[Kid-A]

Does anyone know how good the sound quality is on the Archos players generally? The CL zen touch looks excellent and I have heard creative players tend to have the best sound quality for mp3 playback.

Does anyone generally have any experiences with similar Archos players? On paper it looks excellent with its feautre and miniscule size, but only 10 hours battery life. Does anyone know anything about reliability of Archos harddrives?

Which one would you choose and why?

 

[RooX]

hard to know exactly how the new archos will perform as i dont think its out yet.. (soon though). I havent heard teh greatest things about the zen touch, mostly the usual interface issues. I have owned a zen xtra and it sounded great though. Of teh archos i have listened to, (220 and 400) i was really happy with the sound quality.

Of course comaping these two players against each other is tough, as one is much smaller, and the otehr has much better battery life.. its more of a personal thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid-A Does anyone know how good the sound quality is on the Archos players generally? The CL zen touch looks excellent and I have heard creative players tend to have the best sound quality for mp3 playback. Does anyone generally have any experiences with similar Archos players? On paper it looks excellent with its feautre and miniscule size, but only 10 hours battery life. Does anyone know anything about reliability of Archos harddrives? Which one would you choose and why?

 

[DeadTrying]

The archos Gmini xs200 has been out quite a while now. Can anyone who'se listened to it give some input on sound quality and how it compares to other players such as the Zen Micro?

 

[Old Dave]

I am very happy with my Archos xs200, and I think the sound is as good as my older Nomad Zen and better than my Rio Nitrus. Clearly its best feature is its small size and weight, which is important to me. Same as the 5 Gig players. I also like the GUI and the fact that it shows up as a drive with no need for proprietary software to manage files. Also has one of bigger screen sizes with a lot of data displayed during play. Only negative quality in my mind is the battery life, which is mediocre. Build quality seems very good. Old Dave

 

[DeadTrying]

The battery life is quoted as 10 hours. Is this accurate or is it much less? Do you find that if you don't charge the player for a few days the battery looses a bar or two even though you haven't used it? I ask because this is what happens with players like the zen and Ipod which sleep for 24-48 hours before switching off.

 

[breadnbutter]

There is a review at tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20041230/index.html .
Seems like the battery is a concern - especially if it ages and capacity decreases even more.
My father got a Zen Touch for christmas and I quite liked it. While the interface is not perfect I think it did its job. What surprised me a bit was the weight, but if you do not wear it in your jacket all day I guess it's O.K. . Normally I buy things on the internet, but next time I might go to a store to find out how heavy it "feels" - the Archos is probably in a whole different leage in that respect.

 

[Old Dave]

I thought the Tom's review in the link above was pretty accurate. I get about 8 hours at 192 kbs. I have not noticed any leakage of battery charge when the unit is turned off (and Tom's doesn't suggest otherwise). This is a very small 20 gig player with a simple and intelligent interface and easy management of music. I throw it in my pocket and I don't know its there. I also think it is attractive, but I am probably too old to know the difference. Finally, if you are using your player with the stock earbuds, you can't care much about sound anyway. These are no better or worse than buds packaged with the Zen and Nitrus. They all have been deposited in my trash can. Bottom line: If you want small plus 20 gigs plus easy to use, this is the one to buy (IMO) in today's market. Old Dave

 

[Morphling]

agreed I love mine and I get about 7 hours of battery life with the Archos using aps- vbr mp3. The sound quality is good with my er4Ps. And no the archos does not go into sleep mode it fully turns off. The only real problem with it is the battery life and the slow scroll I have it totally filled and it can be a real bitch to find stuff sometimes.

 

[Old Dave]

Morphling. Re scrolling: I have my music on the PC set up by Artist (alphabetical last name), except for a folder category for Classical, and that is how it shows up on the browser on the XS200. So, even though I have the Archos filled up, there are only about 60 items to scroll through and it doesn't take long at all to scroll through the whole list, particularly since you can scroll alphabetically in both directions. Much more tedious if I use the Arc Library, but why use that if you have your music set up the way you like it on your PC and can drag and drop the whole thing on the Archos. So, if you take some time to organize your files on the PC and then re-transfer, the scrolling tedium should be minimized greatly. Hope this is helpful.

 

[Morphling]

Heh I have them all organized in folders but I have them all in from artist > albums respectively as folders. It's not really a big deal to me I'd rather not add them into sub categories though and all my songs don't have numbers in front of their file names as they've all been id3 tagged. (I'm very tedious, almost obssessive over my file organization on my computer) but thanks for the recommendation. I also have over 100 different artists on the archos.

 

[Kid-A]

well seeing as this thread was bumped up, in the end i got the zen touch, and i love it.

the playlist functions great, as is the sound quality with px100's (for me)+ near gapless playback :0

 

[UserNotFound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid-A well seeing as this thread was bumped up, in the end i got the zen touch, and i love it. the playlist functions great, as is the sound quality with px100's (for me)+ near gapless playback :0

near. sometimes i notice it more that others, although generally, as i dont listen critically on my portable often, i would say i notice it 1 out of 20 songs. Maybe it has something to do with changing bitrate and/or from wma to mp3, but i havn't investigated.

 

[Old Dave]

Enjoy your Touch. I played with one and liked it a lot. A bit big for my taste, but many other excellent qualities.