having a weird problem with my Zen Vision: M

Numina

turned it on earlier on (I use it regularly, turning it on at multiple times of the day), listened to some soft piano on it, and it sound like somebody turned the gain all the way up, because it's emitting some kind of distortion. I've tried it wihth other tracks, and it's still there, I've turned it off, turned it back on, No avail, fiddled around with the audio settings, nothing.

anybody care to save me a few hundred euro?

Alanstrainor

Numina wrote:

turned it on earlier on (I use it regularly, turning it on at multiple times of the day), listened to some soft piano on it, and it sound like somebody turned the gain all the way up, because it's emitting some kind of distortion. I've tried it wihth other tracks, and it's still there, I've turned it off, turned it back on, No avail, fiddled around with the audio settings, nothing.

anybody care to save me a few hundred euro?

I have one but have never experienced these problems, have you tried different headphones, unlikely i know but worth a shot. How long have you had it, is it still under warranty?

pleasant Co.

Silly question but have you tried a) using other headphones or b) reflashing the firmware?

Numina

yes, I've tried it on other earphones, problem persists. I think it might be the earphone slot, because I've used the adapter thing to play it through the tv, and theres no problems that way. I really would rather not update the firmware as i don't see a point, I've only heard bad things about it

Gran Hermano

Try and isolate the problem/cause....

-try the earphones on another device.
- try different earphones on the Zen.
- try a different MP3.
- try the 'faulty' MP3 on a different device.
-try changing the graphic equaliser settings (you may have mucked up the
settings without realising it - The sound on the AV out bypasses the
equaliser).
- what is the sound on video clips like?
- have you re-encoded the mp3s from another compressed format?

My gut reaction is it's either a loose connection in the earphone out socket
or dodgy graphic equaliser settings.

Alanstrainor

From what you have told us, it doesn't sound good(no pun intended):rolleyes: . Your first presumption that the headphone socket itself is broken seems to me, to be the problem. what about warranty? how old is the player? they have a years warranty on them.
well let's hope that's not the problem

Numina

Gran Hermano wrote:

My gut reaction is it's either a loose connection in the earphone out socket
or dodgy graphic equaliser settings.

I've already done all of your suggestions, it's not the graphic equalizer, so my deduction is a fault in the earphone out socket.. as for the sound. if you use Audacity, it's sounds like putting in a piano track, then adding "barry's satan maximiser" (i forget the name) plugin.

Gran Hermano

Feck....Reckon you've loosened the earphone out jack.... not good.

Get onto Creative in the morn', I've heard they are not the
worst for support.

When did you buy it?

I know this is the number for their EMEA on-line shop +353 1 806 6909,
based in Dublin 15 might be worth trying to see if they can transfer you
to Support.

http://ie.europe.creative.com/support/warranty/rma/obtainrma.asp

Numina

i bought summer of last year, (i think it's held out pretty well with the amount of use it's gotten) thanks for the help. it's not as bad as it seems though, the track can still be heard behind it. but in some tracks (actually, 1 so far, I'm hardly going to check every track) it make the entire song sort of fluctuate.

pleasant Co.

if its under a year old creative will RMA it, if its outside a year old, give it a go anyway, creative can be quite good to their customers.

Gran Hermano

OP, let us know how you get on with Creative and how you find their
return/repair service.