[HD2 General] DotWin:
Hello!

I have searched now for several hours in different forums and many threads, but I did not find my specific problems or any solutions to them. Therefore I want to start a new thread.

One thing in advance: I have my HD2 now for about 3 weeks and generally I am very happy with it. Unfortunately, I am experiencing some really bothering problems with music playback, and as this is the second most important feature to me (after telephony), I really hope, that there is some solution out there.

1. According to some Internet pages the integrated music player of the HD2 should be capable of gapless playback of MP3 files since a software update. Well, I have installed the latest 1.66.xx ROM for my device, and unfortunately gapless playback does not work at all. When I am listening to a concert and one track ends and another starts, I always hear a small interruption in the applause. When I play back the exact same tracks on my PC with Winamp everything works fine and both tracks play back to back without any interruption at all. As far as I know Winamp prebuffers approx. 2 seconds and in my opinion for gapless playback the integrated music player of the HD2 should too, but obviously does not.

2. Especially when I am listening to tracks with a quite low volume (e.g. instrumental Soundtrack), I always hear a short "crackling" sound at the transition from one track to the next (or at the beginning of the new track). One forum entry claimed, that this "crackling" sound is caused by the fact, that the HD2 disables the headphones output after approx. 2 seconds of silence and just reactivates it again when there is sound again. The reactivation of the headphones output seems to result in the "crackling" sound.

3. I thought that I can get rid of both problems just by using another player software as alternative, I even bought one of these. I tested "Microfi Nitrogen", "MortPlayer", "Slide 2 Play" and "PocketMusic".

Using the "Cross Fade" mode of "PocketMusic" in fact solved the first two problems effectively, so I got gapless playback without a "crackling" sound between two tracks.

Unfortunately, with all of these alternate players I experienced one even more bothering problem: Every now and then (approx. 1 to 2 times per minute of playback) a short "clicking" sound is audible during playback, which reminds of an scratched vinyl disc. If I rewind the track, the "clicking" sound does not occur at the same position, but at another at a later time. These "clicking" sounds do not occur at all with the integrated music player of the HD2, but with ALL of the mentioned alternate music players I tested. Of course, the "clicking" sounds are audible better, when you are listening to instrumental or classic music with a relatively low volume than with loud Rock or Heavy Metal music tracks.

To avoid the obvious suggestions:

- The problems were already present with the 1.48.xx ROM and are still present with the 1.66.xx ROM.

- I tested several different headphones (cheap and expensive ones) including the original HTC ones which shipped with the HD2.

- I can rule out the MP3s as cause of the problems: There are absolutely no problems with them when they are played back on the PC with Winamp, a Sony-Ericsson phone, an iPod or when played back with the mentioned alternate players on Pocket LOOX N110, N120 (Prototype), 420, N500 and N520.

- It does not matter whether the MP3s are located on the internal memory of the HD2 or the SD card.

- I already tried to disable all data connections on the HD2 and closed all other programs using the Task Manager to avoid any interferences.

- I even performed a Hard Reset without installing additional software or tweaks (except for one of the alternate players).

- I tested "PocketMusic" with all possible settings regarding Cache, Buffer Priority etc..

- It does not matter, whether any Equalizer (if available) are enabled or not.

- I also tested my brother's HD2, and both devices - my own HD2 and my brother's HD2 - show the same problems.

My questions now are:

a) Can anybody verify the "clicking" sounds when using an alternate music player software? If not, which music player software do you use at which settings?

b) Is it possible somehow to disable the interruptions between two tracks with the integrated music player of the HD2 and thus enable true gapless MP3 playback, for example by an undocumented registry setting regarding (pre-)buffer size or Caching?

c) Is it possible to disable the deactivation of the Headphones output after some seconds of silence (which is said to cause the "crackling" sound), so that the Headphones output is always enabled when there is playback using the integrated music player of the HD2, for example by a Registry setting?

Generally, I would love to continue using the integrated music player of the HD2 (which I am doing now anyway, and it looks really nice, by the way), but the missing gapless playback and the "crackling" sound during the transition of tracks is really bothering me very much.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

DotWin