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sound moved on since archos jukebox player 20?

post #1 of 8
12/13/03 at 9:08pm
Thread Starter 
i want to buy a new hdd player that can do ogg vorbis, so i am quite set on the ihp-120.

anyway, i have a jukebox player 20, which broke at the start of summer (dropped it about 3 feet only and hdd died).

anyway, that thing was complete crap

huge,
battery life was crap,
absolute terrrible sound quality, surpressed midrange and noise from hdd leaking to earphones in the form of high pitched whine when hdd acccessing.


so i'm just wondering if anyone else here appreciates the problems i had with the archos and has the isolation between the amplifier and the hdd been improved significantly since the 3 year old archos.
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post #2 of 8
12/13/03 at 10:35pm
hdd noise on my recorded 20 doesn't leak to the headphones...and I find it's sound quality to be good as well. I don't use it much now that I have an iPod...but that has nothing to do with it's sound quality.
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post #3 of 8
12/13/03 at 11:55pm
I agree w/Spoonman. HD mechanical noise during accesses, does not transfer to the headphones.

It replaced my iPod because I needed more capacity and a digital-out. Higher capacity iPods were too expensive, and other players w/digital-out (including the ihp-1xx's) were really expensive also.

Rockbox improves on the interface a lot. Sound quality unamped is rather weak compared to my old iPod, but even a cheap amp like the Boostaroo solves that. A better amp would certainly do...well, better.

I'd look into getting the biggest capacity 2.5" laptop hard drive and swapping it into your unit (assuming that is all that's wrong with it). Then get a Super-mini amp w/o volume control. You should be all set for a while.
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post #4 of 8
12/14/03 at 1:25am
I replaced my Archos Studio 20 with a Zen Xtra 40 Gb. Yeah, there's a HUGE difference in the sound quality (maybe the Archos Recorder 20 has better audio quality... don't know). I used the Archos with Sony 71 canal phones for almost 2 years (Rockbox firmware)... sounded OK, though not a lot of volume and the EX71's crapped out when pushed hard (or could have been the Archos crapping out when pushed hard, too).

Got Shure E5Cs... much more efficient canal phones than the Sony's... that's when I noticed the HD spinning up noise big time. Also noticed a few weird little audio artifacts coming from the Archos were more pronounced with the E5Cs... I had previously attributed these to the Sony canal phones. Decided to get the Zen Xtra due to its 98 db S/N ratio. That's when I noticed how bad the Archos' mid and top end was. The Zen Xtra really provided a lot of extra punch in the mid-range and hi end. And of course, with the E5Cs, the low end is super tight, deep and defined. I'm also using 256 kbps files with the Zen Xtra... could only go to 196 on the Archos... anything more and it would have problems locking up while playing.

Zen Xtra and Shure E5Cs work great together... highly recommended... no amp required.

edit: Oh yeah... unlike the Archos, no HD spinning whine on the Zen.
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post #5 of 8
12/14/03 at 1:32am
All my 256K files play perfectly fine on my JB Recorder 20. FYI.

Having the digital-out is a big bonus to me.
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post #6 of 8
12/14/03 at 1:44am
Quote:
Originally posted by javahut
maybe the Archos Recorder 20 has better audio quality... don't know
It does...the sound quality on the rec20 is much better then that of the studio's

Also...I've got 320k vbr's on my rec20 they play fine....

I'm surprised you don't hear any hissing in the background on your Xtra...I can hear it quite easily with my e1's on my brother's Zen
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post #7 of 8
12/14/03 at 2:21am
Quote:
Originally posted by SpoonMan
I'm surprised you don't hear any hissing in the background on your Xtra...I can hear it quite easily with my e1's on my brother's Zen
I can barely detect a very minute amount of hiss, and barely hear the disk spin up on the Zen with the E5Cs. But it's so so little that even the smallest sound from anything on a recording completely covers it up. Even the smallest sound on the most minimalist recordings (like the new Harold Budd solo acoustic piano recording) totally mask any noise. Absolutely nothing compared to the noise I had with the Archos Studio 20.
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post #8 of 8
12/14/03 at 10:01am
Thread Starter 
thanks for your comments, at least i see that I am not alone.

when I read the reviews back then, there was no mention of this.

it's difficult to make a decision as when these review websites get given a unit from the manufacturer they are, forgive my expression, creaming themselves and can't form an objective opinion because they are so excited at being given an expensive unit for nothing

just didn't want to buy a ihp-120 if it has this problem, not much point in the higher quality format support (ogg) if the output is very poor.

and it's made even more difficult because it's impossible to test these things. don't know of any high street stores that carry them in the uk, and amazon.co.uk is a full £100 cheaper than any other website, and their no quible return is only if the item is still sealed.

btw- i plan to buy er4-p with it.
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