Topic: Looking for your opinion - iRiver Remote: Need it? or forget it?

[GrandMasterMark]

Any opinions on the remote for the iRiver h120? Looks like it might be of value for the "not so open" type of recording situations. My deal is that I really don't like dealing with so many cords. I prefer to go lite.

What are your thoughts?
Pro's?
Con's?

[sunjan]

The consensus here used to be that the remote introduced a few dB of diginoise, which may or may not be audible to your ear.
I don't remember if this was only when going analog-in, or also optical-in?! Try your luck with the search function...

You could test this by recording "silence" without feeding any signal. Once with the remote, next without. Take in both samples into Audacity and compare the noise floor.

I don't know if recent builds of Rockbox managed to get rid of that issue, or whether it's hardware related. I guess Petur would be the man to answer that.

[jeromejello]

the remote is the reason that i have 2 ihp-120's.  it makes those not so open recordings a piece of cake.

no issues with introduced noise ime, but i use a preamp.

[BayTaynt3d]

Can you even get remotes any more?

[sunjan]

Can you even get remotes any more?

Ebay, but the prices are sick. Recent auction ended at $93, for the remote alone! 

[rsimms3]

Forget it.  With cell phones, PDAs, and other small devices with screens it is so common to see something light up at a show no one will ever notice you checking/adjusting your levels.

[Arni99]

For stealthing you NEVER need your remote as "safety-clip"(rockbox feature) will watch your levels and lower them if they were set to high initially.
I start the recording on the toilet and if the show starts 1h later who cares. After 3h23min 2GB limit will start a new file.

[jeromejello]

For stealthing you NEVER need your remote as "safety-clip"(rockbox feature) will watch your levels and lower them if they were set to high initially.
I start the recording on the toilet and if the show starts 1h later who cares. After 3h23min 2GB limit will start a new file.

i would personally never use the safety-clip feature since it introduces compression.

[bugg100]

For stealthing you NEVER need your remote as "safety-clip"(rockbox feature) will watch your levels and lower them if they were set to high initially.
I start the recording on the toilet and if the show starts 1h later who cares. After 3h23min 2GB limit will start a new file.

i would personally never use the safety-clip feature since it introduces compression.

Only if you are really off on your opening setting on gain.  If you are reasonable on your initial set up, no reduction at all.

[Arni99]

For stealthing you NEVER need your remote as "safety-clip"(rockbox feature) will watch your levels and lower them if they were set to high initially.
I start the recording on the toilet and if the show starts 1h later who cares. After 3h23min 2GB limit will start a new file.

i would personally never use the safety-clip feature since it introduces compression.

Ouch, NO IT DOES NOT!
Its NOT AGC!

It´s like lowering the levels by hand!
Same discussion again and again .

[jeromejello]

thanks for the info... that said, i still want to know exactly what is going on that makes the iriver lower the levels on its own...

does somebody with knowledge of the electronics want to chime in?

[cgrooves]

thanks for the info... that said, i still want to know exactly what is going on that makes the iriver lower the levels on its own...

does somebody with knowledge of the electronics want to chime in?

I'm not sure how it is achieved via the internal electronic components, but if your levels get high enough to clip, it actually turns down the gain setting.  More clipping occurrs, the gain setting gets adjusted a little lower, etc. etc. until it hits the 'sweet spot' where there is no more clipping.  You can even adjust the amount of clipping that is required (timewise) before the gain gets reduced (to prevent that random loud noise to cause the levels to get dropped for the remainder of the recording).  There is no compression taking place at all.

EDIT:  You may not get a good 'technical explanation' in this thread because the title is about the remotes and not the 'Safety' feature.  Do a search and you will find discussion about it.  Many people can not be convinced that it is not AGC.  I guess it is a form of AGC, in as much as it is a setting that controls the gain automatically.  However, it does not operate on compression (like the 'bad' AGC everyone has engrained in their brains as a terrible thing to use when recording live music).   

[petur]

The iriver audio amplifier chip (UDA1380 iirc) is resposible for the amplification of outgoing and incoming audio.
It has an analog amplification stage and (for the incoming audio) a digital one.
The digital amplification is done on the internal digital signal, which is 20 bits (it is later converted to 16 before handing it over to rockbox)

Incoming audio amplification has following steps (of the top of my bad memory):
- analog: 2dB
- digital: 0.5dB

Rockbox uses the digital steps inbetween the analog ones to give a smooth gain. The usage of digital gain is restricted to the minimum.

AGC-SAFETY will lower the gain when clipping is at risk (-2dB I think), just like you would. It has a configurable speed, meaning the time it needs to see clipping before lowering gain. That allows you to ignore the occasional whistle, shout, clap... but of course makes it slower to respond to real clipping.