Hi,

First off, I'd like to thank everybody for all the great information on this site!

I’m wondering if anybody else has seen this… I recently got an N800, and am experiencing consistent audio noise (slight distortion followed by a clicking noise).

Basically, when an audio event first occurs there is a little garble in the sound (most noticeable with headphones, but it happens through the built in speakers as well). Then after the sound event ends (and the sound device closes presumably) there is an annoying click that occurs. It doesn't matter what type of sound/application... System sound, mp3, etc. Even if the system sounds are turned off in the control panel I still experience these anomalies when navigating around (when the N800 would be playing system sounds if they were enabled).

There are two ways I can stop the distortion/clicking from occurring:

1. Mute the master volume.
2. Run continuous sound in the background, but mute that specific application (i.e. Play the FM tuner, but muted).

The second option works fine as a workaround, as I then experience no additional garbled sounds and clicking, but I hate to chew up precious battery life doing this. I was under the assumption this is a software bug, but I have a friend with an N800 that plays clean audio with no distortion/clicking whatsoever. We both are on the same firmware/software releases, and I have reloaded and reset my device... I have even replaced my device (this is my second), and am sad to report that I still am experiencing the same issue

Perhaps this is an issue with a newer/older batch of hardware having a slight driver incompatibility? I found limited mention of an issue similar to this on Bugzilla for Maemo posted a while back. I can live with it under the premise that it will be addressed. Nokia seemed to feel my first unit was defective, but I doubt I got two bad units in a row. Their lack of knowledge as to the existence of the problem makes me worry it will not be addressed (or is a hardware flaw).

Are others experiencing this problem, or is it just me? My ears aren't so good, yet this is very apparent (and annoying!) to me.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to include as much information on the issue as possible.

Thanks!

Frank

Hi

I have the same pb. Brought my N800 back, they changed the screen. The distortion and noise are still here.
My brother has a HTC Tytn, same issue.

Is this occurring with every touchscreen? I don't know what to do

I'd like to bump this old thread to see if anyone has any new ideas. I am a new n800 owner, and one of my primary apps is Rhapsody, so sound quality is quite important to me. What I'm hearing is pretty much what the original poster described, except I'm using os2008. If I hook the n800 up to my amp and speakers and listen carefully, this is what happens. A couple seconds after a sound is completed, there will be a slight click. After this point, and subsequent sound will begin distorted. It almost as though the audio hardware is being put into a power saving state, and waking up from state is handled non-optimally. In terms of my experience with Rhapsody, what this means is that in between songs there will be a somewhat loud click while the next song is buffering, and then the next song will start distorted.

I'm assuming I might need to mess with the audio driver settings, but I didn't see anything in the control panel. I am not very familiar with the OS so I am not sure where to start. Any help would be much appreciated.

Yes, Rhapsody clicks between tracks while it's buffering. Yes, it would be nice if they buffered the next track in advance and transitioned smoothly, but they don't.

Yes, but of course Rhapsody is just an example. Most of the feedback from the UI gets distorted as well.

I'm not really complaining, I'm just trying to hunt down a solution, or at least figure out where I might start. Also, I'm curious is everyone is having this problem, or perhaps it is something related to an app I installed or some other factor. Thanks.

No distortion here. Maybe it's your headphones? Too high/low impedence or too inefficient for the N800 output? Maybe your headphone plug/jack is loose? Or maybe you just need to play around a bit with the separate volume controls for the system and the audio app - it's better to keep the system one high and lower the app volume control.

I gave up on solving this issue after my third N800 exhibited the same behavior... My friends N800 is perfectly quiet. If I plug my headphones into his unit, no noise. I've learned to just accept it. At least when there is an active audio stream, the sound is clean. Nokia basically said it's normal (I called them about it). In general, I'm still quite happy with my N800. Rest assured, you don't have a defective unit. I just would't count on this issue getting resolved.

Frank

I am experiencing the same distortion/background noises that you described. It became REALLY annoying when I added a Boostaroo to compensate for the low output volume of the N800. Without the Boostaroo, it is barely noticeable, but then the audio output is marginal. With the Boostaroo, it becomes glaringly obvious. At first I thought the problem was with the Boostaroo, but when I add the Boostaroo to my old MP3 player, things are nice and clean. This is the about the only disappointment I've had with the N800, but it's a fairly important one. If anyone comes up with anything to reduce this probem, please let me know.

Gary Walborn
gwalborn@gmail.com

I noticed an interesting effect today when I plugged my noise-cancelling headphones into the N800. Maybe it has something to do with the background noise that other people have noticed?

Bear with me while I explain the background:

Like all noise-cancelling headphones, mine have a built-in battery-powered amplifier module that applies the noise cancelling effect. They also have a built-in volume control. When the noise-cancelling circuit is switched off, they have very low volume, so I guess that they have very low efficiency without the active amplifier circuit and they are meant to be used exclusively with the circuit switched on. But in general they work just fine with my various portable music players. Their input impedence is nominally 32 ohms, same as most of my other headphones.

So today I plug them into the N800 (noise-cancelling circuit turned off), and I hear the N800 playing at very low volume, as expected. The N800's volume was previously left at the lower setting I normally use with my Sennheiser portable headphones. I turn on the noise-cancelling circuit, and suddenly I get very loud static filling the headphones, with the music still playing at the same low volume in the background. (static = some kind of high-frequency buzzing/crackling interference, not just white-noise hiss)

I adjusted the headphones volume control up and down, and it adjusted the volume of the static, but seemed not to affect the volume of the music, which continued to play at the same low volume in the background as far as I could tell. ???

I adjusted the output volume of the N800 upward, and the static quickly faded into the background and almost disappeared. I was then able to adjust the volume of the music with the headphone volume control as normal. This is not just a linear signal+noise effect though - it's like the background noise is being reduced at the same time as the music is increased in volume, so the effect is much more than expected.

Ok, here's my guess about what's happening:

I'm guessing that the N800 is putting out some strong above-hearing-range HF electrical noise that is interfering with the active circuit in the headphone amp, and somehow that's being translated into noise in the audio spectrum by the noise-cancelling circuit. As the volume of the music increases, the HF noise from the N800 is somehow being decreased at the same time.

Perhaps this effect might also be seen with other types of active headphones that have an amplifier circuit, and maybe with headphones that have very high efficiency.

I've had similar weird sound probs, but it was because my jack wasn't securely plugged in to the N800!

I have a cheap headset that is supposed to be a good sound isolator, and it works great for when I'm jogging and don't want to hear much traffic noise. It's a JVC HA-S350, which cost me about $40 at Fry's. I wouldn't mention it, but I was unhappy with the last few headphones I got, and this is a perfect combination of cheap and effective. It doesn't have batteries, so doesn't do the real sound isolation that more expensive units do. But it works for me.