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Joined: Oct 25, 2005 Posts: 3 Location: South Wales
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 11:38 pm Post subject: Poor quality speech on 520
I've just bought my first GPS and i decided to go for the Navman ICN-520.
However, i find the quality of the male and female voices that give the directions to be of very poor quality for a unit of this price. I'm actually quite annoyed about it.
I can hear a kind of static hiss just before a voice command, which continues throughout the speech, and ends just after. The female voice got so annoying after two days, i changed it to the male voice which is slightly better. The hissing static makes it sound like both voices have a lisp !!! "In thix hundred feet, take the thecond egthit"
I can't believe i haven't seen anyone else complain about the voices on this forum ?
I also thought i'd have a go at changing the default "boing" sound that notifies you of a camera. I downloaded some wav's files from the net that said "warning, Gatso camera" and "warning, redlight camera" etc etc. I copied the wav files to the MyPOI folder on my SD card, renaming them to gatso.wav and redlight.wav etc etc. I then loaded each camera's ini file and edited the line "soundfile=default.wav" to read "soundfile=gatso.wav" and "soundfile=redlight.wav" and so on.
I went for a drive to test if this worked, and headed for some camera sites i knew of. My lady friend was happily giving me directions along the way "In thix hundred feet take the thirst egthit then continue thraight for thix milthes". As i aproached the first camera, a big grin crossed my face as i heard my 520 announce "warning, gatso camera" (without a lisp i may add ! Well, it is a sperate wav file). Next, i thought i'd head for a redlight camera i knew of, but this is where my problems started. Ever since my new lady friend announced the Gatso warning, my original female companion got extremely jealous and refused to give me vocal directions from that moment on. I approached the redlight camera and was warned again by the new wav files i added, but i cant understand how it totally stopped the original voice directions from working. Anyone have any ideas ?
I have altered the ini files back to "soundfile=default.wav" now and the voithe commandths work fine again, but i would like to have individual voice warnings for the cameras instead of the "boing" sound if anyone has a solution ?
I had to chuckle at your post, I know exactly what you mean with the voice commands. I own a 510 and then bought a 520, but afer a week it died and went back to Navman to be cremated or what ever they do with them once they expire.
I then used the refund to buy a Sony NVX-P1 unit (actually it is a iCN 650 in disguise) and the difference in sound quality is exceptional. The speech is crisper and also much louder than that of the 510 or the 520, and more importantly from your perspective, my new lady freind built into the Sony unit has had ellocution lessons.
Joined: Mar 03, 2004 Posts: 353 Location: "The Green Green Grass of Home"
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject:
Hi
If you go back in the forum back pages, you will find that this topic has been covered.
The sound dose hiss, but you will soon get used to it. Try not turning up the volume on the Navman to make it worse, by purchasing a mobile phone sound amplifier, you can overcome this. They cost about £10 and have a clothes peg type clip that is placed over the Navman speaker to amplify the sound.
Also have a look at this site,
http://www.getoutguide.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/poidownloads/index.htm
Follow the link for the sound files, it will tell you how to go about it without loosing you original voice sound.
Regards
DRP _________________ Sharing information is the key to a better understanding
Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 141 Location: Southampton/Portsmouth
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:06 pm Post subject:
Tony25
I haven't seen the prior entries you mention, nor can I find them. There is no trace of a hiss on my unit at full volume as I sit here in a quite room and the speech clarity is perfect. Is this a 520 problem only that you refer to. _________________ Navman iCN 520
Joined: Mar 03, 2004 Posts: 353 Location: "The Green Green Grass of Home"
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:18 pm Post subject:
Hi ShirleyTemple
I am talking about the latter part of the post; “changing the files”.
With reference to the sound quality. Comparing it to my PDA it is very noisy, with hiss.
Regards
DRP _________________ Sharing information is the key to a better understanding
Joined: Oct 25, 2005 Posts: 3 Location: South Wales
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:03 am Post subject:
ShirleyTemple wrote:
Take it back. Your unit is faulty.
My 510 has no lisp or hiss coming from it's own speaker or when being amplified through 4 speakers on my bike.
It's not faulty..... a mate in work bought one from the local Comet a few days after he saw mine in action (I bought mine off the net) and his has exactly the same problem.
Joined: Oct 25, 2005 Posts: 3 Location: South Wales
Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 1:17 am Post subject:
DRP wrote:
Hi
If you go back in the forum back pages, you will find that this topic has been covered.
The sound dose hiss, but you will soon get used to it. Try not turning up the volume on the Navman to make it worse, by purchasing a mobile phone sound amplifier, you can overcome this. They cost about £10 and have a clothes peg type clip that is placed over the Navman speaker to amplify the sound.
Also have a look at this site,
http://www.getoutguide.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/poidownloads/index.htm
Follow the link for the sound files, it will tell you how to go about it without loosing you original voice sound.
Hi, and thanks for that link !!! I think i'll be downloading and installing all those POI's :D
I downloaded the zip file for the warning sound replacement and i found the following in the Read Me file
Quote:
NOTE to iCN510 users.
--------------------
Although the default file can be replaced, there are reports that after it has given a gatso warning the voice for normal directions stops working requiring the unit to be reset in order for the voice to work again.
That's the exact same problem i have on my 520, so i bet it'll be the same again. I will try these new files tomorrow though and report back
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