Sandisk Clip Jam/Sport Platform Discussion

Topic: Sandisk Clip Jam/Sport Platform Discussion (Read 14091 times) previous topic - next topic

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Sandisk Clip Jam/Sport Platform Discussion

2015-10-17 18:58:51

It seems rather anomalous that sandisk's new devices haven't found themselves much coverage by forums and media outlets, bearing in mind the success of their (discontinued) predecessors and their incredibly low price. I'm quite curious as to the differences between the Jam and Sport, save for the blatant difference in screen type. I've read that the two devices are based upon the same platform internally, yet the Sport boasts a much higher battery life (25 hours vs 18 hours) and the Jam a "Deep, rich sound quality", whatever that means. Does this mean that there is some additional DSP going on to make the the Jam sound "Deep[er]" and "rich[er]"? That could explain the decreased battery life and the implicit superiority of the Jam's output, but would contradict the (presumed) intentions of the clip+ and zip, which seemed to be transparency to the source material (assuming sources aren't uniformly deep and rich).

Would anyone be willing to provide measurements of the devices? I'd be quite interested to know whether sandisk have made the same design choices in regards to battery life over frequency accuracy, and whether it should be transparent. As far as I know there are no such measurements lurking about, which I put down to the demographic of the clip+ now utilising their capable smartphone audio hardware instead of dedicated players, and the recentness of their release.

If they perform well in measurements then maybe they could become the new default recommendation for portable players, as for £25 they fit into the nice bracket of being cheap enough to feasibly be purchased by budget smartphone users, yet (potentially) so well performing that they don't bear the perceptible flaws of budget android smartphones' audio hardware (my moto E comes to mind, it produces a blatant hiss in quiet parts, though I can't recall any other distortion and wouldn't want to violate #8).

On a side note, are any rockbox devs looking into support of the devices?

Sandisk Clip Jam/Sport Platform Discussion

Reply #1 – 2015-10-18 00:53:46

Quote from: pixelwitch on 2015-10-17 18:58:51

I'm quite curious as to the differences between the Jam and Sport, save for the blatant difference in screen type.

No difference aside from the screen and battery size.

Quote from: pixelwitch on 2015-10-17 18:58:51

On a side note, are any rockbox devs looking into support of the devices?

They use a very simple SOC with almost no RAM, so they're probably not capable of running a rockbox, just the very basic software they come with.

Sandisk Clip Jam/Sport Platform Discussion

Reply #2 – 2015-10-18 01:53:49

I currently own a Clip Sport and last year I owned a Clip Zip. Several years ago I had a Sansa Clip.
I have found that the Sansa Clip's custom EQ settings seemed to sound better to my ears than both the current Clip Sport and the Clip Zip.
I'm not exactly sure what changed, but it has been a disappointment. Luckily however, the default non-EQ'd sound is still decent enough and different types of headphones make a difference also.
Of course my beliefs about this are possibly subjective because no two people hear exactly alike.

I do know that the particular Clip Zip I used to have (I think it was a second generation one, not sure)... would play back OGG files at a slightly slower rate. It wasn't noticeable but it was documented on the support site.
I don't remember if it was a result of the firmware update or ar result of the pre-firmware update status. But it was little details like this that showed up on the support site from time to time. I performed the firmware update to attain FLAC playback, which wasn't standard back then.

I really don't have any complaints about the Clip Sport except that I actually liked the Sansa Clip better. I liked the graph/text-only interface much better than the current screen graphics and icon stuff. I also liked it's more compact size and it's clip on the back. For whatever reasons, the build quality seemed better. Also I happened to have had an odd model that had double the capacity of the models that came after it. It was bought on clearance from a Wal-Mart store.

The Clip Zip and the Clip Sport are nice for the MicroSD card support though, and therefore the ultimate capacity is greater and maybe more versatile than the Clip.
One thing that has been somewhat frustrating is that I haven't been able to play M4A (MP4-AAC) files on mine and I'm not sure why. They are simply skipped. But that's alright because I mainly use FLAC's and purchased MP3's.

Also I guess the Sport doesn't have a microphone input, which the other two models did.
Anyways, overall, I'm still happy with the Sansa products and just wish that the prices on Amazon for used Sansa products was lower so I could get another Clip and update the firmware for FLAC support again.

I did try to RockBox the Clip Zip back when I had it, and it was successful but too many features for me to deal with. I don't know what the RockBox status is of the Clip Sport but it would be easy to look up on the RockBox site.

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