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All discussion of the Altmann Tera DAP by Charles Altmann has disappeared over on headfi.org, so I though I would start a discussion thread for any inmates who have this sweet sounding DAP.
Here is the page on Charles Altmann's site: http://www.tera-player.com/
Here is a review on Headphonia: http://www.headfonia.com/altmann-micro-machines-tera-player-review/
Anyone else using this DAP?
Follow Ups:
Hi there, this post is to clarify which kind of DAC chip is used in the Tera-Player, as some nonsense is written with great conviction over at censorama.
Specification of the Tera-Player is on the www.Tera-Player.com website since it has been lauched in 2011:
DAC: NOS Philips R2R with current output, ASRS element and true 16-bit resolution
The Burr-Brown (TI) 8552 was used on the very first Tera-prototype only.
The 8552 is an excellent DAC (nobody had tried before) and I rate it superior to anything that is used in today's DAPs.
However for the Altmann Tera-Player the 8552 was not good enough.
The production Tera-Player uses a NOS Philips R2R DAC, which is further refined with an ASRS filter element on top of the chip (a prerequisite for the Tera's unmatched natural organic sound.
NOS means 'New Old Stock' as this DAC chip is out of production for at least 10 years.
I have a small stock of these chips so I am happy to offer the Tera-Player for some time to come.
Have great week,
Charles :)
--
ALTMANN MICRO MACHINES
http://www.jitter.de
http://www.amm.haan.de
http://www.trumpassist.com
http://www.tera-player.com
http://www.altmann.haan.de
http://www.mother-of-tone.com
Hi Charles,
Thanks for the info. I missed this post when it first appeared, but am glad you could join the discussion on here.
Nirmala
I am selling my Tera. Not because I think any less of its sound, but simply because I want to fund another hobby.
My ad is up here on the Asylum in case someone wants to try out this unique player for less than the now very high retail price:
http://www.audioasylumtrader.com/ca/listing/Headphones/Altmann/Tera/Digital-Audio-Player-Price-Reduced/113742
Just saw this on the Tera website. What is Charles up to now? Is this a new model? The price is 1680 euros, but there is no info about what makes it a "light" version. Also the price on what he is now calling "the legacy standard Tera" is back up to EUR 3360. Never a dull moment in Tera land :)
Charles replied to my email and said, " its just the new Tera, with all the whistles, bells and blings ... "
So I guess it is basically the same unit with the slight improvements he has made recently. Not sure why someone would want to pay twice as much for the "legacy standard" version if he even still sells them.
I wonder if the peace sign is optional :)
Just wanted to report that my new NAD HP50 headphones sound very good....even amazing with the Tera. It drives them easily and brings out the best of the NAD headphones.
They sound even better if I add my iCAN Nano amp, but every headphone I have tried with it sounds better with the Nano...so that is not surprising. The 3D and Bass boost effects on the iCAN amps add something to the sound that is hard to live without once you have experienced it.
But the NAD's also sound great with just the Tera. It is nice to find another full sized headphone that works well straight out of the Tera. And the NAD headphones deserve all of the hype about them. They are very clean, natural sounding headphones. I can't really find any faults when I am listening.
I am always fiddling and I cam across two tweaks to use with the Tera. The first is an external battery pack like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Mophie-Juice-Pack-Powerstation-iPhone/dp/B006L9I43O/ref=pd_sim_cps_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1PYYWSAKKJSFW2AZJ9VXIt is normally used to recharge a cell phone or the like, but someone on Headfi mentioned that their DX90 DAP sounded better with this external battery pack plugged in. So I tried it with the Tera, and the effect is incredibly slight, but I do hear a tightening of the entire frequency. It makes the Tera sound just a hair more powerful. I will say that the difference is so slight that I am not sure I will bother with it. Maybe just when I am settled in in my easy chair for a longer listening session. (Note added: I decided to resell the battery pack on Amazon....the effect was too slight to bother with.)
The other tweak is a strange one and relates back to some old experiments of mine with an Echofone (http://www.head-fi.org/t/278315/echofone-a-super-tweeter-for-headphone-users-or-the-hearing-impaired) and with using two headphones at once for a natural crossfeed effect (http://www.head-fi.org/t/648182/two-headphones-at-once-an-utterly-natural-crossfeed-effect)
As I posted in the thread about two headphones at once, I recently got a used pair of Aftershokz headphones on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Aftershokz-AS301-Wraparound-Headphones-Conduction/dp/B007003J2E/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1399220311&sr=1-4&keywords=aftershokz
They work more like the Echofone in that they transmit sound through the facial bones to your inner ear. They sound pretty crappy by themselves, but I hooked them up to the extra headphone out on the Tera with the left and right channels reversed by using a pair of 1/8" to RCA adapters (one with male plugs and one with all female plugs) with the red plugs hooked to the white plugs to switch the channels.
So, again I am using them off of the extra headphone output on my Tera while the other headphone out feeds my iCAN Nano amp and my JVC HA-FX850 iems, and I listen to both at the same time. The effect is very nice with a bit of very natural crossfeed. I mostly notice a more realistic sounding depth to the image and maybe a bit more instrument separation and also more width to the sound. There is also more of a 3D quality to the sound: without the Aftershokz, the sound is more 2 dimensional and a bit flat. With the Aftershokz, there is more of a sense of say a real 3 dimensional human body singing in front of me. There is also a bit more fullness to the sound.
The other quality is harder to describe, but the Aftershokz do vibrate the skin and bones instead of the ear drum. So when I combine them with my headphones, there is more the sense of involving my body in the experience. It is not the same as when your whole body is vibrated by the bass frequencies at a concert or with a powerful subwoofer, but it still shifts the experience from being totally in my head to feeling a bit more involving of my whole body.
The effect is subtle, but more noticeable than when I was using two regular headphones as described in the rest of the thread on headfi. And it is more noticeable on some songs than others, which may be due in large part because the volume of the Aftershokz is staying the same when I turn up the volume on the Nano amp feeding my regular headphones. So when I turn up the volume on a quieter piece of music the volume of my headphones increases, but the volume of the Aftershokz does not. I can work with this by adjusting volume on the Tera once I find the right balance of the volume on the Tera feeding the Aftershokz and also feeding the Nano amp which then feeds the JVC's. It might be trickier when just using the Tera and might require an external volume control on the line to the Aftershokz to then be able to find the right balance between the volume of the Aftershokz and the regular headphones.
Both of these tweaks are subtle and require more cables and trouble overall, but I love fiddling like this, and it is great fun when the sound just falls in place and sounds more live and real. These two tweaks are probably not worth it for most people, but I just enjoy trying new things out.
I will also mention that I sometimes enjoy using the TDS202 with the Tera when feeding an external amp as described here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/654405/ican-amp-review-a-new-amp-that-gives-you-more-more-bass-more-soundstage-and-more-detail/30#post_9262014
The TDS202 seem to be out of them on Amazon but you might be able to catch a used one showing up on Amazon or ebay. It is not very expensive and is worth trying out, IMHO.
Edits: 05/05/14 05/05/14
My regards to all here, and apologies for leaving things hanging for a while. I'm traveling rarely subservient to the computer. ONE MORE GOOD REASON TO LOVE TERA!!!!!
I feel Tera was killed on HeadFi due a post I made the day it was terminated. I apologize and deeply regret the fact that members of an exclusive club of owners now suffer such an indignity. I also sympathize with all of those who now need a great forum to share user experiences and so forth.
Without overdoing my limited typing skills or computer impatience, I would like to recount what happened and then all of you scratch your heads... it does not actually clarify much, but here goes...
I found it possible to pay a personal visit to Charles the day before the post. I had met him before when I picked up my Tera personally. I realize this is such a small product in the grand scheme of things, but really It does amaze me that this inventor and engineer has made what remains arguably the reference standard for portable sound quality. I have not mentioned my having met Charles to many members of our community, but I now feel it important to reveal that he is , in fact accessible and quite ready to enjoy music, beer, and ouzo all in substantial quantity.
How intriguing it is to me that a one man operation could achieve this! And then curiosity led me to know more about such an operation, so I was just looking for an excuse to visit!
Just to answer the obvious I will say in advance that workshop Tera is every bit the product of a creative mind, and that I felt like I was on the set of some "back to the future 5" movie set!
Having deliberated the benefits of rebuilding the Rolls Royce transmission as opposed to converting it to electric power, I had the opportunity to help move those tranny parts out from under the jacked up Rolls and take them to the garage. Yep, there's a Rolls up in the air at Charles ' place, and it looks surprisingly normal once you have adjusted to the vibe.
None of this was recounted at HeadFi. Since my post was deleted, I can only recollect saying that Charles was still producing, but rather dismayed by the focus on consumer features over ultimate sound quality. I believe I said something to this effect, but the primary focus was just to say that I had personally spent time talking to Charles. My intention was to gauge interest before I wore my fingertips off typing.
Well, the interest was interesting indeed! Within hours the post was deleted, and a few hours later the entire thread shut down. I'm gathering on this thread that now the entire history has been erased.
Without defending any party, I will say that the HeadFi administrator courteously informed me that he had endured much unseen / edited pain from various people and felt the need to seek shelter. The reality is that this is something we have to take on face value.
I did not sense that I had personally offended anyone at HeadFi, but that simply stoking interest in Tera was objectionable, and really I just don't know how anyone interested in Audio equipment wouldn't find the Tera phenomenon to be pertinent and belonging on that forum?
I apologize in advance if I cannot be a prolific forum poster. I'm in Brazil for the night and now theres a band playing at OMalleys in Sao Paulo tonight. Priorities, you know...
I saw your post that day. Charles was banned from Headfi, and the moderators over there have a rule that you cannot quote a banned member on the site. I once quoted some technical information about headphone impedance from a webpage that unknown to me at the time was created by a banned member, and my post was removed. So that is why your post was removed.
But there was also a long history with problems on the Tera threads on headfi, including Charles himself joining in with, how should I say this, less than polite interactions.
It seems to me that they over-reacted by removing even the older posts that had been up there for a long time, but in the end it is their own website, so they get to call the shots. Here is a long and thoughtful essay about how free speech does not extend to private homes and businesses: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/09/free-speech-in-online-communities-the-delusion-of-entitlement/
The essay suggests that when you visit an online forum, you are like a guest in someone's home and if they don't like your behavior, they can ask you to leave. Of course someone running an online forum would also have to weigh the effect of banning someone, as eventually you may lose participants if you are too draconian in your enforcement of the rules. But bottom line is the owners of the Headfi site get to call the shots on their own site.
Yes, I also recount that the issue with my post was simply in what appeared to be quoting a banned member, in that by quoting such a member the ban would be rendered meaningless. I did not attempt to convey the words of Charles, but did wish to let the curious owners what might be happening with their favorite gadget.
All this is rather enlightening, as I have learned that forums are in actuality privately owned and that the free advertising and publicity they bring comes with a cost. That cost might have been courteous, even keeled and diplomatic behavior. Such steadfast temperament is the hallmark of serious restraint in the face of unbridled and uninformed criticism on the forums. The Catch-22 here is that it takes a renegade engineer to create such a thing as Tera, and then it would take the most calm and savy marketing department to make it an actual success. In effect, Tera would not exist without the unconventional Charles, yet could only succeed with the staid conformity of vanilla salesmen.
Owners here probably have noted other Tera conundrums; I personally find Tera an anachronistic contradiction, which is a huge part of the intrigue! Most buyers are not looking for intrigue and just want to be told what is best. Tera' s best quality is the most difficult to explain, impossible to measure, and completely unknown to mass consumers : realistic sound quality.
It is perplexing to guess who could have handled such a multitude of marketing dilemmas, and when I spoke with Charles, he fully explained that the production costs are very high and not likely to fall to prices compatible with the market. This would seem the primary contradiction to be overcome in order for Tera to financially succeed. I truly share with him the dismay at how such an achievement has been made as the Tera and then it is impossible to capitolize on its amazing sound quality. I'm unqualified to comment, but Charles remains confident that the current AK and other similar technologies will yield progressively fancier and more expensive products, but never quite touch what he has alone made in portable sound quality!
To become isolated and ostracised in the process instead of rewarded must sting. From what I could see, the personal attacks on him were quite real as well. Often his nay sayers never actually heard the Tera and never really thought of the costs of design and production. Arguing with such graffiti proved detrimental immediately.
Frankly I find it ironic that at HeadFi, arguably the premier site for audiophiles, nobody would listen. Charles' assumption that the sound quality alone could overcome its techie limitations proved false: it was hardly even heard. Listeners could not because Tera was not available, and even then listened with their eyes and wallets. Charles could hear the sound, but not the market grumbles and rumbles without creating his own noise. In the resultant melee, the sweet and true voice of Tera was lost.
m
It is often true that the creator of a product or service is not always the best person to bring it to market. Unless Charles wants to license the technology to another manufacturer, the Tera will probably remain as a very small niche product.
Hey everybody.... I'm happy to have been directed here, and sorry to see the end at HeadFi.
I have info to post, as I was there at the end of that thread and feel rather involved in that demise.
That said, I'm trying to figure out the navigation of this site and this may take a few stray stabs!
Nirmala, thx for coming to get me, and Hey HiFlight great to see you're here !
--Mike
If you care to share what happened to the Tera threads on Headfi, that is fine. But if not, that is fine too.
Hey everybody.... I'm happy to have been directed here, and sorry to see the end at HeadFi.
I have info to post, as I was there at the end of that thread and feel rather involved in that demise.
That said, I'm trying to figure out the navigation of this site and this may take a few stray stabs!
Nirmala, thx for coming to get me, and Hey HiFlight!
--Mike
With large side SD cards holding hundreds of albums, it becomes a chore to remember what you have on each album and details of the album.
Many Tera haters mention the need for a player to have a display showing the album info to help navigate the hundreds of albums and they have a point.
In the other threads on headfi.org someone came up with the idea that we can create your own voice recording to help navigate the albums.
This is my implementation of this idea:
To create an audio name of the album, I use Audio Recorder 3.2 by Ben Shanfelder (freeware) on my Mac. Link at bottom.
1. Created a preset for ease of use called "For Tera Player Tag"
2. The preset is for Apple Lossless M4A, with stereo channel and sample rate 44.1kHz. Need to set to 44.1 or it won't work
3. Use XLD to convert into WAV format (or whatever you use to convert to WAV)
4. Save as last file in album. Since songs usually (after auto conversion) start with the header 01, 02 etc, using any alphabet name of WAV file will put file at the end of list already.
When you move to a new album, you press back and hear your own voice announcing the name of the album and whatever you wish to add as well. If you don't press anything, the album plays as normal.
That's it. Hope it helps!
What a great idea! Personally, I always listen in random mode, so I do not need to know which album is which. I like being surprised by what song comes on next, and not thinking about selecting the next song. I just let the Tera do it for me.
Edits: 05/02/14
Has anybody you know compared the Tera to the AK240? Very curious to know the result.
Mark
I would be curious also to hear a comparison. But I doubt I will ever have the $2400 to either buy an AK240, or god forbid, replace my Tera.
Still, inquiring minds want to know...
Glad to be here! ..... !!!!!
Thx for the nudge!
Hello Teraphiles,
Glad to be here with you all!
Mark
Thanks for joining in!
http://www.inearspace.co.uk/inearspace/Altmann_Tera_Player.html
Another happy Tera-Player owner here. I think I bought #7. I continue to be amazed by the sound of this little jewel.
Hi HiFlight! Nice to see you on here, and hopefully this asylum will be a place we can discuss our further adventures in Tera firma.Here is my current setup with Tera> iCAN Nano> FBI Silver cable> JVC HA-FX850 (the JVC's by the way were recommended to me by Hiflight and also sound amazing straight out of the Tera)
Edits: 04/29/14
Happy to be here as well. Hopefully Charles will join us.
Tera is the most amazing gadget I have ever had the pleasure of owning. Still completely blown away by both the SQ as well as the beautiful simple design. Best purchase ever.
Charles wrote back and in response to my invitation to join this discussion, he said, "Will do so as time allows, many orders right now ..."
Glad to hear his business is busy. I wonder how many Tera's he sells now at the higher price.
Here is a copy of some posts over on Headfi about how to have perfectly random playback on the Tera. I am reposting it here in case this info also gets removed from Headfi: (Note: There is word that Charles has updated the algorithm used in more recent Tera players. You can probably check with him to see if your unit has the new algorithm. If a Tera is using the newer algorithm, then the instructions below become irrelevant. The new algorithm by itself should do a pretty good job of playing music randomly.)Many of the older Tera players out there use an algorithm that does not create evenly distributed random playback. After a lot of experimentation some of us came up with a system that adjusts for the algorithm on these older Teras and creates perfectly even selection of songs in random play.
Here is a new set of rules that work at every level on the older Teras (root, artist and album) to create perfectly random selection of songs:
1-If there are 1-4 folders or tracks in a particular folder, then add exactly 4 empty folders to that folder, and use numbers (00001, 00002, 00003...00010, 00011, etc.) to name the empty folders so they come before all other folders/tracks (this rule for numbering empty folders applies to all of the following rules).
2-If there are 5-8 folders or tracks in a a particular folder, then add exactly 8 empty folders.
3-If there are 9-16 folders or tracks, then add exactly 16 empty folders
4-If there are 17-32 folders or tracks, then add exactly 32 empty folders
5-If there are 33-64 folders or tracks, then add exactly 64 empty folders
6-If you have more than 64 folders or tracks at any level, then it is best to rearrange your music so that you have 64 or less at each level. This is because Tera is limited to 128 folders/files so you cannot add 128 blank folders to a folder with 65-128 real folders.
NOTE: You can stop here. If you just apply the first 6 rules to every folder on your card including the root folder, then you will experience a huge improvement in the randomness on the Tera...probably 90% of the possible improvement. The last two rules are only important if you want perfectly random playback of every song on the card.
7-For perfect randomness, all folders at the same level of organization should be in the same range: i.e. all artist folders should have either 1-4, 5-8, 9-16, 16-32 or 32-64 real album folders, and all album folders should have either 1-4, 5-8, 9-16, 16-32, or 32-64 real songs. Do not combine ranges at the same level. It is OK to have different ranges at different levels: i.e the root folder can have 32-64 artist folders in it and then all artist folders can have 1-4 album folders in them and that will still work. I would suggest dividing the folders/tracks in any folders with unusually high numbers of folders/tracks to bring them down to the range you plan to use at that level. Again this rule only matters if you want the randomness to be perfectly distributed across all of the songs.
8-Exception to rule 7: If your folders on the same level have contents that cross two of the lower ranges, then you can just use the higher range's number of empty folders. For example, if you have album folders with a wide range of say 3-16 tracks, then just add 16 empty folders to all album folders, and all of the tracks will have the same odds of playing. Or if instead you happen to have just a few very large albums with more than 16 tracks, then again I would suggest you divide them into two or more smaller album folders with 16 or less tracks each to bring them more in range with the other albums on your card.
If you play with the spreadsheet here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/4ou0peka1tfk5no/Tera%20randomness.xls?token_hash=AAFBcsNmH6py0EGM_Rxw_CyzgJhjIYk6iJG5I79pjMwpIA&dl=1 (created by Suicidal_Orange), you will see that these rules always create a perfectly even selection of all of the "real" folders and also all of the "real" tracks at each level on your card. However, again I will point out that to have perfectly even randomness, you need to stay in the same range for all folders at each level: root, artist and album. You do not need to understand the mechanics, but if you follow the rules above and keep each level in the same range (i.e. all artist folders have say 1-4 real album folders and therefore 4 empty folders, and all album folders have say 9-16 real tracks and therefore 16 empty folders) then the randomness will be perfectly even throughout your card. Or just follow rules 1-6 and the randomness will be pretty much even across the whole card with only a few slight exceptions - the randomness will still be something like 90% better overall than it would be without adding empty folders at all.A couple of extra notes:
1-The root folder can have any number of real artist folders (except above 64) as it does not have to be similar to another root folder, because obviously there is only one root folder. Once you add the correct number of blank folders to the root folder, then all artist folders will be selected evenly in randomness. (And it may be obvious, but if there is only one artist folder in the root, then no need to add any empties, but for 2 or more artist folders, follow the rules above.)
2-When using blank folders as place holders, they should be named/numbered as follows 00001,00002,00003...00010,00011,00012, etc, so that they are sure to be arranged before any other folders/tracks on the card. This works as long as none of your tracks have a name that starts with more than 3 numbers. Note that the Tera does not always see folder names in the order your computer sees them so a song that is named "03-name of song" may appear before a folder named 00004 on your computer but not on the Tera.
3-Having all of these blank folders in there does not seem to increase the time between tracks. The Tera seems to just keep very rapidly selecting until it finds a song, and it does not seem to take any longer than it used to between tracks (except maybe very occassionally, it will take a little longer to select a song).
4-The extra folders also do not seem to interfere with ordinary navigation. When you skip to the next artist folder or album folder using the navigation buttons, the Tera just skips to the next real folder. In other words, you never need to manually skip through 16 or 32 blank folders to get to the next one.
5- It speeds all of this up if you create 16 or 32 blank and properly numbered folders in a folder on your computer's desktop. Then you can copy and paste the blank folders as needed into each folder on your card. It would obviously take a lot longer to manually create 16 or 32 new folders one at a time in each folder on your card, and since you may need to add the same large number of empty folders to lots of folders, copy and paste is definitely the way to go.
6-I used to think the first folder had to have a song in it for the Tera to start playing, but with empty folders instead of short silent tracks (which I tried first) as place holders, the Tera just skips ahead to the first folder with a song in it.
7- Avoid having real tracks mixed with real folders at any level, as this will mean those tracks will be selected much more often than the tracks in one of the folders. Best to stick with the Artist/Album/Track system of organization like that in iTunes so that all the actual WAV file songs are in an album folder, and to avoid having WAVs in your root folder or in an artist folder.
I will report that with my card setup according to these rules, I am now hearing lots of songs I have not heard in a very long time. I have been skipping through a lot of music to see if I can see any patterns, and so far I can't sense any pattern or emphasis on certain music. I also have not experienced any repeats of songs that I have already heard that same day or the day before which used to happen often (up to 7 or 8 times in a single listening session) before I figured this stuff out. It really seems now like I have a card with 2500 songs on it, instead of seeming like a card with 200-300 very familiar songs on it. Of course the old familiar songs still come up, but I would say they are maybe one in ten of the songs I hear which is about right. After all, they are part of the random selection process along with all of the music I used to hear less often.
Maybe we can call these the Rube Goldberg Rules for Randomness. Let me know how they work for you. And a big thank you to Suicidal_Orange. It was his spreadsheet that allowed me to figure out an approach that works without having to have an exactly even number of songs or albums in all folders, or other awkward limitations.
The above is based on how the original Tera selects songs randomly. It uses a random number generator to come up with three 8-bit random numbers: one for the artist folder, one to select an album folder and one to select the particular track. The Tera can have up to 128 folders/tracks at each level: root, artist and album, but the random number generator creates random numbers between 0 and 255. So there is an algorithm that first checks if there is a match. But if there is no match because the number is higher than the actual number of tracks/folders, then it drops one bit which is roughly equal to dividing by 2. Then it checks again for a match, but if there is no match it keeps dividing by 2 until a match is made.
So if there are 16 tracks and the Tera creates a random number of say 88, there is no match. So it tries 44...still no match. Then 22....still no match. Finally 11 and there is a match and track 11 plays. The problem is that this tends to always select the higher numbers before the lower numbers as they catch the process before the division gets to the lower numbers. So the low numbered tracks only play when there is a direct match, i.e. when the original number is a match. The higher number folders/tracks are therefore selected up to 63 times more often than lower numbered tracks (usually 15-31 times more often). You can see this by playing with the spreadsheet linked to in the previous post which shows the distribution of random selections when there are a specific number of folders/tracks (just enter different numbers in the black box to see how this affects the results).
The rules above compensate for this tendency to select higher numbers by inserting blank folders in front of the existing tracks and folders, so that all of the real tracks and folders are now in the higher numbers that get selected more often.
Here is how it works in real life using my own 128 GB card as an example:
I currently have 16 real artist folders along with 16 empty artist folders in the root folder of my card. This means that according to the spreadsheet, each real artist folder is selected 15 out of 256 times or about 5.9% of the time. The 16 blank folders are in positions 1-16 so according to the spreadsheet, they each get selected 1 out of 256 times or about .39% of the time per empty folder. So the empty folders are selected about 6.2% of the time in total (16 x .39%). If I had 10 real artist folders, they would still each get selected 5.9% of the time for a total of 59% of the time, and the empties would be selected the other 41% of the time. When an empty artist folder is selected, it does not matter what album or track is selected, since there are no albums or tracks in the empty artist folders. It seems the Tera just starts over with another set of three 8-bit random numbers when that happens.
Then I have an average of 11 real album folders (varies between 8 and 13) in each artist folder along with 16 empty album folders. Again each real album folder gets selected 5.9% of the time when its parent artist folder is selected. So with an average of 11 folders, a real album folder gets selected about 65% of the time and one of the empty folder gets selected the other 35% of the time.
Then each real album folder has 12-16 real tracks (average 14) along with 16 empty folders. Same thing happens when a particular album folder is selected, there is a 5.9% chance that each particular song would be selected also. And on average about 17% of the time one of the empty folders I have in with the tracks gets selected instead and the Tera starts over.
You put this together and each individual track of approx 2500 songs on the card has a 5.9% x 5.9% x 5.9% chance of being selected or about a .02% chance of playing. Every time the Tera selects, then every song on the card has a fresh .02% chance of playing, just like every time on the roulette wheel the red is about 50% odds even if it has come up 10 times in a row previously.
With 2500 songs, this means an actual song is selected on the card about 50% of the time (2500 x.02%). The other 50% of the time the Tera ends up in an empty folder and has to try again. But on each new selection, even after an empty folder has been selected, then each and every song once more has an equal .02% chance of being selected on the new try. Thus perfect randomness in the actual playback. And of course perfect randomness is not like shuffle play where every track plays once before any repeats. Random means random on every selection and so any song could actually come up twice in a row, although at .02% the odds are very low. I used to hear the same song twice in a row often on my Tera, and even more often twice in one listening session. Now with the empty folders added to my card, I have not had that happen even once in several days.
Edits: 05/01/14 05/01/14
There is word that Charles has updated the algorithm used in more recent Tera players. You can probably check with him to see if your unit has the new algorithm. If a Tera is using the newer algorithm, then the instructions in the post above become irrelevant. The new algorithm by itself should do a pretty good job of playing music randomly.A while back on Headfi, I shared what Charles was thinking of doing with the new algorithm. I am not sure if he did use the one he told me about, but here it is again:
Charles is working on another algorithm. This one takes the random number and divides it by the number of tracks/files. Results of the division are discarded and then any remainder is used to select the track or folder. (i.e. with 22 tracks and a random number generated of 135: 135 divided by 22 is 6 with a remainder of 3. So track #3 would be selected.) Sounds to me like it should work much better, although there still might be a slight weighting. However, it would be many orders of magnitude less than the weighting of the current algorithm. For example with 100 folders, some would get 2 out of 256 selections and some would get 3 out of 256 selections, or with 20 folders, some would get 12 out of 256 and some would get 13 out of 256. Still pretty random especially compared to the current algorithm, and it would be perfectly random anytime it was selecting a folder/track out of a group that has 2,4,8,16,32,64 or 128 folders/tracks.
Edits: 05/01/14
Too much alleged promotion of a product? Don't know anything about the problem(?).
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
I don't know what speicifically happened that pushed the moderators over the edge, but instead of just blocking further discussion, they removed almost all of the threads about the Tera.
Both Charles Altamann and the Tera seem to stir up a lot of controversy.
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