I own a 1st generation Chumby, which I use almost exclusively to listen to Internet radio and Pandora, etc., via Wi-Fi, and piped into my home stereo. I recently bought a T301 as a replacement for the Chumby because I figured it would be more versatile and easier to use. And it is. But I discovered two audio problems that may force me to look for a different device to replace the Chumby.
The first seems to be due to an odd design in the headphone jack circuitry. If you plug in headphones, the speakers on the tablet turn off, as you would expect. But if instead you plug in an audio cable to send the sound to your stereo amplifier, the T301 speakers remain on!? Normally on almost any audio device I can think of the internal speakers get turned off when a plug is inserted into the headphone jack because there is a mechanical disconnect in the jack to do that.
But on the T301, it appears that the internal speakers only get turned off by some logic circuit that detects the resistance load of the headphones. The stereo input doesn't look like headphones to the tablet, so the speakers stay on. The problem this creates when you are piping the sound to a stereo is that there is a noticeable delay in the sound coming from the tablet speakers and the external stereo speakers. So you are always hearing an echo.
The second problem is that by doing a side-by-side comparison to the sound quality delivered by the Chumby and the T301, the Chumby is definitely better balanced. It delivers a pleasing bass along with the highs, whereas the Cruz seems to be missing most of the bass and sounds more tinny.
So, maybe someone has an answer or work-around for these problems, or maybe this information will be helpful to someone considering the T301 for a similar purpose.
The first seems to be due to an odd design in the headphone jack circuitry. If you plug in headphones, the speakers on the tablet turn off, as you would expect. But if instead you plug in an audio cable to send the sound to your stereo amplifier, the T301 speakers remain on!? Normally on almost any audio device I can think of the internal speakers get turned off when a plug is inserted into the headphone jack because there is a mechanical disconnect in the jack to do that.
But on the T301, it appears that the internal speakers only get turned off by some logic circuit that detects the resistance load of the headphones. The stereo input doesn't look like headphones to the tablet, so the speakers stay on. The problem this creates when you are piping the sound to a stereo is that there is a noticeable delay in the sound coming from the tablet speakers and the external stereo speakers. So you are always hearing an echo.
The second problem is that by doing a side-by-side comparison to the sound quality delivered by the Chumby and the T301, the Chumby is definitely better balanced. It delivers a pleasing bass along with the highs, whereas the Cruz seems to be missing most of the bass and sounds more tinny.
So, maybe someone has an answer or work-around for these problems, or maybe this information will be helpful to someone considering the T301 for a similar purpose.
