Topic: Olympus LS-11 PCM stereo files won't play correctly on my macbook

[gkillmaster]

Hi,

I'm brand new to this forum as of this post. So hi!

I've tried so many things over the last couple days to try and figure out this problem.

When I copy the files from my Olympus LS-11 over to my macbook, the audio sounds fine when I swing the balance full right or full left but in the detente stereo position, the audio almost goes away and sounds really "tinny". I'm recording 48KHZ, 24bit, PCM. I'm using a mic plugged directly into the LS-11 using a stereo mini cable from the mic's XLR. The recording on the LS-11 through the headphones sounds fine. The odd thing it that is only does this on macbooks or macbook pros. PCs and other Apple computers seem fine. And it plays fine if I use my external sound interface... which makes me reckon there could be something in the originally recorded file which may be incompatible with my particular laptop?

Has anyone had this same problem?

thanks,

Greg

[nickee]

Am I reading this right? You taped something using just one microphone? And it isn't a stereo microphone since you mention that it only has one XLR plug? And then you get two channels of audio on the Olympus? If that's the case you may recorded the signals on pin 2 & 3 of the XLR cable. These channels carry the same information but one is inverted and playback of this may result in phase cancellation like you have heard on the apple laptops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_cancellation

[sunjan]

Depending on which software you use for playback, it might not be compatible with the file bitrate etc.

Download Audacity, take a look at the waveforms and try to play from within the program:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac

Does anything look strange? Nickee has a good point that feeding a mono signal to a stereo plug can cause undesired effects...