Opinions on the Zune music player line and portable amps with it

The ZuneHd is a great player, if you're the type that doesn't like to mess with the player.

You can't change anything on the player, except screen saver and the small eq.

Try it out at bestbuy or electronics store in your area

Is a zunehd good for you?

Is UI the main reason you buy a player?

Do you only have mp3?

Will you never put homebrew on the player?

yes to any of these, the zune hd is for you.

Other healthy alternatives:

Cowon S9, because of price, feature and quality range. You can customize the UI, even to look like the ZuneHd's. Great audio, video, and functions.

The J3 would be good a amp because it has a flat back. Its for if you want to expand on it and want something just slightly faster.

Most headphones DO NOT NEED AMPS!!! Cowons can push my Grados great. Look up if your headphones need a amp. If you don't have high quality headphones, DO NOT spend your money on a amp, buy some good headphones before a amp is even thought of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by junebug654 

Can the Zune HD or any of the Zune models play FLAC files?  And what players are able to play either FLAC or .wav files? 

Zune only supports MP3, WMA & WMA Lossless.
 

IMO Zunes have a better headphone out sound than iPods, though I've heard that iPods with LODs sound better than a Zune LOD (correct me if I'm wrong - never actually tried both).

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmhaynes 

Quote:

Originally Posted by junebug654 

Can the Zune HD or any of the Zune models play FLAC files?  And what players are able to play either FLAC or .wav files? 

 

Zune only supports MP3, WMA & WMA Lossless.
 

And m4a; all of my iTunes files worked without problems.

There is practly no LOD available for Zune's. But the HO is really good and there is not noticable decrease in SQ from amping the HO. I only hear  improvment with my T3 (in the low end power )  I love my Zune HD, its a great music player, with some fun apps on the side. but its was build as a MUSIC PLAYER not all in one like Itouch and as such shines as Music Player, the HO is great, lack if EQ is kind of disapointing but I dont use EQ much. Music playback is perfect, the interface is very intuitivee and browsing music is very easy. You can make your playlists on the go, it has smart DJ wich will pick songs and make a pretty good playlist  if you are lazy to do so your self, as well as if you have Zune Pass it will find music on market place and DL those songs for you ( I dont but still use it every now and then great option to have) HD radio works well, the screen is very nice too but can be hard to read on sunny days out side. It lasts about 15-20 hrs after a year of use for me, and originaly I bet would go for 24+ hrs. The Phone jack is one of the most robust I ever had and still didnt fail on me, it will take alot of abuse too as I droped mine, ate concrete while having it on my pocket (I longboard) and still works. if there is a Zune HD2 or next gen zune I will be picking it up, Its dishareting that it doesnt play FLAC but I find V0 MP3s sound just as good as FLAC through my HD25-1's. Any way....my .02$  

Pros

Great music searching and playback.

Robust. 

Sleek. 

Great SQ out of the HO.

Some fun apps.

Decent bettery life about 15-25hrs depends on how old it is.

Cons

Web browser is quirky will work fine with some pages wont with others, its like IE6

not to many apps. 

Doesnt play FLAC 

Have to use Zune Softwear (I like it quiet abit and find it to be good, the only pain is making playlists in it, but you can just use your favoirte player to make playlists and then use Zune softwear to load them up on your zune, it will transfer all the song on ur playlist as well) 

So yehh...

I loved mine, just sold it last week. The reason is sound quality, lack of capacity, and inability to play FLAC or WAV lossles. I'm actually just getting into audio, and with my new(ish) k240's, I realized that the stock sound card on my computer sounded significantly better, and it's a pretty cheap computer from 6 or 7 years ago. With lesser quality headphones I hadn't noticed the difference, but this is where I started to realize the weakness of the Zune.

As soviet said, it was designed around media playback. But IMO if you're not going to get an all-in-one device, you might as well go for the best media playback, in my case a Cowon J3. (excluding hifiman and sflo2) This is way I see it:

iPods have the best apps and Wi-fi.

Cowons have the best media playback.

Zunes are a perfectly in-between balance. Better sound quality then an iTouch, worse than a Cowon. More apps & wi-fi than a Cowon, less than an iTouch.

I would much rather use a Cowon for media and an iPod for apps and just forget Zunes. But if you can only pick one device, just pick which of the features you want more, and if you want both equally pick the Zune.