 HD player. Just and idea maybe of what's going on underneath the cover of our Archos..
http://www.ihplounge.com/ihpviews.htm
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reply from archos:
Dear Mr. Lutch,
Thank you for your observations. I will forward your e-mail to the
appropriate people. Despite the advantages of your suggestions, and perhaps
further sales, this is not presently in our business plan to add such
options. I am of course interested in what appears to be incorrect WAV
recording and I will forward this to the Engineers that if indeed it is a
bug, that it be resolved. Thank you for your offer to help us test, but at
this time we are not taking on additional test sites.
For your list, here is what I can tell you:
>
> -proper playback of .wav files without gaps or glitches between tracks
We will investigate this
> -adoption of the .flac codec, an open source lossless codec
We have no plans at present to add this functionality
> -support for 24-bit recording
We have no plans at present to add this functionality
> -support for recording at higher sample rates (96K or above)
We have no plans at present to add this functionality
> -quick starting of another file when recording, without the 5-10 second
period
> of lost audio between files.
This product noes not have the "next" feature that our Jukebox Multimedia
has when recording audio. The next feature allows a new recording with a
1-2 second loss in recording time.
I am sorry I cannot offer you what you are looking for, but I think you can
understand that we have certain business plans that we want to stick to.
xxxx xxxxxxxx
Quality Engineer
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I've had the same results with my Gmini 120 recording via spdif. No pops with analog. I wonder if the problem is with the multi-connect adapter plug?? Hmm, whatever the problem is I hope they can fix it.
Mike
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thats kinda shitty on the reply back from the company, but it just shows you more that they only care about selling to the masses and catering to mp3s. However, the way he talks, all the things we want done can be done thru firmware. I wonder if there is a way that we could make our own firmware updates. I'm sure if enuf geeks put their noggins together, something could come of this. We just need the brains and the dedication. but then again, would it be worth it?
ed
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well, I see where he's coming from, you cant implement all requests (tho i wish they would ;) )
as for hacking the firmware, it might be possible, depending on what language its written in. but I would expect some help from archos would be necessary to make sense of it, and theyre not exactly big into open source solutions from what I can tell.
an engineer did get back to me, I forwarded him clips of the errors as short .wavs, and mentioned the '19.3 second rule' ???
I am confident that we have a good dialogue going, tho!
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All the errors on my ad2402 (ad2k) test were at intervals of 17.75 sec, not 19.3
but my test was at 48K, that would correspond to the same number of samples as 19.3@ 44.1K, so actually ~27263.232 kb is the interval
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that's good news they answered you, and gave you a honest answer. I think you can't hope too much: 24/96 now belongs to the pro market, this means at least five times the price of the consumer/prosumer market Archos belongs to. They won't develop a feature very few people will use, or they wil sell it and this will be very expensive.
Did someone tested it with the ad 20? How does it "react"?
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On Tuesday night, I recorded a whole show with the archos from the AES out on the V3. I was running my D8 out of the RCA S/PDIF. I did the whole show at 48kHz. and while I haven't compared the two sources in detail yet, there are glitches throughout the archos recording. at intervals of approximately 18 seconds, this corresponds to Jamie's findings of 17.75 seconds for 48kHz... I was planning to run line-in for the second set, but it was a lot more crowded than it usually is , and I didn't really have the time or space to switch things up, so I haven't done any analog in recordings yet...
and it seems like a good thing that you've got a dialog going on. even if they don't want to improve it with 24/96 or gapless playback, I'd be happy if the get the bugs out of the recording...
In your emails, Jamie, have you forwarded them the url for this thread? maybe they'd find it interesting to read what we've been talking about...
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Here is a link to a group that is currently trying to hack the Gmini firmware. Im not sure if its the 120 or 220. You guys may want to contact them and see if they would be willing to help you bring the features you listed above to the Gmini 120.
http://rockbox.haxx.se/mail/archive/rockbox-archive-2004-01/0020.shtml
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The rockbox folks are good people. They've done some awesome firmware replacements for the Jukebox MP3 players and recorders. If anyone's going to write a new firmware for it my guess is it will be them.
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They probably use a proprietary archetecture and ISA for their MP3 players and would probably be very hard for one of us techies to waltz into it and make anything work. I bet we could break it really well tho ;)
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The rockbox folks are good people. They've done some awesome firmware replacements for the Jukebox MP3 players and recorders. If anyone's going to write a new firmware for it my guess is it will be them.
what kind of firmware replacements have they did for the jb3, anything worthwhile looking at. I think anything can be hacked to your liking, you just need the right people with the ambition to do it. Seriously, if they can hack every game system on the market, why can't they hack an mp3 player. Hopefully something comes out of all of this. I really like the fact that the gmini is smaller than the jb3, however nothing at the moment makes me want to replace my jb3 with it. However, i'd jump on it in a second if it did 24/96 or even if the price went down and it did 16/48 reliably. I'd also give the the guy who cracked it a hug.
ed
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Check out the rockbox firmware for yourself. If you don't like it just delete the archos.mod file plus .rockbox dir & voila - yer back to the factory firmware.
Some notable fixes in the rockbox firmware versus the Archos ones:
real random play
better battery optimization
support for a whole shitload of mp3's & directories
Games, if you have the Jukebox recorder.
Here's the side by side comparison of features:
http://rockbox.haxx.se/docs/features.html
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seems to me based on other's experiences that the Neuros hd recorder people
would be easier to deal with in terms of updates since their project is open source.
anyone seen one of those at retail?
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seems to me based on other's experiences that the Neuros hd recorder people
would be easier to deal with in terms of updates since their project is open source.
It still lacks a digital interface and uses outdated USB1.1 for transferring music.
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I wander if they can make the USB a digital input for audio recording for their supported recorders (Archos Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder and Recorder V2 MP3 players)?
I've noticed that some preamps have a USB out.
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I wander if they can make the USB a digital input for audio recording for their supported recorders (Archos Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder and Recorder V2 MP3 players)?
I've noticed that some preamps have a USB out.
nah, not likely, you'd need a host system to attach to and i'm sure that those mp3 players aren't sophisticated enough to handle that....if anything could do it i'd guess it would be a pda
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here is the link to the battery pack I bought awhile back..
I use it for my cell and pda sometimes, and it can charge your unit, not just play it....
http://store.yahoo.com/semsons-inc/powerbank.html
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so is the power source 4x nimh aa's? or is there another battery in there?
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thought it was internal
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the battery pack has 4 interchangeable aa's, it comes with the 4 rechargeables...
It's nice to have those fresh ones, and 4 backups in the bag...... should give me 20+ total hrs...
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If I had to pick between this and a JB3 right now, what would be my best option?
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Well right now the JB3 is recording a little more reliably through the digital in, although neither of them are perfect...
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Well right now the JB3 is recording a little more reliably through the digital in, although neither of them are perfect...
I suppose YMMV depending on the exact setup, but my JB3 setup has been bit-perfect through about 70 hrs of recording now. Completely reliable IME.
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yeah, unfortunately, you gotta get a jb3 and test it with your rig. it works fine in some setups, but not at all in others
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Ok, do you know if any major retail stores still have them?
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havent seen em retail for about a year. buy.com has them, but they are expensive, and I dont know about their return policy if you just arent happy with it...
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try www.pricegrabber.com
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Hooked the Archos up to the MiniMe over the weekend and fed it about 5 minutes of 16/44.1.
The thing locked up to the MiniMe immediately and I was able to record to it using my picturebook as a control source. Unfortunately my results were consistent with everyone else's. Audible glitches in one or both channels at intervals of ~19 seconds. I will be using EAC to do a wave compare to find out the exact interval and number of glitches, but based on what everyone else has found I think we know what the results will be.
I'd be happy to do any testing of future firmware releases, so whoever has a good dialog open with Archos, be sure to let them know that we have a crew that will be happy to work with them. Based on what we're finding I'd say we are doing a little more rigorous testing than their QA group so they should probably take us up on that.
Rusty
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Anyone heard back from the firmware guys yet on the Gmini 120?
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I just got this email last night:
Dear Mr. Sobel,
Thank you for the detailed information about the Gmini 120 and .wav
recording. We are looking into this problem and seeing if there is a
software solution. I cannot give you any definite answers about a possible
update to the OS. Please hang in there, while we see what is causing this.
Sincerely,
Curtis Broderick
Quality Engineer
Archos SA
Paris France
Jamie - is this the same person you've been in contact with?
I've got his email now, so hopefully communications will be quicker, as any emails I send don't have to go through the standard tech support.
I'll continue to post any news...
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So for shits and giggles I copied a 24-bit WAV to my Archos via usb assuming that when I played it I'd get an error of some sort and life would go on. Big mistake. It locked up the machine rendering all buttons useless for several hours. I had to wait for the battery to die before I could use it again.
Rusty
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Couldn't you just turn it off & back on?
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I keep making killer little recordings via line in...
stealthed it at 2 punk shows and just been taping other stuff for fun and it all sounds great, the levels are good enough that I don't clip, no worry aout tape..just let it roll...anyway, no one wants it to be bitperfect more then me.............
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Couldn't you just turn it off & back on?
nope... to power it off you hold the 'X' button for 10 or so seconds... try'd that and got no response.
I also tried hooking it up to my computer, because generally the moment it detects a usb connection it drops whatever it is doing and goes into USB mode... that didn't work either. It just hung.
Rusty
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couldn't you have taken out the batteries?
thanks for all the testing everyone, very interesting, hope they get everything fixed since it seems like a very good product
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Internal rechargeable battery.
I actually thought about going inside and seeing what kind of battery was in there and disconnect it, but decided against it as I had plenty of other things to do.
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Actually, if it freezes you can reset it. Hold down the power button (not the "x" button) for a long time. It will reset itself.
Riley
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hey Spreadahead what kind of mics and preamp are you using to stealth?
just wondering,
Thanks.
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Hey,
I just checked the Archos website today. They have a new firmware update for the Gmini 120 (v. 1.7.0). It fixes several things which will make the thing more reliable in general. However, it doesn't fix our digital recording but. Maybe next time.
Riley
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thanks for the heads up on the firmware update.
I haven't checked over there in awhile..
I have been using the SP-CMC-8 mics>Batt Box w/ dual level control and bass rolloff...pretty small total rig.....
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I also hadn't checked the archos website since I did my tests. I was doing my tests with v1.5.0, and it now appears as though there have been two firmware updates, and v1.7.0 is the latest. I'll download the newest firmware and run some tests, even though it doesn't say that the .wav recording problem has been addressed. it's worth a shot to test it out again. it's also encouraging that thay are still actively updating the firmware for this thing. hopefully it won't take too long for them to work out the kinks...
edit to add:
here's the list of improvements with the last two firmware updates:
V1.6.0
---------------------------------------
Improvement: Displayed "ARCLibrary" instead of "Browser" in the playback popup menu when the current song has
been started from the ARCLibrary.
Improvement: Improved popup menus layout.
Improvement: Folders can now be added recursively to a playlist (all tracks from sub-folders are also added).
Improvement: Opened the playlist panel when adding a track/folder to the playlist with a long press on OK.
Improvement: Changed message when a new firmware is detected.
Bug fixed: Fixed PLAY/STOP icon not displayed when entering the recorder from the main menu.
Bug fixed: Fixed noise amplification in earphones after turning the FM radio off.
Bug fixed: Fixed scrolling name not erased after deleting a track in the playlist panel.
Bug fixed: Fixed preset stations not retrieved when the length of a station name is 32.
V1.7.0
---------------------------------------
Bug fixed: Fixed Gmini crashing during fast rewind in playback.
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Has anyone tried the Rockbox software on the Gmini yet?
-
As of ~last thanksgiving the rockbox developers were unsure if they could write firmware for the gmini due to some legal concerns.
Their list of things they won't do also refers to the multimedia series archos products & how they're a completely different beast from the jukebox & jukebox recorders.
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anyone done any bit accuracy test with the new firmware?
I installed it, and taped my stereo awhile out of my new UA-5>SPDIF.... on playback, I don't hear any clicks or pops, but I'm going to try and firgure out who to do a test thru everyones posts on the way they do it........
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Well, I have a pair of Studio Projects C4 mics, AD-20 preamp, and PS-2 phantom power arriving tomorrow. Now all I need is for this damn Gmini 120 to get its ass working correctly before I buy it. Coooooomon firmware update!
-
Did anyone tested it with the AD20? Does it works at least the same?
-
anyone done any bit accuracy test with the new firmware?
I installed it, and taped my stereo awhile out of my new UA-5>SPDIF.... on playback, I don't hear any clicks or pops, but I'm going to try and firgure out who to do a test thru everyones posts on the way they do it........
Haven't tried it yet but it's on my to-do list. Now if I could just get my damn job to stop working me so hard so I could have more time to play with toys....
Rusty
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Well, I have a pair of Studio Projects C4 mics, AD-20 preamp, and PS-2 phantom power arriving tomorrow. Now all I need is for this damn Gmini 120 to get its ass working correctly before I buy it. Coooooomon firmware update!
+T, for the new jack...
Terry
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did 5hrs via SPDIF from my UA_5 last eve, with the latest firmaware installed, and upon listening thru that tape, I hear no pops or clicks, and when I put into the Wavelabs, I see no jumps or drop outs...
I am going to try and figureout how to do a bit accuracy test this eve, but I'm just happy my recording sounds good
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hey folks, I haven't done too much with archos recently.
However, I do have the latest firmware installed, and I'm taping a show tonight, so I'll run into the gmini for a least one set, probably both. (and of course, I'll run into my D8 as well. both from the v3)... I'll post the results shortly afterwards.
I am going to try and figureout how to do a bit accuracy test this eve, but I'm just happy my recording sounds good
to do a bit accuracy test, you've got to also record on something which you know is bit accurate. I'm not sure how many digital outputs the ua5 has. perhaps you can record onto your computer simultaneously. or run a DAT.
then it's simply a matter of trimming both files, so that the each start and end on the exact same sample, and compare the files. EAC was a .wav compare feature which is nice and easy...
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JAson you going to D'elf tonight?
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yes, I'll be at d'Elf
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OK, will see what I can do...
can get at my DAT, but will have to find a way to transfer......
good luck with your go at it.......
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this morning, I quickly threw the .wav files from the gmini recording of last night's Club d'Elf show onto my computer and took a look. obviously, I haven't transferred my DATs yet to do a real comparison. however, it was clear that there were several glitches in the recording. and they were definitely audible as "clicks" These glitches seem to exhibit the same behavior as found earlier, just a few missplaced samples, sometimes just in one channel, sometimes in both. I'll need to compare the .wavs transferred from the DATs in order to get the exact time intervals between glitches.
clearly, though, the firmware upgrade 1.7.0 did not fix the .wav recording issue (although, it never claimed to fix that issue).
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bummer :-[
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do you hear the clicks when you listen?
I have wavlabs... when I put a file in it, should the clicks and pops show up as jumps up or down?
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yes, these glitches are audible as very short "clicks"
and yes, I can see them in the waveform (I'm using Cool Edit 2000)...
back when I did my original tests, I posted some screen shots of the glitches. those pictures are on this thread somewhere, so just go back a few pages to find 'em. the glitches appear as a very short, tall, spike in the waveform.
they are more noticable during quieter passages (although they also occur during louder segments).
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thanks... damn this is huge thread to dig thru.......
I have found 2 very very fast pops is listening to my most recent recording, but they are more drop outs and don't show spikes on the wave form...
in fact I have no out of place spikes, just those 2 drop outs.... so far that is, I am gonna dig into it this eve.......
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I have found 2 very very fast pops is listening to my most recent recording, but they are more drop outs and don't show spikes on the wave form...
The issue is really misplaced samples. but, in my experience, the gmini does not put the misplaced samples in the same place. the majority of the time, the sample is way out near the 0dB point, and appears as a spike. However, I've also seen when the sample is right on the -infinity dB line in the center of the .wav form (this may appear to be a drop-out)
either way, the unit is misplacing the sample. let us know what your findings are once you look into it more thoroughly.
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anyone done any Bit Accuracy test with MP3...
maybe if there was the same porb there, Archos would be quicker to deal with the overall BA issue since most users prob will only use MP3's..
just a thought.............
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Only problem is that mp3's aren't bit accurate. ;)
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no, I haven't tested any .mp3 recording, although I see your point.
Only problem is that mp3's aren't bit accurate.
I think what he meant wasn't to test for "bit accuracy" with the .mp3 recording, but rather, if the unit put audible clicks and glitches in a recorded .mp3 file. if it does put audible clicks and "glitches" in a .mp3 file, then they might be more interested in fixing the problem quicker (because most people probably want to use it for .mp3's), and then as a side benefit, the problem of glitches in .wav recording would be fixed as well.
please correct me if I'm wrong, but that is how I interpretted the idea...
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nope, you got it right....
just a random thought while drivin' around...
damn taping on the brain
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am I gonna have to personally fly to france and kidnap this firmware programmer?!
Circuit City has the Gmini120 for $199. Great deal if the damn thing worked.
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seems like the rockbox adaptation is a dead project :-\ (see the faq from the site)
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as of yesterday, 2/13/04, there's also a new firmware, v1.8.0.
according to their website, this is all that it accomplishes:
V1.8.0
---------------------------------------
Bug fixed: Fixed Hanging/delayed on restart when bookmark set from an ARClibrary song.
but it is good to see that there are still actively working on firmware updates and putting them out fairly frequently...
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Quick question.....I've got the following equipment and have a question about what cable would connect the two devices:
-
ZEFIRO INBOX 20BIT PORTABLE 2CH MIC PRE > Archos Gmini 120
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Thanks, Todd
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from the AD-20 (zefire inbox), you need to go S/PDIF out, which is the 1/8th jack on the side of the unit... the gmini 120 shoulw have come with a cable for the S/PDIF input, but with an RCA connector, so you need a mono 1/8th inch plug to RCA jack. these adaptors can be had for a couple of bucks at the radio shack...
although, as it stands today, the gmini 120 will not reliably record the S/PDIF signal. you'll probably get clicks and glitches throughout the recording. hopefully soon this will get fixed...
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Well, we might have another bug. I taped a show last night, UA-5->Archos Gmini with a D100 patched in also. It was a long set, over 2 hours. Strangely enough, it wouldn't play back the file. It would hang as soon as I tried to play it. The light would continuously flash, but the unit was frozen and I couldn't do anything but shut it off. The file seems to be transferring to my computer OK though, so I'll see what I get.
Is there a maximum file size for WAV? Could this be the problem if the file should be split somewhere and wasn't?
Riley
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Sorry everyone,
I jumped the gun on that last post. I tried it again. It actually does play it, it just takes a long time to get started. I thought it hung, but it apparently just took a long time to open the file.
Disregard that last post
Riley
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I would like to add to tfrench's question....I am his brother.
It seems to me that he will need an 1/8male ---> 1/8 male digital coax cable. Though I am confused to what rating cable he will need. I always assumed that digital coax cable was different than the typical audio cable. Though I may be wrong. If he gets a digital coax cable, does it need to be mono, streeo, or do S/PDIF inputs not look at cables as mono/strereo. I am a little confused at the grade of cable we will need to take advantage of the S/PDIF connections on both units.
Thanks
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Buy one of these:
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?category=230&item=SP-DCC-2&type=store
and one of these:
http://www.mycableshop.ca/sku/GCRCAF.htm
And go out of your AD20>the cabel above>adapter above>GMini cable>Gmini.
Good luck! I'm not sure, but talking to Todd (Sharky's brother) the other day, the GMINI cable is digi and analog in one 1/8 plug, having 3 black rings rather than 2...
How this corresponds to a mono 1/8 plug or what I have no idea...
Terry
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I spoke to the guys at markertek.com and they said it sounds like I need a custom made 1/8"(3.5mm)male to 1/8"(3.5mm)male serial digital cable. As for the 3 rings at the tip, I have no idea what this is all about. I am assuming all 1/8" male serial digital tips are built the same....?
EDIT:
I just spoke to the support guy at markertek and the 3 ring is typical for a serial digital (balanced) 1/8" tip. So I am good now. I am going to have one custom made and see how it works. I have a feeling the problems you guys are having may be coming from the default cable Archose gives you, or the RCA/1"8" converter you are using. Just a hunch. We'll see.
Sharky
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I tried a cable with dual 1/8 mono from my old AD-20> SPDIF in on the Archos and got no signal...
and mine takes awhile to playback large file too...
just looking for it I guess....
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OK, another EDIT. I spoke with a fellow from soundprofessionals and he said I need to determine where the digital signal is located on the Archos 1/8" male connection: at the tip, ring, or sleeve? He knew the specs for the AD20 so I didn't need to find that info for him. I sent an email to Archos, so hopefully I will hear back with an answere from them soon. Once I get that I will have it ordered and try it out. Does anyone know the answere to this?
1/8" triple ring (gmini120) ----> 1/8" double ring(AD20)
-
the sp/dif signal use only one conductor: the AD20 out should be a mono jack, while the archos a double ring (3 conductor: 2 analog, 1 digital)
-
that didn't answere my question.
On the Gmini 120, is the digital signal on the tip, sleeve, or ring? I'm not worried about the AD20, the sound professional guy knows the specs on that unit.
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that didn't answere my question.
On the Gmini 120, is the digital signal on the tip, sleeve, or ring? I'm not worried about the AD20, the sound professional guy knows the specs on that unit.
You can determine this yourself with simple physics. Run a small electrical current (with multimeter) through the digital coax end and see where it comes out the 1/8 end.
Or wait for the Archos people to give you an answer...
Terry
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why dont you get off your ass and come over to my desk and answere my questions! (we work together)
that would require me having to by a volt meter...negetory
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I checked it out when I first got my unit. of the two connections necessary for spdif in, one is on the t-r-s portion of the jack, and one is on one of the 'wing-jacks' on the side of the trs jack. So you absolutely cant do it with just a miniplug, you need to either use their proprietary cable, or get creative...
IIRC, it was the actual 'hot' signal terminal of the spdif that was located on the wing. the ground was part of the trs jack. I gave up on my gmini and returned it. Since it cant record and it couldnt even play tracks gapless it wasnt much use to me. I love the rio karma, tho. great interface, flawless playback. handles flacs and oggs taboot
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Has the karma an spdif input?
You don't need to apply a signal to test a cable: use the ohmmeter position, if there is a little resistance it's connected. Mine bips if there is a connection. You can also make your own tester I think.
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Hi all. I'm an absolute, total noob to taping...have much love and respect for you guys, never tried it myself. I just bought this unit specifically because it allowed recording to wav, as part of a full rig (hopefully) to be assembled. I actually had to return one (long story) and both the first and second units have had a problem with connecting to MusicMatch in order to utilize the ARClibrary. Anyone else had this problem? I've spoken to tech support, after three calls they said send it back, but I'm not really willing to go into all that for functionality I can achieve myself through playlists and subfolders.
Been reading this thread with great interest, hope the kinks get worked out. If anybody's had the problem I described and has any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em.
Win
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Ummm... I'm sure you saw that this device is NOT perfect when recording WAV. That it makes digi-noise every so often.
And I'm not sure about musicmatch, but I imagine that most of us here don't use it... Its an MP3 thing, right??? I have no idea...
Terry
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and both the first and second units have had a problem with connecting to MusicMatch in order to utilize the ARClibrary. Anyone else had this problem?
what firmware do you have? the latest firmware, V1.8.0, fixes:
V1.8.0
---------------------------------------
Bug fixed: Fixed Hanging/delayed on restart when bookmark set from an ARClibrary song.
not sure if this is problem you've been having, but it's worth a shot to update to the latest firmware...
and as a general update, I have been emailing one of the archos "quality engineers" (not just their tech support). I haven't had much response yet, so as of right now, I'm just sitting on the unit and keeping my fingers crossed.
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Jason,
Just curious. It's been awhile since anything was posted about communications with the Archos tech guys. Have you (or anyone else) had any recent exchange with them? I'm dying to hear some good news.
Riley
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I emailed them two days ago, asking if there was any progress. or even if they were working on this. I haven't heard back from them yet.
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Ummm... I'm sure you saw that this device is NOT perfect when recording WAV. That it makes digi-noise every so often.
And I'm not sure about musicmatch, but I imagine that most of us here don't use it... Its an MP3 thing, right??? I have no idea...
Terry
yeah, it's an mp3 thing...and not softwared I'd use, given the choice. Like I'm sure most of you do, I transfer my live stuff to the Gmini in wav format...but the MusicMatch software allows you to activate the ARClibrary feature, which helps with indexing mp3's (downloaded) by artist, title, etc. without manually creating folders, playlists, etc. Like I said...I can live without it, just irks me that all the functions on a $250 piece of hardware aren't available to me, no matter how often I might use them.
And yes, read about the problems with recording. Be sure, I won't be spreading any less than perfect shows...this is more for my own use than anything at this point. Got a long way to go before I'm closing to being able to contribute to the pool.
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and both the first and second units have had a problem with connecting to MusicMatch in order to utilize the ARClibrary. Anyone else had this problem?
what firmware do you have? the latest firmware, V1.8.0, fixes:
V1.8.0
---------------------------------------
Bug fixed: Fixed Hanging/delayed on restart when bookmark set from an ARClibrary song.
not sure if this is problem you've been having, but it's worth a shot to update to the latest firmware...
and as a general update, I have been emailing one of the archos "quality engineers" (not just their tech support). I haven't had much response yet, so as of right now, I'm just sitting on the unit and keeping my fingers crossed.
yeah, I'm at 1.8.0 their phone tech support guys were all over the map with solutions, none of which worked...til they told me to send it back. I know this forum isn't a "how do I fix xxx on my Gmini" so I apologize if this looks like thread hijacking...
-
what's up peach head , Ya damn Hijacker. ;)
I see ya found the forum.
Lot's of very Nice folk's here, Most of which are willing to give a helping hand (or link )
My best advice is just use that search button up top of the page before asking your ??'s , casue they have prolly done had a thread or two about it already,
and they get tired of us rookies asking the same damn ??'s ;D
And don't even ask about what the tickets are about casue I still aint got er all figured out for sure. I just know now I can send em.
And just like time, they come and go.
Nick
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And don't even ask about what the tickets are about casue I still aint got er all figured out for sure. I just know now I can send em.
And just like time, they come and go.
Very philosophical. +T
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I've given mine to my girl to use at the gym.......
hopefully those programers are going to fix it in the Gmini 120 and not save to update for a newer model
-
After reviewing this monster thread for a second time I decided to pick up a Gmini 120 for stealthing. I should arrive within a week. I still have a couple of questions that you helpful folks might be able to clarify:
I'm most interested in recording via Line-In with a set of mics...
1. does your experience so far indicate that the analog line-in recording does not have the same glitch/pop problem as the digital in ?
2. can recording levels be set effectively on the Archos Line-In or do you recommend a volume adjustment on a battery-box ?
3. once recording is done in .wav can the .wav file(s) be easily transferred to a PC via the USB interface?
I'll be completing this budget rig with a battery-box and mic set. I see a lot of info here about the SP setups... anybody got advice on the equipment from Giant-Squid or Dynamic Audio ? SP offers volume controls on the battery-box... but I'm wary of sliders and pots becoming scratchy and noisy? Are my concerns valid?
Thanks in advance for your input. Also... thanks to Spreadahead for answering my initial email questions.
-
1) I have had no problems going bat box to line-in. I believe the pops/clicks only occur when you go digi-in.
2) Either way works.
3) After you create a recording you can just drag it to where ever you want it on your hard drive. It super simple.
Hope this helps, I am new at this too!
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thanks phisherman2002...
what battery-box/microphone setup are you running with?
I can't wait until the unit arrives! :-)
-
I've made some good tapes with my SP mini mics with the sliding levels, and got no real pops or click at all..
def still getting way to many via spdif.
not to scare anyone, but mine is now on the fritz.
my girll has been using it daily for music, but I was running it as a backup the othernight via line in and the screen went crazy.. Now when it is charging there are 2 screwy batteries and while on everything is jumbled..
taking it back to Circuit City.....
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I'll be completing this budget rig with a battery-box and mic set. I see a lot of info here about the SP setups... anybody got advice on the equipment from Giant-Squid or Dynamic Audio ? SP offers volume controls on the battery-box... but I'm wary of sliders and pots becoming scratchy and noisy? Are my concerns valid?
You can get the GS Omnis for $90, the DA omnis for $120, , the CS omnis for ~$230, and a SP cardiod battery box setup for $200. I've had a chance to listen to all, and I find that the SP setup provides the best results, although perhaps not the most realistic representation. The SP-CMC-2 mics (fixed cards) & the SP-SPSB-1 battery box w/ bass roll-off runs $200. Upgrade to CMC-4s for $50 more, which offers interchangeable caps.
With my Sharp MD-MT770, I was fine running the SP battery box straight into it with no sliders. However, one might run into problems at large festivals and acoustic shows, fme.
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Circuit City replaced mine no problem with the plan I had...
Figured I use mine for 6 weeks at maybe 25hrs a week and it went nuts on me...
the screen was jumbled and nothing would work..
luckily I was able to plug it in the USB and get all my tunes off it...
funny how the unit has no reset hole..
prob would have solved my problems......
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I had that same exact problem a couple of weeks ago. When charging, the thing would show multiple jumbled batteries and the screen was all screwed up and backward while I tried to use it. I thought it was because it got too close to a welder at work or something. I guess not. I replaced it too, but that's definitely odd that both of ours did the same thing.
Also, I am doing a little work right now to build my own stealth mics and battery box. This little unit is just too small to not make a killer stealth rig. I'm going to build panasonic capsules into headphones, so it looks like I just have an MP3 player and some headphones.
I have to include an op-amp in the battery box in order to get the voltage up high enough for the Gmini's line in. The whole thing runs off of just two AA batteries, so I can use the same rechargable ones I use in my DAT. Looks like I should be able to get the whole thing done for about $20 or so. From the specs on the caps and amp that I'm using it should sound really good. From initial tests on the proto board it sounds good and works fine. I'll post plans, results, etc. if anyone is interested.
Riley
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Riley... sounds cool! Sure would be interested in your battery box project... and your stealth headphones/microphone rig! :-)
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just got this not very promising email from archos:
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Dear Mr. Sobel,
This functionality which was added in version 1.4 of the OS updates, does have some "click" problems as you stated. It is for this reason that we never advertised the product as being able to do wav recordings (neither on the box nor on our web site). For some users this function does work fine (depending on the contents of their HD). Depending on the technical constraints, in a future version of the OS it may be fixed or just deleted.
-Curtis Broderick
Quality Engineer
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this does not seem too promising ???
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Well I'll be responding to that... I just got my unit... so far so good. The ONLY reason I bought it is because it CAN do WAV recording. They better not remove that functionality!
I thought the problems were:
1. clicks and digi-pops when recording through SPDIF
2. clicks between WAV files on playback (playback is not seamless)
Sheeesh.
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I sent an email to Archos several days ago and got the EXACT same email reply as Jason Sobel. It doesnt seem like they are too concerned with our problem.
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Well I'll be responding to that... I just got my unit... so far so good. The ONLY reason I bought it is because it CAN do WAV recording. They better not remove that functionality!
I thought the problems were:
1. clicks and digi-pops when recording through SPDIF
2. clicks between WAV files on playback (playback is not seamless)
those are the problems, although, the problem with SPDIF recording is a much bigger problem, IMO. in all the emails I have sent to archos, I haven't even mentioned the clicks between wav files on playback.
It doesnt seem like they are too concerned with our problem.
unfortunately, it seems this way.
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My email to Tech Support... just expressing concern over the possible loss of a MAJOR feature... I'll let you guys know what response I get.
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"I'm a brand new Archos Gmini 120 customer... I bought my unit about 5 days ago. One of the reasons I purchased this unit was because it has the capability to record to .WAV in addition to .MP3 .
I did quite a bit of research prior to making my decision to go with the Archos unit, and although there are certain problems(*) with the Gmini 120 .WAV features I decided that the unit had the right combination of features for me.
*Known Problems
1) When recording to .WAV through the SPDIF input there can be audible digital imperfections in the recording
2) When playing back .WAV files there is an audible click or pop between tracks, playback is not seamless
My main interest is in recording live through the analog line-in. The 2 limitations listed above are not of major concern to me. It is my understanding that recordings made through the analog line-in do not suffer from any problems whatsoever.
The statements made my Mr. Curtis Broderick (Archos Quality Engineer) indicate that future OS versions may eliminate the possibility of recording to .WAV entirely! Just because the feature was never 'advertised' does not mean that Archos has no responsibility to their customers in regards to that feature.
I'd just like to say that so far I'm happy with my purchase. However, if the feature that I purchased this for is eliminated by a future 'upgrade' I will not be a happy customer. Archos decided to release the feature to their customers... it would be completely inappropriate to suddenly remove a major part of the devices functionality in the name of an OS Update. I understand that Archos may be having trouble working out the digital recording problems (or that Archos does not wish to allocate resources to deal with these issues), however to remove the
feature just because there have been some problems would be a disservice to your customers. I know that I speak for a number of folks who have purchased the Gmini 120 specifically for it's .WAV recording abilities."
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Skua - I understand your take, but just remember: you can always just not upgrade your firmware.
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you can always just not upgrade your firmware
true, but that leaves us without a clean digital input for recording :-\
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you can always just not upgrade your firmware
true, but that leaves us without a clean digital input for recording :-\
Understood, my comment was directed to Skua's situation specifically.
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Understand that I'm not excusing them from NOT trying to fix the faulty digital recording... I believe that they should. They introduced the feature... they should make it work. However... it's sounding like Archos isn't very interested in fixing that feature. In any case... I don't think it's right to 'take value away' from the consumer by removing or defeating features that are already present in a device... especially when those features are a major part of the devices functionality.
Sure... I could always forego upgrading my OS... and be forced into missing out on new features or improvements in performance... but I shouldn't have to.
Personally I think that they should make an effort to fix the faulty digital WAV recording ... but if they are unable or don't want to commit the resources... why should they also destroy the ability to record WAV via the analog line-in?
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Understand that I'm not excusing them from NOT trying to fix the faulty digital recording... I believe that they should. They introduced the feature... they should make it work. However... it's sounding like Archos isn't very interested in fixing that feature. In any case... I don't think it's right to 'take value away' from the consumer by removing or defeating features that are already present in a device... especially when those features are a major part of the devices functionality.
Sure... I could always forego upgrading my OS... and be forced into missing out on new features or improvements in performance... but I shouldn't have to.
Personally I think that they should make an effort to fix the faulty digital WAV recording ... but if they are unable or don't want to commit the resources... why should they also destroy the ability to record WAV via the analog line-in?
The easy answer: MONEY.
It costs money to fix all the faulty units and replace all the bad units. It is more cost effective to just get rid of it. Most users will never know the difference.
And really, my paranioz tells me that RIAA wasn't too happy with NJB3 and GMINI being able to pirate CDs digitally, so there might be pressure there...
Nomad has already (kinda) replaced the NJB3 with the (inferior) Muvo.
Terry
Terry
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Ok,
Is the problem just with WAV recording or does the problem show up when you record to MP3 too? I haven't experimented with this at all, but if the problems are still there in MP3's then Archos definitely still needs to address the issue. Maybe I'll do a little more testing tonight.
Peace,
Riley
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My email to Tech Support... just expressing concern over the possible loss of a MAJOR feature... I'll let you guys know what response I get.
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"I'm a brand new Archos Gmini 120 customer... I bought my unit about 5 days ago. One of the reasons I purchased this unit was because it has the capability to record to .WAV in addition to .MP3 .
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Here's what I've heard from Archos:
Thank you for taking the time to write us. Your feedback is very important to us. We will forward your feedback to our development team for consideration in future firmware implementation. Thanks again!
Technical Support Team
Then I got this response a day later:
I appreciate you taking your time to let us know how this potential change
would affect you and possibly other end users. I will make sure that your
point of view is transmitted to the folks making the decisions on future OS
releases for the Gmini 100 series.
Sincerely,
Curtis Broderick
Quality Engineer
I guess we'll all have to just hope for the best.
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keep at 'em!!
I want that little thing to work so bad!
So easy to move files around and record with......
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you know, if nothing else I've found this thing totally useful for it's *gasp* intended purpose...loaded it up with 700+ mp3's and several live shows ripped from cd's, plug it into my computer at work via USB, and enjoy them all day long with winamp...plus, a few others on the office network can share the tunes too, once I shared out the drive...also found winamp very useful for making playlists on the unit, rather than doing it with the buttons on the front, totally negating the need for the "ARClibrary" function I never had to begin with.
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The little thing is going to save my ass in Vegas and during festivals, too, when I'll have to move WAVs off my lappy each night at the hotel in preparation for the next round of shows the next night. Been meaning to get a USB DVD writer for this purpose but the archos has come in handy until then. Just don't try to play the 24bit WAVs on it, though!
Rusty
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The little thing is going to save my ass in Vegas and during festivals, too, when I'll have to move WAVs off my lappy each night at the hotel in preparation for the next round of shows the next night. Been meaning to get a USB DVD writer for this purpose but the archos has come in handy until then. Just don't try to play the 24bit WAVs on it, though!
Rusty
Why not just buy an (cheaper) external hard drive?
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My point was although it hasn't done what I bought it for (spdif-in recording) it still has plenty of uses including a portable WAV player, and a portable hard disk. Sure I could just buy an external hd, but with this one device, I'll have a shit load of CD quality music to listen to on the flight from Boston to Vegas, a portable hd to off load 24 bit wavs and the thing is about the size of a deck of cards.
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did they ever fix the problem on non-gapless plyback between tracks. I might have kept mine as a player/hard drive if this feature worked...
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I just checked the Archos website. Firmware update v1.9 has been released today.
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I'm thinking of switching to the iRiver iHP-120...after further research, it seems to have more convenient features, like a carrying case & included remote, as well as the digital line-in...anyone who's used both that and the Gmini care to weigh in with an opinion?
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Still no wav or gapless playback fix...
V1.9.0
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Bug fixed: All accented characters are now properly displayed on the FM remote control LCD.
Bug fixed: Only audio files are added to a playlist when adding a complete folder.
Bug fixed: Prevented the copying of a folder into one of its subfolders.
Bug fixed: Prevented the attempted playing of unsupported MP2 files (Mpeg1 layer2 audio files).
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I use my Iriver all day every day, switching out many shows a week.....
never used my Archos or JB3 in the car, but the IRIVER 120 is much more durable and reliable then my Archos..
I have put my IRIVER thru alot of abuse and use and never had a prob..
as for a line in recorder, not digital, the Arcohs wins, with it's level readings and file size..
Using it for stealth on Weds for the Mad Professor........
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I use my Iriver all day every day, switching out many shows a week.....
never used my Archos or JB3 in the car, but the IRIVER 120 is much more durable and reliable then my Archos..
I have put my IRIVER thru alot of abuse and use and never had a prob..
as for a line in recorder, not digital, the Arcohs wins, with it's level readings and file size..
Using it for stealth on Weds for the Mad Professor........
The iRiver isn't a digital in? The iHP-120? I thought I read that it was...I'll have to go back and see. If it's not, I'm torn...as it still seems more suited to most of the functions I want it for, but I do want to start taping, the whole reason I got the archos to begin with.
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Ok, just went back to double check. The iHP-120, found here http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iHP-120.asp lists an optical line in as a feature. Cnet also lists digital optical inputs/ouputs as features. Are we talking about different models TPoff? Is there a max file size for recordings on the iRiver?
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Ok, just went back to double check. The iHP-120, found here http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/iHP-120.asp lists an optical line in as a feature. Cnet also lists digital optical inputs/ouputs as features. Are we talking about different models TPoff? Is there a max file size for recordings on the iRiver?
The HP120 only let's you record aobut an hour at a time. Which sucks if your set is longer than 1 hour... I think its a 700meg limit that is unchangeable by the manufacturer for one rason or another...
Terry
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The Iriver was tested for bit-accuracy via optical in by some people on the international site and failed, in almost exactly the same way/ time incriments as the Archos....
When the Archos failed, I said somewhere in this thread that it might be a symptom of small HD players.
I just got done refilling my Iriver 120 with 8 or so full shows and a huge mix file......
shuffle is the equlizer of all music..............
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Remember those posts we did about how our Gmini's had wacked out screens? My first one blew up after about a month. I got a new one a little over a month ago (warranty now void), it's doing the same thing now. Just updated the firmware to 1.9.0 today, and it's having the same problems.
Damn it, the company seems to be unwilling to respond to our (mostly) reasonable requests for updates, and I'm getting a little impatient with the apparent unreliability of these units. Sink or float? If something doesn't happen soon, I just might abandon the whole thing. Really a downer when the thing seems to have so much potential for greatness.
thoughts?
Riley
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Sink or float? If something doesn't happen soon, I just might abandon the whole thing. Really a downer when the thing seems to have so much potential for greatness.
yeah, I'm used to it, njb3, core sound pdaudio, archos gmini, maudio transit, add em all to the list of hardware that is just what we need but doesnt make the cut...
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yeah, I'm used to it, njb3, core sound pdaudio, archos gmini, maudio transit, add em all to the list of hardware that is just what we need but doesnt make the cut...
Huh? Besides the gmini what's wrong with any of that hardware?
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Heavy Sigh.... I hope my Gmini 120 lasts...
I just used it with a set of SP-CMC-2 mics and batt-box to record Yngwie last Tuesday. The 120 is so small and so easy to operate... I'll be extremely bummed if it dies (not to mention being pissed that I paid $200 for it.) This makes for a great stealthy rig... and the results sound fantastic.
Keeping my fingers crossed!
-skua-
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I've been using my Gmini 120 for recording shows a lot lately. Two things I really like about it is it's size and the recording level indicators. However the battery indicator seems a little funny to me. Almost as soon as I start using it the battery indicator drops to 2 bars. I've used it for over 2 1/2 hrs and the indicator went down to no bars. Has anyone ran the battery to zero yet? I was wondering if it starts blinking or if the battery went dead did it save what you were recording. Also I was wondering if anyone is using a external battery pack to power it.
Thanks.
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I've noticed the same thing with the battery indicator bars. I have run in record mode for about 3 hours and did not run out of juice. I've been told that if you run out of battery... you WILL lose your recording. So I suppose for those really long recording sessions it would pay to stop recording and save what you have instead of risking it all and running outta juice.
My only gripe so far is that it's hard to adjust recording levels during a show because the backlight won't turn on. Must get a tiny flashlight or something to see what you're doing.
Everything else is great! (knock on wood, eh?)
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Stealthed Yngwie Malmsteen 2004.04.06 with my Gmini 120 and SP-CMC-2 mics (through battery box into analog line-in.) Currently available on STG via Bit Torrent. Check it out here
http://tinyurl.com/38r8v
if you're interested.
Recorded King's X from the 3rd row last night... I'll probably STG that one as well once I get it all cleaned up and ready.
-skua-
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Has anyone tried recording with the Archos Gmini 220?
If so, what were the results compared to the 120?
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Recorded King's X 2004.05.09 with my Gmini 120 and SP-CMC-2 mics (through battery box into analog line-in.) Currently available on STG via Bit Torrent. Check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/37udu
if you're interested.
This time I had the mics mounted croakie style on a pair of eyeglasses. I think the recording came out pretty sweet. There's a sample track in MP3 available here:
http://209.173.15.110/samples/KingsX_2004-05-09_A_Little_Bit_Of_Soul.mp3
-skua-