| Originally Posted by chrisfromalbany My issue with there DAPs was poor UI and bulky player. |
| Originally Posted by Old Dave ...The audiophiles who hang out on Headfi etc. may perceive a difference in sound quality between DAPs because it is a hobby, but the reality is that the differences are very small. i have now owned Apple, Creative, IRiver and Archos and while the sound signatures are slightly different I am hard-pressed to say one is materially better .... |
| Originally Posted by LaBreaHead At least Creative is trying ... in its own peculiar way. Maybe giants Sony and Samsung, even with their new products, have essentially conceded the audio player market to Apple and its huge head start. Maybe they assume the "audio-only" era will be (or has already been?) so brief that there's no point trying to innovate or compete, when instead they can be developing media modules that handle satellite telephone, Web surfing, digital photos, video playback, PowerPoint presentations, wedding-present thank-yous, and blood glucose monitoring. Outside of the Head-Fi people, will there be a market for affordable, progressive audio players two or three years from now? |
| Originally Posted by wwap http://www.zaobao.com/cj/cj051027_538.html quoted from the article above: "Depends on the sound tyrant card computer sound effect service as for the innovation science and technology which rises, the output gradually rise. He disclosed that, "We will have reto attack the market, is opposite to the MP3 product, we will invest more funds to X-Fi. Next year when inside our MP3 product also will have X-Fi, they will have a common marketing information." I'm just wondering if "he" has been reading this thread all along |
| Originally Posted by MrCookie989 I own a Zen Touch and before that a Karma and a Nomad Jukebox 3 before that, and I have to say that Creative can make some great players. A few things trouble me about them though, one being that they have lost many, many features over the years, and not to mention sound quality. The Nomad JB3 that came out 4 years ago if memory serves me right had a ton of features, like coax inputs and even 2 line outs for hooking up surround sound speakers, as well as dozens of different sound options like reverb effects and normalizers and even speed and pitch controls. Now, 4 years later all my Zen Touch has is about 9 EQ presets and the same 4-band user EQ from 2001. The overall sound quality is on par with the JB3, but I find it so odd that those great features just vanished alltogether (I think the Zen and Zen XTRA line had some of them, but they too had cuts). So im stuck with a player that is 4 years behind in features, with nothing new really aside from wonky touch controls and a random play button, thats literally it. If Creative wants to get a bigger piece of the pie, they need to start taking a hint from companies like Cowon and Rio and giving consumers more options, and Im not talking about video or any of that crap. They need to support lossess, and start pushing sound control and quality, because they are a company first known for sound, not white industrial design or slick marketing. No company can beat Apple at its own game right now. They are what Nintendo was in 1985, and that isnt going to change until Apple starts making stupid decisions. Rio is dead (goddammit that just isnt fair!), and unless Creative sets its sights elsewhere and bides its time instead of thinking it can declare war on Apple, they might suffer the same fate...that is as far as DAPs are concerned. Creative still has a nice beat on the soundcard market last time I checked, and Im pretty sure Apple aint gonna be making them anytime soon, or will they? |
