plonkersaurus
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2005
- Posts
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Right so it turns out that I have quite a few portable players and seeing that its hayfever season I decided to test out the sound quality of some of my old players vs current ones.
I have an Ipod touch(gen1), a 30gb Zune, a Sony NW HD1, a Sony MZ-R50 and a Sony MZ-E909.
I'm going to do this over a few days answering any questions anyone has, but to start off I compared the 3 mp3 players.
I'm listening through AKG K501's straight from the headphone out as I feel this will give the best measure of the quality of the player, I can later try with an amp.
My first song is Damien Rice - The Blowers Daughter
iPod Touch - Sound is warm and a bit too bassy for me, it seems lacking sound stage and everything sounds a bit flat. Compared to the other players everything sounds muddy and note quite musical, the emotion of the music is missing for me.
Zune - Sound isn't as warm as the iPod, there is less bass too, sounds more natural. The sound is more detailed and less muddy. It's quite a big improvement over the iPod in terms of detail, soundstage and musicality. All the guitar strums seem to have a sharper bite to them as does the cello solo.
Sony NW-HD1 - Sound is slightly colder than the Zune. Everything seems to be a bit tighter than the Zune, the difference here between this and the iPod is fairly large. This player, with these headphones seems to bring out more midrange magic than the other 2. The vocals, cello solos and guitar riffs seem to float into the air above everything else and my ears seem to just pluck them out. This player is a bit lightweight with the bass with these headphones, but for soundstage, detail, tonal balance it is incredible. There is real emotion in vocals that aren't there with the 2 other players especially the iPod.
I've always been shocked how much I liked the sound of the HD1 even over the EMU 0404 but recently it has lost favour to the Zune and got a bit forgotten!
So now I'm quite interested to see how the old MZ-R50 handles it (its charging right now) and to see if the order changes with other music.
Anyone got anything in mind that could beat the NW-HD1?
I have an Ipod touch(gen1), a 30gb Zune, a Sony NW HD1, a Sony MZ-R50 and a Sony MZ-E909.
I'm going to do this over a few days answering any questions anyone has, but to start off I compared the 3 mp3 players.
I'm listening through AKG K501's straight from the headphone out as I feel this will give the best measure of the quality of the player, I can later try with an amp.
My first song is Damien Rice - The Blowers Daughter
iPod Touch - Sound is warm and a bit too bassy for me, it seems lacking sound stage and everything sounds a bit flat. Compared to the other players everything sounds muddy and note quite musical, the emotion of the music is missing for me.
Zune - Sound isn't as warm as the iPod, there is less bass too, sounds more natural. The sound is more detailed and less muddy. It's quite a big improvement over the iPod in terms of detail, soundstage and musicality. All the guitar strums seem to have a sharper bite to them as does the cello solo.
Sony NW-HD1 - Sound is slightly colder than the Zune. Everything seems to be a bit tighter than the Zune, the difference here between this and the iPod is fairly large. This player, with these headphones seems to bring out more midrange magic than the other 2. The vocals, cello solos and guitar riffs seem to float into the air above everything else and my ears seem to just pluck them out. This player is a bit lightweight with the bass with these headphones, but for soundstage, detail, tonal balance it is incredible. There is real emotion in vocals that aren't there with the 2 other players especially the iPod.
I've always been shocked how much I liked the sound of the HD1 even over the EMU 0404 but recently it has lost favour to the Zune and got a bit forgotten!
So now I'm quite interested to see how the old MZ-R50 handles it (its charging right now) and to see if the order changes with other music.
Anyone got anything in mind that could beat the NW-HD1?