Since I got my new disk drive last night, I was able to upload all the new albums I'd been encoding with AudioCatalyst (also a recent purchase) in VBR mode.

One of the albums was encoded at AC's highest-quality VBR settings. This morning, I tried to Fast Forward on one of those tracks and it wouldn't work. It kept going back to the 0:02 mark in the song. But other songs from the same album, encoded at the same settings, were fine.

This song happened to be the longest song on the album- the MP3 file is nearly 16 megabytes in size. Do you think that had something to do with it?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I don't think it's the size of the file that's the problem: xaudio tends to be a bit inconsistent with VBR files for ff/rew (before anyone mentions it - the PJB100 doesn't even support VBR...).

We've been working on solutions in-house, and hopefully we'll have the problem solved before release.

Hugo

before anyone mentions it - the PJB100 doesn't even support VBR

Wow! I didn't know that. And I suppose the PJB100 isn't software-upgradeable, either?

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad you're aware that it's an issue. It's not a big problem for me, I just wanted to make sure it was reported.

Speaking of XAudio, what are the chances of the Empeg being able to play .WAV files by the time the Mark 2's ship?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

And I suppose the PJB100 isn't software-upgradeable, either?

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actually, their web site hints that you can upgrade the software (firmware?) to support future standards...





...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

The PJB is upgradeable, yes, but they don't have anywhere near as much spare CPU power as we do :)

Hugo

This is something that has been present since B5, since I was using VBR since day 1 and had this problem with FF and RW. Track forward and back, no problem; fast forward inside a VBR track, forget it.

I did report this with another problem I was having at the time, and Mike thought it was an artifact of the problem. I wish I could remember the exact explanation.....

I have various VBR (I think) related problems. Weirdness when doing FF or REW is one of them. Another is the elapsed time counter skipping backwards and forwards during normal playback. Another is that after pausing a long way into a VBR file, and power cycling the unit, instead of resuming where it left off, it starts the next track.

None of these are very serious, though.

Richard.

The counter skipping I have observed as well. The fix for it (I discovered) is to repeat the RIP with a higher basic bitrate.

I have also observed the "start from next" thing - I can't remember whether I sussed this though, 'cos I haven't been troubled with it lately. I seem to remember that the higher-rate VBR RIP did sort out a lot of small irritations.