Optical in/out

[gadgetdad]

With respect to the optical in/out on the iHP-120, is there a name for this format of connector? I ask because my home Philips Amp has a larger, more d-shaped optical in/out. I wondered whether:
a) Systems using the two connector types would share the same actual digital protocol
b) Is it possible to get a connector with a d-type connector on one end and an iHP-compatible one on the other?

Thanks...

[Big D]

You need a Toslink to minijack adaptor. Try your local Maplin Electronics (it's where I got mine).

[Northern_Dragon]

Sounds like your Philips amp has a Toslink optical input (/output) which is just a different type of conection and I believe more common on hi-fi units than the 3.5mm type. Yes you should be able to get a cable with a connector of each type on opposite ends, I have one that came with my portable minidisc recorder.

i think there was another post about this just a little while ago.

[gadgetdad]

Thanks a lot. Now I know it's available (and what the two types are called), I should be able to find it. I'll try Maplin first...
Cheers.

[armchair.pimp]

There was a thread about this.. I p[ut it up.. as the others say.. you can get a cable for about £10.. works a treat as well.. although your CD player may become obsolete!

[stevek]

I used the Optical Input last night at my band's rehearsal. We typically record with a Yamaha AW16G multitrack, which has a system clock of 44.1kHz and Toslink optical I/O. I connected the iHP-120 and recorded rough mixes from the AW16G optical Out to the iHP-120 Optical In.

Upon initial playback - it seemed pretty good , but further listening revealed periodic 2 to 3 milisecond"gaps" as frequently as every 30 seconds.
It did make it easy to transfer via USB 2.0 and burn CD's back at my place - more efficient use of my time than transfering in real time with my old Aiwa AFM-80 MiniDisc recorder.

BTW- I located an interesting thread regarding recording with the iHP-120 on the iRiver Northen Europe site:

http://www.irivernordic.com/forum.php?fid=7&thid=4627

They do mention there may be sample glitches every 30 seconds ( due to periodic HDD spin up)

I'll do more testing and report.

[dhbailey]

I used the analog input last night (on my iHP-140) to record my community band rehearsal and can hear no anomalies such as the sine-wave recording experiment showed up.

I can well accept that maybe a couple of samples were dropped, I can't prove it or hear it in the sounds of the rehearsal. How many of us are recording pure sine-waves, though?

For most of us, we are recording complex mixes of sound and a couple of samples don't make that big a difference.

Either tha or they've fixed the problem on the iHP140 units, I don't know.

I do know that I've recorded via line-in and using both internal mic and external mic (Sony ECM-MS907, as per somebody's suggestion on this list) and in none of the test recordings were there any indication of a dropped sample.

No clicks as are apparent in that sample sine-wave somebody posted a few days ago.

[N_R]

I am sorry to say that the glitches (missing samples) are there also when optical input is used.

I have done quite thorough testing using two different FW versions and couple different sources.

Why people cannot see the problem when they record live is becuase the start and end points at the missing sample period can be close enought to eachother so there is no big step between the points.

Think it this way: You have a samples which respord to db levels like this:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Now the glitch appears due to HDD spin and you have:

0 1 2 3 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

So first of all you have 5 samples missing and the db step at the point is now 6dBs.

Second try:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 8 7

and glitch:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 8 7

So still 5 samples missing but the step is 1dB so no big deal.

That's why I used the approach to use simple sinus wave to see the glitches. And it is easy to filter the original sinus wave away and you are then left with the glitches.

So this is definately something serious and not a cristal clear 100% proof recording as they claim in their ads

I really hope this is clarified by iRIVER, can this be solved etc...

[Big D]

Surely in an audio device if the "glitches" are not audible to the user then it will make no difference?

[stevek]

Might try the latest korean firmware and see what impact this has on "dropping bits" during recording.

I just loaded the Korean "iHP-140K" firmware into my USA iHP-120, and made two test recordings of 1kHz pure sine wave - using an AW16G multitrack as the signal source.

At first I heard no problems - but furrther listening revealed problems ( see below)

[N_R]

I have tested now also iHP-120 with that latest korean FW and still there are the glitches. The glitches are still around the same seconds as before.

When you load them to soundforge do you filter the original 1kHz off?

Maby I have to use also 1kHz to see it there is a difference - i doubt but I can test.

I am really frustrated with the device right now. It is a great device and stylishly small etc BUT the fact that I cannot trust the quality of the sound is bothering me. Maby the European devices are all faulty as I think more europeans are having this problem than everyone else?

[N_R]

Originally Posted by Big D

Surely in an audio device if the "glitches" are not audible to the user then it will make no difference?

So you mean that it doesn't matter that there is loss of data every now and then as long as you do not hear it? Well in principle it is so. But this glitch just isn't random - it happens frequently about every 30 seconds. And sometimes there is two glitches around the time when HDD spins.

So at least for me just knowing that the glitch is there for sure and it might become audible when ever the signal is sufficient makes it hard to think that this device is any good for serious recording tasks. Sadly so, because otherwise I like this little device.

[dhbailey]

Radio Shack has a universal optical cable which has interesting ends -- you pull the end out, turn it 180 degrees to switch between toslink and round connector. And you can have toslink on one end and round on the other and according to Radio Shack (if you can trust them) it will work fine. After all, optical IS optical. Just be sure that both devices are set to the same sample rate.

[stevek]

Hey N_R,

For my testing I did the following:

Equipment used:
=============
Yamaha AW16G DAW

http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_...16G/index.html

iHP-120 (running Korean Firmware Ver. 1.40 K)

http://service.iriver.co.kr/down/iri...40kor-v140.zip

Toslink Optical Cable ( from Aiwa MiniDisc Recorder)

iHP-120 USB Cable

HP ZD7000 Notebook PC (3.06GHz P4) with WinXP Pro / Sony Soundforge 7.0
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...true&tab=specs


iHP-120 Optical Input Wave Recording Test Sequence:
===========
1) Configure Yamaha AW16G to use it's built in test generator to generate a 1kHz Sine Wave test tone at 0dBr feeding its Main L/R Outputs.

2) Connect Toslink Optical cable from the AW16G's Toslink Optical Output to the iHP-120's Optical Input.

3) Enable "Optical Input Wave Record mode" on the iHP-120, to record a 16bit @ 44.1kHz "Test Wav" file. Duration 7 minutes. I observe the iHP-120's HDD access light go on & off periodically at approximately 30 second intervals, the HDD spins up for 10 seconds and then "parks" . 30 seconds later this procedure repeats. (i.e. 30seconds "off", then 10 seconds "off", etc, etc, )

4) After 7 minutes of recording the 1kHz sine wave, I Disable Record mode on iHP-120, and wait for the Hard drive "saving" activity screen to clear, then power down everything.

5) Using the factory iHP-120 USB cable, I now connect the iHP-120 to my HP ZD7000 Notebook PC, and transfer the "Test Wav" file to the Notebook's 60GB 7200rpm internal HDD.

6) Launch Soundforge, and open the recorded "Test Wav" file.

7) Using the Soundforge "Zoom In" tool, I "drag" the file slowly back and forth to visually investigate the 1kHz Sine Wave for any signs of any periodic clipping or distortion. Next I play the file and listen for any indications of "pop"s or "clicking" or any other anomolies during the full 7 minute length. I specifically focused at those points on the "Test wav" file where I had observed the iHP-120's HDD access light go on and off.
Using this method, I heard - nor saw any anomolies

** UPDATE - Re- running the test above using 100Hz Sine wave DOES REVEAL FLAWED RECORDING. I did not notice any dropouts with the 1kHz tone test recording because the iHP-120 dropouts were exactly one complete "cycle" long!

[N_R]

I am 100% sure there is something wrong with the unit. signal is perfect until the recording. I can verify this by recoring to another device (MD/DAT) and copying that back to PC. Signal is perfect! I also monitor the sound at the same time as I record and the sound is "almost" perfect. There is some popping all the time in the sound, but only in optical-in but the popping is different that what the glitch is. If the popping would be in the recorded WAV also I would definately return the device immediately.

OK, So what I have is that ONLY iHP-120 (with korean 1.40 or what ever FW) produces glitches (due loss of data) at frequent times. They bigges ones are usually around the full minute mark (56:455s) and smaller ones between these. But I have also seen glitches appearing quite close to each other some 15 seconds away (but this was at the beginning...)

When the big glitch appears there is some 30-40 samples missing! Thas is a "huge" number. On smaller glitches only 1-5 is missing.

I tried with stereo signal so that left channel has 1kHz sinus and right had 220Hz sinus. Guess what? The 1kHz sinus showed only minor glitches and 220Hz showed big and small glitches. So I examined the signals at sample level. And yes there was glitches on 1kHz wave at the same points as I could see in 220Hz wave. The 1kHz sinus just happens to have almost ideal frequency so that the loss of samples is almost zero when we think about the form of the signal. 220Hz signal changes are much slower so the missing samples cause bigger gap between the start end and point of missing samlpes.

This is also why you hear the glitches only sometimes when you playback your recordings. It is all about what kind of signal is at the point of missing samples Could be that the devices have different HDDs, so that I happen to have a slow one...? Don't know... But it seems that there is no solutions for this so I have to return the device then... Too bad...

EDIT: I've got a comment from iRiver Korea TechSupport that they have received several reports about this and they are looking for the problem to find out a solution.

[stevek]

OK, I have re-run my test, this time using a 100Hz Sine Wave source signal.
Starting at the 1:09 minute mark into the recording, (and every 30 seconds after) I do hear a "small repeatable snap" and loading into SoundForge I do see the "glitch. I stand corrected, the iHP-120 is definitely dropping samples, I believe this problem corresponds to the iHP-120's "spinning down and parking the HDD" procedure that occurs at 30 second intervals during all recording.
Maybe iRiver could tweak the firmware to fix this problem, at the expense of battery life. I feel its good trade off!

I've attached a JPG screen capture of the distorted waveform.

(Cool we have a Forum that allows Attachments!)

BTW - I informed iRiverAmerica Tech Support of this problem. My problem is I need a recorder now, so I've sold my iHP-120 on Ebay and that fully funded a new Nomad JB3-40GB. Luckily the JB3 has features that actually work.

[stevek]

OK, I have re-run my test, this time using a Nomad JB3 and the same 100Hz Sine Wave source signal. Wave Recording via Optical
Starting at the .05 second mark into the recording, I do hear a "small repeatable snap" and loading into SoundForge I do see the "glitch. Unlike the iHP-120, this JB3 recording has only this ONE glitch, the rest of my three minute test file is flawless. If recording is your cup of tea, then bypass the iRivers and head straight for the JB3 - with latest JB3 firmware you will have working VU meters, on the fly record gain adjust, MiniDisc Sync capability, 4 band graphic EQ, multi-user config presets, Time Clock, FM recording ( via the remote) and better fidelity in my opnion.

[gadgetdad]

I bought the connector 'cable' from Maplin, as recommended. It comes with two adaptors (regular Toslink to 3.5mm minijack/mini-toslink).

Part numbers are L43AJ for the 1.5m version (GBP14.99) and L44AJ for the 3m version (GBP17.99).
Also available is a single adaptor, QN20W, at GBP2.99

http://www.maplin.co.uk/

Unfortunately, my system only has optical OUT from the CD player, no optical OUT from the amp; so I can't record my old LPs by that route... ...should have checked first...

[Big D]

You'll be able to copy them using analogue - if you are using LPs I doubt there would be any difference. Check the output of your amp. Do they use the standard double aux. connections (red and white)?

If so then just buy a diuble aux. to single minijack cable (about £4-5 from Maplin). It'll do the job for you.

[gadgetdad]

Yes, I have the cabling to do it via Aux L/R. It just would have been neater, somehow, to have been able to do it optically. As you say, it doesn't really matter for an LP, because there probably wouldn't be any discernible difference. I guess if I accidentally buy any protected (hobbled) CDs, I'll have the option of optically copying them, anyway...

[Gadgetnut2]

Hello, I just got myself an Iriver H120 and have been researching this recording glitch noise problem. I hope this thread is still alive.
I just completed a series of tests myself on my H120 recording various things and tones to see if I could hear and notice the "disk dump click noise glitch" and sadly to say, I have. I am on firmeare V1.60 US since that is what came with my used unit which I purchased off of ebay. It is a practically new unit and the seller hardly used it. All the accessories were pretty much still in their wrappers and unused. The unit had no scratches and was just like new.
I do not have the remote control ticking or buzzing noises on my H120 and I am happy about that.
But it does seem to drop frames during the recordings I have made. What a shitty pity that Iriver won't fix this problem! I have confirmed that it is exactly what you described here in this thread. H120 writes its buffer contents to hard disk every 30 seconds. The write takes about 13 seconds each time to complete and park its heads. Sometimes I hear the click or thump or pop sound during the disk write and park times and sometimes I do not hear any clicks. I played and recorded test tones of 1khz, 220hz, 100hz and 75 hz using my external Core Sounds microphones and was able to recreate the clikc noise glitches.

However, I have noticed another glaring firmware bug that I have not seen mentioned before (excuse me if it has been reported... but I have not read it anywhere), and that is that when you stop your recordings, the H120 does not save the very ending of your recording!!!! That is, if you hit stop recording before the last buffer contents are written to disk, it does not get saved to disk! What is in the buffer gets thrown away! Sometimes it loses the last few seconds and sometimes it throws the whole last buffered data away! Even though it displays on the LCD screen that it is "Saving Data... please wait" or something like that, it really does not save the data at all. When I play the recording back, the last part of my recordings are chopped off and not played.

So, anyone else notice this bug? Is Iriver reading these forums still?
Iriver, can you please address these serious recording problems in a firmware fix? If so when? I know, don't hold my breath... but you make me wish I would not have wasted $300.00 US on this piece of defective junk then.
Looks to me like you can easily fix this disk writing glitch. I am sure it is just a screw up in your programming to write the buffer to disk... you have to find where in the code you are going off and losing the bits or if the hard drive just isn'nt fast enough to finish writing all the buffer to disk before getting over written by new incoming data, then shorten the time intervals to start dumping the buffer to disk.

It is so disappointing to find out that this H120/H140 has such a recording flaw after I long sort to buy one and finally got one. Please fix it soon and also add the ability to adjust recording levels on the fly and see the recording level meters during recording. And remove the dumb recording time limits.

I have an Archos Gmini 400 now also, and while it too has a few drawbacks of its own (like no built in mic preamp and clumsy line-in adapter plug) it implements recording WAV format files flawlessly, no glitches nor noises and it can record for over 3 hours continuously.

EDIT1: Hmmm, today (now 01/10/2005) I tried recording with the internal mic of my H120 and noticed it did not lose the last few seconds of my recording. That's odd. I will have to wait to get home and see if recording with the external mic still drops the last part of the buffer data or not. Hmmm.

EDIT2: 01/10/2005 - Okay, I just tried recording using my external mics again tonight. And now it seems to be working fine not dropping the last buffer data. That's odd. It was losing all the last parts of the recordings (the last buffer of data not yet written to disk) last night! Maybe the firmware got into a weird state then? I guess after I turned it off and turned it back on today, whatever it was, it got reset with the new power off/power on cycle.
Nevertheless, I am documenting this experience here as a firmware quirk, because if it happened once... it probably can and will happen again... I just hope not during a precious recording session. nuff' said.

Still wish Iriver would hurry up and fix their firmware and add all the requested updates for recording mode that we all want.

Originally Posted by N_R

I am 100% sure there is something wrong with the unit. signal is perfect until the recording. I can verify this by recoring to another device (MD/DAT) and copying that back to PC. Signal is perfect! I also monitor the sound at the same time as I record and the sound is "almost" perfect. There is some popping all the time in the sound, but only in optical-in but the popping is different that what the glitch is. If the popping would be in the recorded WAV also I would definately return the device immediately.

OK, So what I have is that ONLY iHP-120 (with korean 1.40 or what ever FW) produces glitches (due loss of data) at frequent times. They bigges ones are usually around the full minute mark (56:455s) and smaller ones between these. But I have also seen glitches appearing quite close to each other some 15 seconds away (but this was at the beginning...)

When the big glitch appears there is some 30-40 samples missing! Thas is a "huge" number. On smaller glitches only 1-5 is missing.

I tried with stereo signal so that left channel has 1kHz sinus and right had 220Hz sinus. Guess what? The 1kHz sinus showed only minor glitches and 220Hz showed big and small glitches. So I examined the signals at sample level. And yes there was glitches on 1kHz wave at the same points as I could see in 220Hz wave. The 1kHz sinus just happens to have almost ideal frequency so that the loss of samples is almost zero when we think about the form of the signal. 220Hz signal changes are much slower so the missing samples cause bigger gap between the start end and point of missing samlpes.

This is also why you hear the glitches only sometimes when you playback your recordings. It is all about what kind of signal is at the point of missing samples Could be that the devices have different HDDs, so that I happen to have a slow one...? Don't know... But it seems that there is no solutions for this so I have to return the device then... Too bad...

EDIT: I've got a comment from iRiver Korea TechSupport that they have received several reports about this and they are looking for the problem to find out a solution.