"Killing noise of death"

I tried to encode my MP3 file with a 256 Kps bitrate for a better quality, but i'm almost dead now :D ! I was listening to a really really good song, seated on my best armchair, when i used the fast forward (tapping the middle of the pad, then sliding down) and at this moment the fast forward became crazy and i heard... the "killing noise of death" ( "le bruit de la mort qui tue", for the French-speakers ), and i'm half-deaf now ! I had to reset the player because nothing could work, and i re-tried (but without headphones on my ears, sure !) and i had the same problems with all the 256 Kps files ! I re-encoded them with a lower bitrate (192 Kps) and all work great now. I don't know if someone had experimented the same thing, but be careful with using high bitrate/fast forward !

oh my goodness! i won't try :P

I've had this happen a few times, but never was it with a high bitrate (192kbps). First time it happened was when I paused it and then lowered the volume from 15 to 5 and when I resumed play for about a second it was at around 25 but then shot down to 5. The other times it was the way you described, but like I said it wasn't a large bitrate. Hasn't accured since about firmware 2.0 though.

I got a short killingnoise at the end of a file.

Me too, weird noises at the end of some music files. There is two types I have observed at the end of song:

1. a sudden, loud screech, like a car tyre breaking very hard.
2. the continuous repetition of the END of the song (the last 0.5 seconds or so), for about 4 times, then it will switch to the next song.

Weird... but I have never really used fast-fowarding on M6, guess I won't be using it then :D

I use to get a really loud screech at the end of one mp3. The latest firmware seems to have fixed this problem.

occasionally I hear a screech resembling a old tape player being on play mode and fast forwarded at the same time on full volume. Not a pleasant experience if you ask me!!