jmerrett

I am really enjoying my new toy and it has been great to find a site that gives me more information.
Only one disappointment so far with the Axim - I find the sound on playback of sound files (MP3 or WMA) to be a bit 'hissy'. It doesn't show in the loud bits, but in the quiet moments there is a quite pronounced hiss in the background. Is this to be expected or is there any way around it ? I have checked on the sound files that I have made by playing them over the computer speakers and they are fine so is there anything I can do on the Axim that will improve things. I will be grateful for any assistance.

Harley

Sorry -- the "hissy", poor sound quality is a "feature". It generally produces intelligible sound, making it suitable for listening to voice notes. However, if you want better quality sound then you need to use earphones or connect it to powered speakers.

Since sound quality is a subjective measure I'm sure many will disagree.

jmerrett

Thanks, Harley. I should have said that I am already listening to the sound files over the headphones - I had been hoping I could use the Axim as a personal stereo in place of my minidisc player. But the sound quality .... well ......

colinkhalid

I use my Axim as a MP3 / Wma player and the quality is quite ok, I have not experienced any hissing sound in quiet spots.

Did you encode the MP3's yourself ? have you tried WMA files ?

jmerrett

Hi there. I have encoded files to MP3 and WMA using dBpower AMP. These files play well on my desktop PC, over the speakers, but then are hissy when used on the Axim. Any suggestions welcome, thanks.

garryknight

You probably won't like this one: try a cheaper pair of earphones. Or try down-sampling the music files. I've down-sampled some of mine to 32Mb and they're acceptable on my £25 Sony phones. And yes, I can tell the drastic difference in quality - it's just that I listen while travelling so I'm prepared to put up with it. YMMV, of course.

Garry
[posting on the run via WiFi]

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Garry Knight

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uzziah0

I haven't done much with audio on my Axim, but what I have done I would agree the built in speaker is just acceptable to listen to messages or system sounds (beeps and such) and maybe some gaming sounds.
I have listened to music through headphones, very cheap headphones, and it sounded pretty good.

I feel I must add the disclaimer that I don't enhance the sound systems of any cars I have owned and found them OK; my home stereo system is over 10 years old (with new JBL in ceiling speakers upstairs) and a simple midrange system but everything sounds OK on that (even movies).

srf506

After years of hanging around screaming jet engines and race cars my hearing is probably not the best, but I record all my WMA files (and I have 17.5 GB on my PC and about a Gig on my Axim) at 128 kb and through either powered speakers or cheap Sony "Walkman" earphones they sound as good as the original CD. In fact, I'm listeing to THe greatest hits of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as we speak and I don't notice any hissing. Are youpossibly overdriving your headphones with the volume? Try setting the system volume to mid range and using the WMP volume for your music.

jmerrett

Thanks for all the suggestions - keep them coming ! I have tried downsampling to 32 and I have played around with the volume controls (something I certainly had not thought of, don't know why !) but there is still the hiss ! I am now going to borrow some earphones off my sons to see if their cheaper ones work better !

Bonsai Monkey

Here is what I see as the problem with the Axim sound system - the quality is just fine, but the background noise is horrible. Between the hiss and the high pitched artifacts there is no way that the sound competes with even the cheapest MP3 players out there. I have used 7 different pairs of headphones from cheap little 5 dollar ear buds to my 500 dollar custom molded in-ear monitor system, and have run the sound through the speakers in my computer, my studio speakers, and the sound system at my work. With the exception of the cheap headphones and the computer speakers, the hiss and noise was easy to nitice every time. While the cheaper systems hid the noise, they sounded so bad that it wasn't worth it. I have run the same tests with portable CD players, minidisk players, and several MP3 players and have not found any of those to have as much noise as the Axim. One possible solution would be to use headphones with a built in volume control. Turn up the volume all of the way on your Axim, and then turn the volume down on the phones. This will help by reducing the system noise, but your battery life will be shorter.

XKalibuR

use conduits pocket player the sound is fine with my sony earbuds and the bass is there. Pocketplayer has an eaqualizer unlike WMP