[Eudoxa]

Hey everybody,
 
So I own a J3 and recently found an old Archos 504 my brother had gathering dust.  I tried playing some music on it and I found it to be quite an interesting experience.
 
On the Archos 504 I could hear little details in my music that I hadn't heard before.  Only after having heard them on the Archos could I then hear them on the J3 and, even then I would listen very closely and specifically be listening for it.
 
I think this has to do with the Archo's ability to separate the instruments very well.  I can actually hear the individual layers contributed by each instrument as opposed to the J3 where I sometimes lose track of some instruments because they get "devoured" so-to-speak in a blob of sound.  A visual that might clarify this is a bass guitar going 'bum-bum-bum-bum...' and a crash cymbol going 'pwsh'.  On the Archos I hear the cymbol fully play out along with the bass guitar.  On the otherhand, with the J3 it sounds something like, 'bum-bum-bum-bum-pwums-shum--shum-bum-bum-bum-bum....'; they sound blended together somewhat. The overall sound of the parts of music that doesn't stand out like the vocals would becomes more ill-defined as you add all the other elements such as bass drum, toms, guitar, and so on.  Being able to make it sound like multiple separate tracks I think also allows small nuances of each instrument to be revealed as well.  I think there might be a wider soundstage created by the Archos though I can tell yet since I haven't seriously tried to compare the two.
 
Sorry I can't explain it with more useful ideas/visuals. Anyways, I've never experienced anything that presented music quite as well laid out as the Archos 504 did. 
 
I should note that I was using Westone 4s with both players and the files that I tried so far were only mp3s varying from 192 - 320 kbps.
 
This is my long way of asking the question in the title: are Archos players really that bad?

 

[a_tumiwa]

from my experience, a newer Archos that use Android ( archos 3 vision, archos 32 ) is not as good as their old model (archos 605, jukebox) , newer Archos sound like a cheap chinese mp3 player

 

[Eudoxa]

Oh I see.
I thought Archos was getting an unjustified massive amount of hate there.

 

[gelocks]

I love my Archos players (they are the only ones I use). At home I use my old 605 30gb (the drive it's already dying but I will buy another soon from a forum member over at the archosfans boards).
 
My main player is the Archos 7 160GB player. Have used it for 3 years at work, 5 days a week 8 hours+ a day (I never turn it off during the full work day until Close of Business even if I'm not listening to it lol!). Battery life is not as impressive as before but still gives me 2 full days of music (it used to last a week almost )
 
Yeah it has buggy software (this goes for all of their media players/internet tablets), and sometimes locks up or doesn't recognize files BUT at this point in time (after 6+ years using their players) I understand their hardware/sw and how to work with it.
 
For bang for your buck, great Hard drive capacity and OK sound, Archos are difficult to beat.
If you are looking for "extras" (be it apps, browsers, etc.), then of course there are better players out there.
 
 
Enjoy!
 
P.S. Be sure though that Archos players are volume-capped due to EU regulations...

 

[a_tumiwa]

yeah, if we forget about the sound quality department, i think Archos has a very good price/performance value ,  i remember when i bought an Archos 32, for $150 , u can get a feature like 3.2inch lcd touch screen, camera, android, wi-fi, 8gb storage , processor 800mhz

 

[tds101]

I also owned an Archos 504, and the sq was pretty good. I thought it was a wonderful and warm (bass driven) sound. And the build quality was excellent. The Archos devices I'd owned & tried afterwards never sounded as good. I'd never recommend them for their sq. All the other features are excellent.

 

[Eudoxa]

Just to continue my impressions from the first post...

After spending some time between the J3 and Archos 504 I can definitely confirm that the 504 has better separation than the J3.  Trying to hear minute details comes much easier on the 504 and I only notice details on the J3 after having heard them on the 504. 
 
The last two tracks I used to test this was:
 
1.
a cover of a song called error by someone from japan going by the screen name, "guriri".  I downloaded this from the nico website itself and it's 320kbps.  I think you'll get what I mean by it sounds "muddy" when you hear all the instruments going.
<youtube link> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GVFvubb_N8
<nico link> http://nicosound.anyap.info/sound/sm13187295                         (download is the bottom "MP3 を抽出" button)
 
2.
and the middle to the end of "Parting of the Sensory" by Modest Mouse in .wav (for the 504) and .flac (for the j3) ( I happen to own the cd of this). This song has a bunch of string instruments and voices going at the same time throughout the middle to the end of the song.
 
I thought this was interesting to point out since the J3 is so well regarded as one of the ultimate daps as far as SQ goes.  Maybe an amp is supposed to solve this?...
 
Anyway, just a bit of a "cool story bro" post.

 

[Fizz]

Having used a few devices, I can say that they do a few things well. I found sound on their old models to be pretty good. However the interface and touch response was horrid, and the battery life was short at the best of times.
 
When they switched to Android I gave them another whirl, and found that the touch response and interface were much better, but the sound was flat and lifeless. 
 
If only they could find a middle ground.

 

[modaudio]

they aren't bad... just because most models uses a harddisk drive, which are less reliable