[dura]

Quote:

About a year ago I read on CNET that the Sony HD5 was King for sound quality and I bought one. The problem was I preferred my kids Nanos just a bit for sound quality

I find this amazing.
Last week I plugged my shure e4s into a friends nano (coming from my NW-HD1, atrac 256kbs vs AAC something comparable) and I was shocked by the great difference in SQ.
The nano missed bass, making the sound flat and too bright, crossing the line from pleasant too unpleasant and it made me wonder for the umpteen time why ipods are so incredibly populair. Beauty is skindeep indeed (though I prefer the NW-HD1 stylish one piece metal case above the scratchable plastic of the nano)
IMO, generally speaking, Sony, Cowon and Zen players have a much better SQ then Ipods.

 

[mnhnhyouh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dura I find this amazing. Last week I plugged my shure e4s into a friends nano (coming from my NW-HD1, atrac 256kbs vs AAC something comparable) and I was shocked by the great difference in SQ. The nano missed bass, making the sound flat and too bright, crossing the line from pleasant too unpleasant and it made me wonder for the umpteen time why ipods are so incredibly populair. Beauty is skindeep indeed (though I prefer the NW-HD1 stylish one piece metal case above the scratchable plastic of the nano) IMO, generally speaking, Sony, Cowon and Zen players have a much better SQ then Ipods.

How were the songs on your friends nano encoded?

h

 

[patschreyer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GSTom1 Yeah, I agree. The Zen Vision M has an amazing interface. The iPod hasen't changed their interface much in the past few generations, but Creative has continued to improve theirs. The controls on the Zen Vision M are probably not as good as the iPod, but they are by all means usable. Plus there is a programable shortcut button that is very useful.

The Zen Vision:M's UI is very nice, I especially like the alphabetical look-up. However, the hardware controls are not in the same league as the iPod's. I actually don't have a problem with the touch strip... it's the somewhat awkward rocking back and forth of the strip, and moreso the idiotic buttons surrounding the strip. Much too stiff, and if I don't even need to take my thumb off the iPod's wheel. I do like the Creative's shortcut button.

The reason the iPod's UI hasn't been changed much is because IT WORKS. Given, I would like some more customizability in the colour scheme, etc., but it works... the Zen Vision:M's UI improvements are Creative playing "catch up" to the iPod... and I'm sure some will agree that the ZV:M's UI is quite similar to the iPods (do NOT bring up the whole lawsuit issue)... it does add some interesting new features, but altogether similar to the iPod.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oga UI of Cowon is fine as well. Its quite intuitive once you own it for a short while.

That statement kind of contradicts itself. For it to be truly intuitive, you should almost instantly be able to navigate it easy... Cowon still uses that "hold the button down for two seconds" style UI. Once you get used to it, yes, then it's familiar, but why not make things simple where they can be simple?

 

[blazer78]

How does Meizu fare against Cowon?

 

[dura]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mnhnhyouh How were the songs on your friends nano encoded? h

something comparable, 228 or 256 kbs.

 

[Dr. S]

How does the sound on the Toshiba Gigabeat measure up?

 

[Xpander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by patschreyer That statement kind of contradicts itself. For it to be truly intuitive, you should almost instantly be able to navigate it easy... Cowon still uses that "hold the button down for two seconds" style UI. Once you get used to it, yes, then it's familiar, but why not make things simple where they can be simple?

Which is exactly why I wonder why people always think iPods have some miraculously intuitive interface. It's no more simple or intuitive than any other UI that I've seen on other players (other than that of the Zen Micro, made horrible by the need to use that god awful touch strip). IMO things like separate select and play buttons and having to navigate up in order to change settings makes it a hell of a lot more complicated than the UI for, let's say a Cowon player, by comparison.

Speaking of which, I've heard people mutter about how Cowon's UI isn't intuitive; what navigational interface is easier than the simple up-down-back-forward matrix? Also, I'm not sure how the "hold buttons for two second" interface defines the UI when on a player like my X5, the only essential function that requires this is settings access, with bookmarking and recording really being more peripheral than anything else. It really makes me wonder how much some of these people actually bothered trying to use it.

Back to the original subject, in terms of sound quality I think you can't really go wrong with any of the major players (Apple, Cowon, Samsung, Creative, etc). While I enjoy Cowon's sound offering for things like a better EQ, I could never pickout any tremendous sound defects from the latest generation of any of the major hard drive players. There are differences in sound signatures, yes, but certainly not defects.

 

[mnhnhyouh]

And who really cares about an intuitive interface. Once you get used to it, the interface has to be bad before it is difficult to use.

Unless of course you dont use it very often.

h

 

[3X0]

Yeah, actually.. the iPod interface/controlset on the whole probably takes just as long, if not longer, than other interfaces to learn completely. With all its nuances (hold down to start, and the different cyclic functions of the select button in the Now Playing screen..), it's not incredibly easy to learn as a first-timer, in my opinion. Once you've got it down, though, I guess the click wheel is more efficient and effective than many, if not all, other controls out there. I think the actual UI is very lackluster.. it's too white and empty. The controls, however, are very useful, especially for large libraries, once you learn them.

I think the Gigabeat S has a great sound, except it sounds a bit too plain. Accurate, yes; I just don't think it sounds very lively.

Actually, yeah, the actual sound played back from most of the respectable names in the market is largely an accurate affair; the actual quality of the sound is (mostly) intact throughout. It's just that most players have an "attitude" associated to their sound.. some may be bright or dark, some may be warm or cold, some may be flat and lifeless (which some people may like)..

It may very well be a preference affair as a result; the reason why people are so divided in their choice of DAPs and what they prefer as far as sound signature when the detail and precision of playback is by and large almost the same.

 

[zowie]

Don't forget that the Cowon plays lossless flac files (the staple of tapers) and iPods (and most others) do not. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

As a side note, I see the discussion has turned to all kinds of things besides sound quality, just as the OP had commented.

 

[aliquis]

Samsung yp-z5!

iRiver E10, iAudio, Meizu, probably all better than iPod without rockbox, lineout and amp.

 

[aliquis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zowie Don't forget that the Cowon plays lossless flac files (the staple of tapers) and iPods (and most others) do not. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. As a side note, I see the discussion has turned to all kinds of things besides sound quality, just as the OP had commented.

Thought in the sound test in another thread many of us couldn't hear the difference anyway, and if you install rockbox on the iPod can't it play flac?

 

[MD1032]

If you'll recall, I was at one of the portables tables at the national meet and across the table one of my table-mates had a setup where he was comparing the iPod to the X5 and I remember him asking me to pitch in, and we had probably four people there, we unanimously agreed wht X5 won, hands-down. There's so much more detail alone in the X5.

 

[dr.morton]

Out of the headphone jack I also consider the Cowon products superior to the iPod.

 

[aliquis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blazer78 How does Meizu fare against Cowon?

Meizu flashplayers uses the same chipset series as iRiver IFPs did (the good sounding ones, not the T-series) and iAudio, so probably similair. It seems like Sweden is the country where they sell well and they are very high regarded here, but people in China seems able to get them for like 1/3 of the price we pay here. So get a Meizu from china for a lower than iaudio/iriver prices and get the similair sound quality

(I assume you can install the swedish meizu firmware on it aswell and in that way get english instead of chinese if the china version got chinese text.)