SANSA 130
You know that I am a music fan having a very
big interest to Asian music, and more particularly
to Malaysian and Indonesian kinds. If you don’t
know you can find more in my main web page
on www.geocities.com/zliangas/malmus.htm
and www.geocities.com/zliangas/dangdut.htm
My small Degen 808A with a memory just 512
MB which today seems to be quite short , has a
maximum number of ca 250 songs compressed
in WMA on 48kbps. This mode this the highest in
order to ensure good quality audio at the shortest
possible file size. Considering that my music col-
lection goes more than 5000 songs , all of them con-
verted from casetes and LPs manually into MP3s
as well form Sw direct to computer, it is sure that
this collection is still too big to fit into this player.
And finally I managed to find a good solution for
this.Looking at the local market I found the Sansa
E130. The SANSA E130 the smallest mdel of the
100 series with 512 MB bought from Multirama
at a price of Eu70 which was possibly theright
price for me. Surely this short memeory does
not impress you , but Sansa as equipment manu-
facturer can offer better products than its rivals
with the same price: the model is expandable to
2.5 GB using an external SD memory. I alerady
had a 2 GB momery tat i used for my Nikon
70 camera and is now dedicated for the player
The model seemed to me as a rival to Ipod, and
was my entry to the new tehnollogy of Ipod likes.
The model seems quite more sophisti-
cated than my previous Degen 808A , 512
MB and my intermediate Crypto of 512 MB.
The Degen 808A has a LED screen and series of
icons navigated by a thumbbutton rightwsards
adn leftwards and selected by pusihng the button
The Crypto (this is the name of the intermediatery
Greek compamy who imports and sells them, not
the OEMs whose name is not evaialble anywhere!)
works nearly the same as the degen model , with a
USB direct connexion , however has been given
immedaitely to my parents after very short for a
special project and has not been tested. It’s main
purpose is to play 24hrs a day in a remote place
The e13o instead shows a menup of operations
from standard playback of MP3s (and WMAs
and other formats which will be noticed below )
 As yoou may see the model is very simple. A LCD screen of ca 1 x 0.7 sq
inch where everything is shown four directivity/ touch-up buttons and a
small button on the middle. On the top side there is a headphone- plug socket
1.9 mm and a USB connector. The connector is preserved with a detach-
able plastic that i have lost it a few houss after i bought it... At the right of
it there is a digital adjusted volume control . At the left side is just key lock
switch and at the right side the socket for the memory and the on/off button.

After i bought it i returned to the office, as it was morning. Trying

to open its very strong plastic packing the player dropped from the
table , but did not happed anything to it. Or just is what i supposed.

From below you will see several pictures of the model . (please notice that the following
pictures come from diferent photo sessions ths is the reason the lighting differs )

As i always use the external card this

Once switched on this picture is shown
, showing the model and the standard
memory:
message is always shown to the player,
during its startup for about 5-10 sec-
onds so that it is quite ennoying to me,
But this time varies according to the changes
made in the external memory. AS far as
i can understand , the player checks the
files and their ID3 tags and renews its data-
base. The least timeis abot 5 seconds and
in case of totally new collection can pass
the minute!!I mean surely for a new collec-
tion of about 1000 songs as i do usually !!

Playbak capabilities: The model pays

and immediately after it shows this mes- : MP3 , WMA and protected WMA . IN
age , in ca se a external memory card is a later version of this article i will in-
inserted: clude more info on these capabilities

Here is a picture of the main menu.

Chinese letters (possibly new writ-
ing ) are corectly shown. I think that
the same happens to my 808A
For anyone knowing the song shown below, one
of my most favourite chinese pop songs and has
excellent excellent melody ! (zaihui shou )I knw
this song since 89 from Singapore having re-
corded it from the local FM station City Sounds.
Radio:
There are two modes for FM region European
and International . I did not found any signifi-
cant diference between both except that the
memories have been deleted!!! another
intresting point is the on/off frm FM stereo.

Power mode is universal determining the

sleep time (when the apparat will be shut off )
and the autio shut off , ie after how much time
the player will shut off ,in case of non usage

Also once again pressing the middle button

some information is shown in the display. The
display is here illuminated. as you can seee
the mode is quite high for Windows Media ,and
info is for the same song as reffered above

The radio is very simple display . A pointer

shows the freq on a bar

Here cantonese letters (posibly older writing)

seems not to be shown

And here is the listing of the stations you

store: Pressing the up down , you move into
presets , with the right or the middle you set
the station. Up to 20 stations can be stored

Also greek letters are correctly shown

Audio effects: SRS wow
SRS is noticed as an audio enhance-
ment , due to losses from the conversion
into MP3 or WMA . I never use it as audio
is severely ‘destroyed . Insetad of this i
could really use the 10 band equalizer ‘

Earphones

The earphones are insulated type and go into

the ear . they offer some less nose then the
standard ear buds, If you push them more in-
side the ear they become more bassy . They
Information: offer good audio but still prefer the 929 from
Degen. These are the earphones from 1103
The informatrion of the model and its ver- and offer better bass and higher trebles
sion ! Now there is a new version but i
have not installed it so far. But there was Favorites
no information on what are the updates ...

The player has ca 30 favorites .For the stand-

ard mode of 500 MB or 140 songs on 128/44
(a total of 505 secs), 30 MP3 as favorites are
OK . However as far as I use it with 48kb
WMA and with external memory of 2 GB ,
or a total of ca 1200 songs , the unchanged
number of 30 favourites is very short

Stopwatch
And there is a stopwatch , I really do not unser-
stand in what it can be used except that is just
a chronometer with 100s of seconf of accuracy
Two observations i did not like:

Power usage: the company says : 17 hours using MP3 on 128 kb. However using it always
on WMA and with external memory of 2 GB an alkaline battery drains in about 6 hours!!

For this reason i have bought a mains to USB adaptor , together with mains cable extension

Volume: still in its maximum the volume is just strong.I found abt 32 steps be-
tweeen minimum and maximum Using the 808A volume is nearly the same on 16-17.

Startup : the time requied to chack up the external memory in order to update the database.

Comments:

Now theis model is my most favourite among all the MP3 s i have used so far even that the model
has sevrel very impoertant flwas as for example the very slow starttup and and the high batery drain
 MEASUREMENTS
And here are several measurements made with it and a audio processing program:

First step : Making a noise file: It is a white noise of duration of 1 minute

A) This is the original WAV file in spectral view , mean levels

this is the audio in linear scale and here is logarithmic biew

The file has been converted into MP3 and WMA giving the curve as below
MP3 128 kb

From the above picture it is clear that the MP3 format in the 128kb compression goes maximum to
18kHZ , that surely lossy but for most ears it is OK. As far as I tested so far my ears can listen to
tones up to 14 kHz
WMA 64 kb

Just look at the bandwidth ! It has a bandstop on 20 kHz

 then transfered to Sansa and played

This is the resulted curves !

LINEAR LOGARITHMIC
WAV file

As is shown , this is no linear curve . Signals drop to 16 db after the 18.5 kHz . However it is still a
linear response for all of us
MP3 128 kb

hmm here you see that it is not a linear curve. All freqs above the 1700 Hz drop by several db.. Is
as like someone is turning down the treble
WMA 64

Instad here the response it quite linear . Just above 19kHz. the linearity drops somehow. and it
ends on the 20,2 khz

WMA has the same linearity as 64 . In contrast , when listened there is some ‘artificiality’ in audio.
If you thinkt that this is too theoretical , i am including here a more real example with only the
results of a song conversion. But the song was quite bassy and came from a cassete

Here is the resulted MP3 file: Uncommonly there

This is the resulted wav MUSIC file
is a bandwidth stop on 15.5 Hz !!!

this is the result of the WMA 48 v file Look at the and here is for the WMA 64 As you see the curve
differences between the WAV and the WMA 48 is nearlay the same with the 48’s !!

Here is the pix- mix between all modes: WAV , MP3 and here is a comparative between WMA and
and WMA as you may see being the WAV as ‘linear’ MP3

THis is the results between the original and the playbacked MP3 file .
Both files have been at first normalized for having the same audio level.
This here can mean that above the 2000 kHZ the response drops up to
10 db
My conclusions :

As it is clear the MP3 format lacks the fidelity WMA offers , and thogh i am generally contrary to this
format , I always use it for its very good capability have very good results with the highest posible compres-
sion. For me the 48 kb WMA is the best compromizse for portability and quanitty

Nowadays my Sansa together with a 2 GB SD memory can keep about 1200 songs , ie more an 100 albums!