Creative Zen Touch 2: to Touch or not to?

The SQ of creative DAP's has sucked since the Zen flash based players were released,...and it's still horrid. The Z:VM is their last good player, and I have the Z:VM & the Zen 32gb to compare. The X-Fi players all sound terrible, and distortion and sorry sound staging is their curse. Buy at your own risk.

I had a Zen, and the EQ settings on it were horrible - the worst of any player I've heard.

Flat, I don't know.

The Zen has fine sound quality, it was junk with the wsod the first year, but they fixed that. I guess since it works now some people still want to dump on it.

I can tell you that having a Zen 4 and now a Zen 32 for a total of a year and a half that I've never detected any hiss, and the sound is extraordinary. I've had one issue with the 32. I put it in my pocket without locking it and it screwed up. After resetting it, not only did it work just fine but the EQ was better with my cheap phones. I don't use EQ with my good phones.

 Compared to Nano 5g, I find the Zen to be much better sounding with more clarity.

Don't let anyone tell you the Zen is junk, it replaced the Vislion M which most haters had a man crush with. Since the first year Zens were faulty, they will hate Creative until the second coming of the Vision M, which won't happen but they hope anyway.

I've read a lot about the XFi 2 and though the touch screen has had issues( I understand some FW updates have corrected that) the sound quality is excellent. My next player will be the Xfi Style which is a tactile version of the  2.

I expect the Touch 2 will have excellent sound.

If per chance you like to fiddle with sound enhancements you might want to check out Cowons. I like Creatives as they sound good without much fiddling.

@ Bikertrash

I am kind of with you here. Perhaps you recognize me from ABi...

I have to admit that I have not heard any Creative players after the Zen. I bought my wife an 8GB Zen, and the only thing I can complain about is the bass being a bit weak. I bought her a Fiio E5 and it gives the bass more body. The EQ is only used ever so slightly and while the Zen's EQ isn't in the same league as Cowon's, I think it does its job well. I have used MP3Gain on all the MP3 tracks and lowered the volume and there is no distortion or clipping at all.

I have got a Zen Vision:M and a Zen Touch, and to my ears the Vision:M and the Zen sounds very much alike. The Vision:M has got the same slightly "weak bodied" bass as the Zen, so I have bought a Fiio E5 for it. Those who say that the Zen sounds worse than the Vision:M must not have compared them side by side.

My Zen Touch does sound slightly better than the Zen and Vision:M. I am a nostalgic when it comes to MP3 players, and to me Creative's peak was from around 2002/2003 (with the Nomad Jukebox 3) until 2005. But they still are a good option.

I've got other DAP:s that sound more detailed than the Creative players (such as the Kenwood HD20GA7 and JVC XA-HD 500), so I will not buy a new Creative player anytime soon. But if I did not have a DAP I would not mind a Creative. I love my Zen Touch, which works great even after the HDD dying 3 years ago (now I use a CF card). So I do hope that the Zen Touch 2 is a worthy follow up...