swanlee
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2008
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So I got my wife a ZuneHD after her Zune8 was stolen a few months ago. I of course took took the opportunity to compare it with my trusty Zune30 which has had a 100Gb drive slapped in it.
So I was happy to see the EQ preset return after complaining for years that it was completely dumb that they removed them in the first place, this is what caused me to upgrade the hard drive in my Zune30 instead of just getting a Zune80 or Zune120.
Overall I'd say the total SQ of the ZuneHD is a tad below the Zune30 believe it or not. I use the acoustic EQ setting but played around with every setting and even turned it off on both.
The ZuneHD has a more natural warmer sound and a slight edge in higher end details and separation I prefer these qualities of the ZuneHD by a hair to the Zune30.
What kills the ZuneHD though is it lacks in bass compared to the Zune30. Actually the bass is fairly anemic compared to the Zune30 no matter which EQ setting you use. I'm using Atrio's with an XM5 amp with bass boost on to so to notice a lack of bass is a pretty big deal.
I sense the ZuneHD has the real potential to sound better if MS would just freaking open up the EQ to a 5 band user adjustable mode. That bass needs to be turned up a bit. Also of note the ZuneHD has a lower overall volume. For example the ZuneHD at 30 is the same volume as the Zune30 at 16
Seems the EQ presets are tuned very differently for each device the ZuneHD was actually louder with the EQ turned off which is also different than the Zune30.
I used only WMA lossless audio to compare and my Atrio M5's. I used my XM5 amp and also played both player with no amp.
So if my trusty zune30 ever died and they ever released a higher capacity ZuneHD I could live with and get used to the SQ but when comparing them side by side the Zune30 still meets more of my SQ preferences.
Seems I'll be stuck with this thing forever as no one has made a portable device that meets all my needs like it since i upgraded it to a 100GB hard drive.
So I was happy to see the EQ preset return after complaining for years that it was completely dumb that they removed them in the first place, this is what caused me to upgrade the hard drive in my Zune30 instead of just getting a Zune80 or Zune120.
Overall I'd say the total SQ of the ZuneHD is a tad below the Zune30 believe it or not. I use the acoustic EQ setting but played around with every setting and even turned it off on both.
The ZuneHD has a more natural warmer sound and a slight edge in higher end details and separation I prefer these qualities of the ZuneHD by a hair to the Zune30.
What kills the ZuneHD though is it lacks in bass compared to the Zune30. Actually the bass is fairly anemic compared to the Zune30 no matter which EQ setting you use. I'm using Atrio's with an XM5 amp with bass boost on to so to notice a lack of bass is a pretty big deal.
I sense the ZuneHD has the real potential to sound better if MS would just freaking open up the EQ to a 5 band user adjustable mode. That bass needs to be turned up a bit. Also of note the ZuneHD has a lower overall volume. For example the ZuneHD at 30 is the same volume as the Zune30 at 16
Seems the EQ presets are tuned very differently for each device the ZuneHD was actually louder with the EQ turned off which is also different than the Zune30.
I used only WMA lossless audio to compare and my Atrio M5's. I used my XM5 amp and also played both player with no amp.
So if my trusty zune30 ever died and they ever released a higher capacity ZuneHD I could live with and get used to the SQ but when comparing them side by side the Zune30 still meets more of my SQ preferences.
Seems I'll be stuck with this thing forever as no one has made a portable device that meets all my needs like it since i upgraded it to a 100GB hard drive.