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VAM3 Music Wow/Flutter - Pitch Shift

billyjk
over 5 years ago

After using my VAM3 with TWS earbuds for well over a year, I've become familiar with occasional/intermittent drop-outs - actually quite rare for me.

In the past week, during my runs listening to music to control my cadence, I get a bit of drop-outs, followed by some underlying static.  All that is OK and understandable.  But on the past few runs, the music actually begins to pitch shift, what we used to call "wow and flutter" back in the analog days.  WTF?  It can recover a bit, then it gets worse.

I figure that the BT connection between the VAM3 and my earbuds is losing some data related to speed/tempo, and it's searching around.  Sounds awful.

Has anyone here noticed the same?

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Today, I went on a run with a different pair of TWS earbuds - exact same problem.  It's the VAM3 that is causing this issue.

    So, I guess I am the only one who has seen this on this Garmin forum??

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I think I am going to wipe/reset the watch, and reinstall my stuff.

    I'll report back in the event it helps someone else.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    The exact same problem still persists.  I tried different earbuds - still the same.

    I am a few months beyond my 1 year warranty.  Sucks.

    $130 to repair or replace.

    Think it's time to just buy a better brand.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    So I am back here to offer a PSA - I think I figured this out.

    I was able to determine that this issue is related to bitrate.  I have songs on my VAM3 that were sampled at high bitrate - 320kbps, and some others that randomly were lower - 192kpbs.  In testing inside my house (sheltered-in-place), I did a/b testing between songs at these different bitrates standing far from my watch - right at the edge of losing the BT connection - thereby in that same edge space I am in at times when running.

    The result was that I could reliably make songs at 320 begin to change pitch (about a 1/2 step) up and down by standing in that zone where the BT signal cut/in and out a bit.  Conversely, songs at 192 certainly did the same cutting-out when distant from the watch, but the pitch did not shift.

    It may be the case that when the BT signal is on the edge with a 320kbps song  - cutting-out a bit, that BT needs to transmit a lot more data, it can't, and it drops data.  Sometimes those songs go up/down in pitch, sometimes they briefly speed up/slow down in tempo.

    I took one of my 320kbps songs and down-sampled it to 192.  In the house, it plays perfectly when at a distance.  I will test again on a run tomorrow.  But it's likely to behave just like my in-home testing.

    Lastly, research on this topic surfaced limited info, and much of it was more than a decade old - not related to smartwatches.  Turns out that when this issue does happen with audio gear, the fault is found with sub-par BT hardware.  This may be the case with Garmin watches as well.

    Again, just wanted to share with other Garmin owners.

    -bk

    Keywords: pitch shift, slow, slowing down, audio

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Well, I thought it was bitrate.  Turns out it's not.  I had plenty of pitch shift on my run today on songs that were down-sampled.

    The only cause left is that the VAM3 BT hardware is sub-par.  Plain/simple.  Crappy hardware, and for me, I am outside of my warranty period.

    Great...