4th Gen Nano, Left/Right randomly backwards?

[Sugarfried]

I've owned many iPods over the years, too many to count.

This one has a unique problem: left and right are backwards, but only once in a while.

I noticed it when I was listening to a track that I'm working on. The frame of reference was off. I checked it in the actual file (in the studio) and left and right were backwards from what was recorded.

But here's the weird part: Later in the same day it was back to normal.

So I thought I was nuts, and I asked a friend/co-worker to check it out. He did, and he noticed the same thing. Not only was it wrong, but then it made itself correct again.

It has since gone on for the past couple weeks (basically since I bought it), and it's annoying, to say the least.

Has anyone else experienced this problem/phenomenon?

As a sound guy / studio recording engineer this is troublesome. Before I return it I wanted to find out if anyone has heard about this.

Is this some new feature Apple added without telling anyone (again)?

I certainly hope this is a one-off error.

[Sugarfried]

Update.

I called a friend with the same make and model (4th gen Nano, 16 gig). He verified that it is happening with his too.

It seems to happen when the iPod is powered down (sleep mode). When it wakes up the channels are reversed. Power it back down again, wake it up after 10-15 seconds, channels are reversed again.

This is odd.

Anyone else notice this?

[eqblues]

Originally Posted by Sugarfried

It seems to happen when the iPod is powered down (sleep mode). When it wakes up the channels are reversed. Power it back down again, wake it up after 10-15 seconds, channels are reversed again.

This is odd.

Anyone else notice this?

Thats weird, I hadnt noticed that. But Ill check it out tomorrow and see if I have that same bug. Thanks for the heads up. It seems these Nanos are more buggy than I expected.

[jasoncordelle]

Doesn't surprise me at all - Apple are so good at adding features and going for the "wow" factor without getting all of the bugs out before release.

[Hebjam]

Yep, bought mine yesterday and it was reversed until i did a restore... we'll see

[kylo4]

This story was just posted on Gizmodo and cited this thread as a reference. It is a problem, bug fix on the way will be needed then.

[1138]

This is actually I problem I've had with my 3rd gen nano. Same problem, same situation, same solution. Power down, then turn it on again, problem solved. Shame they haven't fixed it with the next gen.

[Buzzkilld]

Man, mine too. Must be all of them. Most people don't pay attention as it's hard to tell. Bad Apple.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Buzzkilld

Most people don't pay attention as it's hard to tell.

That, I'll have to support. I can give you a number of repeatable bugs I've ran into with the 4G but, while I'm sure it's happened, I've not noticed channels swapping once.

[Buzzkilld]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

That, I'll have to support. I can give you a number of repeatable bugs I've ran into with the 4G but, while I'm sure it's happened, I've not noticed channels swapping once.

http://www.eminent-tech.com/music/multimediatest.html

Download the left and right 500mhz test tones. Add them and play them a few times, turn the player on and off and repeat. The left will play from the right and so on.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Buzzkilld

http://www.eminent-tech.com/music/multimediatest.html

Download the left and right 500mhz test tones. Add them and play them a few times, turn the player on and off and repeat. The left will play from the right and so on.

I don't doubt that it happens, I'm just saying I've never (and never will) noticed it. I find it semi-impressive that anybody would know a piece of music *that* well that you'd consciously notice something like the bass guitar in song X being on the left instead of the right or the string section being to the right instead of the left. I can probably recognise more than 20,000 of the 30,000 or so tracks in my library after just a few seconds of listening, but I sure couldn't tell you which side the different instruments are placed.

[Buzzkilld]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

I don't doubt that it happens, I'm just saying I've never (and never will) noticed it. I find it semi-impressive that anybody would know a piece of music *that* well that you'd consciously notice something like the bass guitar in song X being on the left instead of the right or the string section being to the right instead of the left. I can probably recognise more than 20,000 of the 30,000 or so tracks in my library after just a few seconds of listening, but I sure couldn't tell you which side the different instruments are placed.

Gotcha. I agree. This is the reason more people are not complaining about this bug. Most music has equal presence in left and right tracks. Odd songs or live music would be more noticeable I guess.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Buzzkilld

Most music has equal presence in left and right tracks. Odd songs or live music would be more noticeable I guess.

I don't even know about that depth of explanation. For example, right this second I'm listening to "Modern Dance" by Lou Reed. There's sort of a nearly acoustic with electric pickup guitar on the right and a distorted electric guitar to the left. The two channels are distinctly different, but is this how it sounded the last time I heard it? How it was recorded? I couldn't tell you. My mind just doesn't focus on the specific orientation of the channels. Or taking your comments about live music,: I've got nearly 3,000 Grateful Dead tracks in my library, most of them live, and I even saw them live a bunch of times, but I'll be damned if I'd notice a swap in the channels even though their stage setup never changed much and I've heard their live music several thousand times by now in headphone setups where the channels are distinct. I think it would have to be a song chanting "on your right" in the right channel and "on your left" in the left channel getting swapped for me to notice

Is it technically a problem I hope they fix? Yup.

Is it a problem that will ever bother most people? Nope.

[Buzzkilld]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

I don't even know about that depth of explanation. For example, right this second I'm listening to "Modern Dance" by Lou Reed. There's sort of a nearly acoustic with electric pickup guitar on the right and a distorted electric guitar to the left. The two channels are distinctly different, but is this how it sounded the last time I heard it? How it was recorded? I couldn't tell you. My mind just doesn't focus on the specific orientation of the channels. Or taking your comments about live music,: I've got nearly 3,000 Grateful Dead tracks in my library, most of them live, and I even saw them live a bunch of times, but I'll be damned if I'd notice a swap in the channels even though their stage setup never changed much and I've heard their live music several thousand times by now in headphone setups where the channels are distinct. I think it would have to be a song chanting "on your right" in the right channel and "on your left" in the left channel getting swapped for me to notice

Is it technically a problem I hope they fix? Yup.

Is it a problem that will ever bother most people? Nope.

I guess everyone has different processes when it comes to listening to music. For me I pay attention to which sides certain sounds come out of. I hear a cymbal come out of the wrong side, it makes me think.

I do agree this will not bother 85% or more of people thought.

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by Buzzkilld

I guess everyone has different processes when it comes to listening to music. For me I pay attention to which sides certain sounds come out of. I hear a cymbal come out of the wrong side, it makes me think.

Absolutely, this is why people prefer and/or tolerate all manner of bitrates below the point of transparency. I hear compression artifacts in cymbals below bitrates in the 170-192 kbps range. Drives me bonkers to notice them, but obviously based on the success of iTunes reaching the number one music retailer throughout much of the world - with most of their music encoded well below that transparency cutoff - this is not something most people either notice or care about.