[jonhapimp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navyblue /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not sure if Microsoft seems to hate me lately, or is it just showing its true colour. But what I knew the Zune/Vista package is a sh!tty piece of cr@p. My Vista is messed up, it no longer allow me administrator right when logged on as power user and prompts me for the administrator password. It also won't allow me to uninstall anything, even when logged in as administrator. On my PC the Zune software would keep appending cr@p data into empty tag field, I told it not to do that in the settings, but it wouldn't care. It would allow empty data on most fields. I wanted to do a re installation, but it can neither be uninstalled nor installed. Not wanting my Zune to be a fancy game console with 5 games in it, I gave up and risked my wife's PC for a Zune infection. It installed, but the songs in the specified folders won't show up in the Zune softeware, it is in a permanent state of "I have no songs in my library". When I ask ito sync all songs into the Zune it would actually found my invisible songs and did the transfer, but again it looks like it is messing with my tags. Now one single album is displayed as multiple partial albums, but it doesn't happen to all the albums or songs, and I haven't found a pattern. Am I alone in this?

that's more of a computer issue, and yes your alone(i think) i've used my zune and zune software on xp,vista, and wins 7 without any problem

 

[Mach-X]

Wh00t. Necrobumping a 5 year old thread. But in my house there are 3 zunes currently, an original brick 30, (which is currently playing into my 35 year old integrated Sony, output to my senn hd280pros), a zunehd 16, and a flash zune 16(wifes). Plans are to snag a zune80 or 120 so I can complete the collection. Does this make me nuts? Why am I using such old daps? Well, they are reliable, the proprietary jack takes repeated pluggings/unpluggings FAR better than microUSB, the displays are very vibrant for album art, and I just love the interface. It's perfection for finding or randomizing music. Nobody even comes close, all these years later. 'why not windows phone?' you ask? BECAUSE IT DOESNT DO GAPLESS. My zunes do. And I will use them until either they die, or I die, and considering this 8 year old 30 is still rocking like a champ, I'm not sure which one will be first

 

[imeem]

decided to dig up my old Zune 8 GB. At first i thought 8 Gb wasn't enough for my music since now i started collection some flacs. Turned out that i was wrong. I like the amp on it compare to my Nexus 4 since it is louder, but there's a slight hiss when i use my Vsonic VSD1S with it (same thing when i connected my iems to my Fiio e17). My nexus 4 hissed too but it was very unnoticeable. Just don't like the fact that i have to convert my flacs to wma lossless and use the stupid software.   
 
EDIT: just find out that my zune 8 GB doesn't support 96 khz and/or 24 bit as all of my files were downconverted to a file type with a smaller size. 

 

[Mach-X]

Just got a mint zune120 for $25 cause it had error 5. Well I opened it up, turned it on and it worked. So I closed it up and its been working perfectly since. Unfortunately I left a few marks and a slight crack on the screen from opening it, but front fascias complete with glass are about $40, so it'll still be a decent snag overall. Strapped my new fiio e11k to it, great portable rig.

 

[imeem]

Just got a mint zune120 for $25 cause it had error 5. Well I opened it up, turned it on and it worked. So I closed it up and its been working perfectly since. Unfortunately I left a few marks and a slight crack on the screen from opening it, but front fascias complete with glass are about $40, so it'll still be a decent snag overall. Strapped my new fiio e11k to it, great portable rig.

have u try putting some loseless WMAs on it? I notice that all my 96/24 bit files and some of my 44/16bit are being converted. 
 
EDIT: found this
 

 This article has been out there for nearly 18 months but I’ve only just got a comment today that’s invalidated it. In short, everything here is accurate until you get to the point when you synchronise to your Windows Phone with Zune. At that point, Zune will transcode Lossless WMA files to MP3, even if the conversion settings are set to, “Only convert media files that aren’t supported by the device”. As described here, my device does support these files! Evidently, as James Shiers points out, the problem is not device support, but that the Zune software doesn’t support Lossless WMA (no citation unfortunately). What makes this even more confusing is that the quality settings are greyed out until you select the other option, so there’s no indication that this might be happening. In fact, the only real clue you have in the Zune client is that the file size will be smaller than the original.

http://tristanwatkins.com/no-lossless-audio-with-zune/

 

[Mach-X]

The article is talking about windows phone which doesn't support wma lossless. Zune devices and the software support it fine. However they only support 16/44 so yes some files would get transcoded. I've conducted double blind tests and found lame with the -v2 switch is transparent for me so that is what I use.

 

[wisernova]

It's nice to find fellow Zune owners. I am still rocking a Zune 80 that I picked up in '07. Apart from the Zune buds, I have couple of sennheisers and a cowon to keep it company. One question I had though - does it make sense to use a amp with Zune? If so, which one? Thanks folks.

 

[imeem]

It's nice to find fellow Zune owners. I am still rocking a Zune 80 that I picked up in '07. Apart from the Zune buds, I have couple of sennheisers and a cowon to keep it company. One question I had though - does it make sense to use a amp with Zune? If so, which one? Thanks folks.

i guess it depends on what headphones/IEM you have. 

 

[wisernova]

I really don't have any of the "pro" headsets...I have the following

1. Zune Premium buds
2. Sennheiser CX-200
3. Sennheiser PX 100
4. Sennheiser HD 408
5. Cowon EM1 / EM1 with mic
6. Bose in ear phones
7. Nokia WH-208

Of all the above, I try to rotate and use all of them except the bose. I really hate the fit of that.

 

[Mach-X]

It depends more on how you listen. Contrary to belief, adding an amp won't improve sound quality; claims as such are the result of placebo. If you find that you are at or near max volume with any of those headphones, and you simply want more volume, then certainly an amp would be beneficial. I use a fiio e11k with my zune120 and hd 280 pros for when I'm in the mood for above average listening levels.

 

[H20Fidelity]

 

[bzippy]

I actually have two 80GB Zunes, just for the storage capacity. Great sounding DAP for sure and a perfect, simple interface. But I now use a FiiO X3 instead. I chose the X3 over the Zune mostly for the microSD storage (I now only need to carry around one dap and an extra sd card), but also for the line out, which makes a significant improvement in SQ to my ear. Not that the Zune's amp sounds bad at all -- in fact I think the Zune sounds better than the X3 when using the player stand alone (headphone out jack). It's a great unit for sure.
 
But alas I can't keep all this stuff around so I have reluctantly put my Zunes up in the classifieds.

 

[H20Fidelity]

I think it sounds very good, it's instrument separation and coherency is accurate. I'm using a Rhapsodio RDB Mini (about $650 USD) and prefer the synergy over Cowon J3, DX50, Colorfly C3, and especially the Sony NWZ-F806 Walkman. It actually beats the Walkman hands down. I picked this unit up for $35 AUD with a slight fault being it has 3 (minor) black spots on the lcd screen. Running WMA lossless.

 

[imeem]

how would you guys describe the sound of the amp on the zune (like dark, warm, etc...) ?

 

[H20Fidelity]

  how would you guys describe the sound of the amp on the zune (like dark, warm, etc...) ?

I do not find Zune dark, just very full sounding and clean. The hybrid IEM I'm pairing it with is rather bright and on the thin side, I find Zune to create a certain fullness to its mid-range and bring out the bass impact. I have been listening now for a few days and 100% prefer the Zune over DX50 with this IEM. I continue to be impressed between the synergy. I cannot speak for other pairings as I've tried a few other IEM and still thought it sounded great, but not so magic as the Rhapsodio hybrid. There is some kind of chemistry going on between them.
 
Keep in mind it hasn't been completely smooth sailing getting Zune to cooperate with some of my files, sometimes it would freeze up or stop playing half way through a song. I've had to double check tags, remove comments from the tags, remove artist/album tagging, there's been some tinkering around to get my WMA lossless files playing smooth which I'm converting from FLAC with dbpoweramp. The player is fine otherwise, every problem I've encountered seems to be a tag issue of some kind.
 
I've pretty much got it down pat now.