HD5 vs Battery Life?

[broochie]

After turning OFF the sound pressure in the service menu, surely the little machine went down straight to business... WELL KILLING MY EARS yep thats wot is set out to do. BUT now of great concern, is the battery life? l'm astound 2 say the least but honestly 10hrs of battery life is really sumthin else. Actually after about 10hrs, if l'm lucky that is, the battery icon is flashing, yes F L A S H I N G!!! Talk about 40HRS battery, hell yeah , tell me all about it. I should think when the little thingy rolled out of the manufacturing plant(wherever that is) it was set to SP ON hence maybe to achieve that 40hr battery life, but after turning OFF the SP, l think that melts of the battery. COULD THIS BE TRUE?
PS: SP = Sound Pressure

DESPITE THE BATTERY ISSUE, I STILL LOVE U, MY DEARLY BELOVED HD5HS

CHEERS

[shadowritten]

Er ... think I know what you're getting at. Allow me to translate a little:

You're saying that by turning off the SP (Sound Pressure) limiter in the HD5's service menu, you're experiencing greatly reduced battery life. And you think that the only way Sony can justify a 40-hr battery life claim for this product is by applying the EU sound pressure - or volume - limiter.

Not so. Here's something to mull over:

The 40-hr battery life claim (as it says on the very informative packaging, should you choose to read it) supposes you're using 48kbps ATRAC files. Though it doesn't mention this next bit, you should also pre-suppose flat EQ and minimal button operation. Under no circumstances can it be down to the way the Sound Pressure is set to limit volume output for EU countries, as the 40-hr claim is made WORLDWIDE!!

Consider also this: With SP set to ON (i.e. with the unit's volume limited), it's likely that a user would push the volume to the max on a regular basis, therefore using up battery power QUICKER. By turning OFF the volume cap, a user will naturally decrease the average playback volume, and while a little extra juice MAY be used up because of this, overall, he or she should theoretically enjoy LONGER battery life between charges.

Chances are, you either have a faulty battery, or you're using very high bitrate files (and not ATRAC, I'm guessing). The other reason might simply be that you listen at hearing-damaging volumes, and push your player's buttons at an alarmingly frequent rate!

This is not a personal dig at you, mind. Nor is what I've said entirely scientific (as I'm sure others will be quick to point out). It's just how I see it from a standpoint of basic logic.

[Uridium]

Now I don't claim to be an expert i n these matters and my terminology is probably wrong but i'm sure I once read somewhere that if you use head/earphones with "Driven" cones these phones will also draw power from your player - reducing battery life further?

..........Or maybe I just dreamt this?

[broochie]

Alright for a minute there l must say l got a bit confused with my HD5s' battery life. Well imagine the volume limiter turned OFF, volume at maximum & Music E.Q set at Digital Sound Preset(custom 3) where both bass & treble l've set them to maximum right. All these will obviously will quickly exhaust the battery, as a friend juss pointed out this to me. Anyway thank you all for the tips, advice & all.

[KiNeL]

I agree with shadowritten and changing the SP setting will have made but a miniscule difference to the battery consumption if any.

As a rough of benchmark I tested my HD5.

All my files are 128kbs MP3 and with max volume (SP limit turned off of course) and on random play where the HD is having to seek each individual track I get approx. 24 hours from a full charge so either you have a faulty battery or are using ridiculously high bitrates.

The higher the bitrate the bigger the file & the longer the HD has to spin up to read it = shorter battery life.

I believe EQ can make a difference also but I have not personally conducted any tests with it.

[broochie]

[quote=KiNeL]..... so either you have a faulty battery or are using ridiculously high bitrates./QUOTE]
ALL 5096 tracks are encoded at 48kbps & the battery is 2weeks old same as the HD5 itself.

[KiNeL]

So it's not the bitrates then but just because the battery is only 2 weeks old doesn't mean it can't be faulty.

It's also possible that the player or charger has developed a fault and is either draining or not properly charging the battery.

A full charge from flat should take approximately 3 hours from mains or 6 from USB and when completed the icon should show a flash instead of the solid bar.

You should NEVER allow the battery to run completely flat by the way because it is potentially harmful to Lithium cells which, unlike NiCad or NiMah batteries, have no memory effect and are designed to be continually topped up.