bludragon
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2005
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I have had a zune for about a week now, and wanted to share some of my 1st impressions. This is my 1st mp3 player - I was holding out for a flash based one > 20Gb, but a recent trip to the US tempted me to get the zune - I was able to order it off amazon.com for $230, and can't imagine ever getting one that cheap in good ole rip-off blighty (to paraphrase theinq).
My primary concern before buying was sound quality
1. Software - Used purely as a sync tool, once you know what to do, it is easy, reasonably quick, and does just what I want. I haven't tried the marketplace, or using it to rip cd's, but I'm sure these both work well enough.
I own a squeezebox, and as such already have all my cd's stored as flac on a pc. After some research and trial and error, I have transcoded everything to mp3 in a seperate directory, added album art, and setup the software to leave the files alone, and just take care of syncing, which it does quite nicely. It would be nice if it could transcode from flac on the fly as it synced - it can do this with supported formats.
2. Construction - The zune feels reasonably solid, and the screen seems well protected, the lcd being slightly set back from the window - it seems better than the ipod in this regard. This means I am confident enough to use it without a case, although I did get a clear film screen protector to prevent scratches ($15 what a rip).
3. UI / Display - This is nice, the screen is good and bright, and the interface quick and easy.
I didn't think the screen was important until I saw it, and now I regard it's album art display as a real bonus, it's also nice for pictures, but I don't (personally) think its big enough to watch dvd's on. Might do for some southpark episodes though (if I can figure out how to encode them).
Navigating around looking for tracks is very quick and easy, you can directly play something or add it to a 'quick list', which is a temporary playlist. You can navigate around, building up the 'quick list' or looking at pictures whilst music is playing, and if you are playing the 'quick list' then it will continue to play the newly added songs. FF/RR also works well for me.
There is a small gap between tracks though (only tried with mp3), which is a minor annoyance. I would like to see that fixed, as well as the addition of the ability to save the 'quick list' as a play list, and a search feature for when I can only remember part of an album/artist/song name (aka squeezebox). Adding those 3 features would make it just about perfect for me.
4. Sound qualily. It sounds good, but is a consumer rather than hi-fi device.
I don't have an ipod, or any other hdd based player to act as a comparison, however, on it's own, I can say that there are no obvious flaws (unless you count the playback gaps), and I can believe it may outperfom any similar devices.
Headphone output
I have used it with some sony mdr ex71's, some shure E4c-n (these are new too, and I'm not yet familiar with them), and some sennheiser HD650's. It seems to work well with both sets of earbuds, but its flaws are more obvious with the large sennheisers.
Basically, with the HD650, and playing mp3's compared to my higher end fixed setup at home playing flac's, it has some muddying of bass and loss of clarity, giving music a slower, more relaxed feel, but removing some of the energy and interest for me.
Volume is not a problem, but controlling the bass is (a slight one). This of course should be taken in context.
It also makes me listen at a higher volume to compensate, even so, volume at around 2/3 is plenty. If I amp it, it seems to go half way to matching a higher end source - the most noticable effect is more controlled bass.
Used as a line level source
I don't have a dock connector, so have used the headphone out into:
A car cd/radio (a rental chevvy cobolt) - it didn't quite match the cd player, but suprisingly did outperform the build in car radio tuner - it actually had slightly better reception, and much better apparent bandwidth / clarity.
A teac mini-system in the kitchen - again doesn't quite match the built in cd player. I haven't tried the radio in this setup yet.
A pair of powered speakers (e-mu PM5) via a pre-amp. I enjoyed this setup, and (without doing any critical testing) didn't notice any loss in sq when switching from a laptop or a dvd player as source.
The pre-amp may be helping to level things out - one possible issue with both the car and kitchen setup is the cheap cable going into a cheap line-level input, verses an internal (much more direct) connection.
I have to say though, that the convenience of having all my cd's at the tips of my fingers far outweighs any sound quality concerns, and I'll happily now abandon all use of cd's. It won't be replacing my squeezebox + dac anytime soon though, and I may yet look into getting a 2nd squeezebox for the kitchen.
5. Other
The battery life is long enough for me (supposedly ~10 hrs). It lasted me over my 16hr trip back from the US, and typically I'm not going to use the thing for more than a few hours a day. Not having a stand alone charger in the box may become an incovenience when I go on holiday though, when I won't have regular access to a usb port.
There aren't that many around at the moment (especially in the UK), which means accessories are likely to be even more of a rip-off than they are for the ipod. I didn't appreciate spending $15 for a tacky backed bit of plastic for the screen protector, which can't have cost more than $1 to make and package, and I daren't even look at the cost of a mains adaptor.
I've almost filled the 30Gb already, and I'd regard 20Gb as an absolute minimum. I don't want to constantly swap songs on and off it - I'd much rather only have to plug it in when I get new music, and I'd like to compress things as little as possible. 128k-anything is a definate no-no. For the moment I've settled on 200-250k vbr mp3's. Ideally I'd like to keep flac's on it, but I don't see that as realistic until the storage gets up to at least 150Gb.
I like the fact that it's something different to an ipod, but it does leave me feeling like a geek if I tell someone I just bought a "zune" (a what?). Even "mp3-player" sounds geeky compared to ipod, although if you're worried about sounding like a nerd, you should probably avoid bringing up the subject in the 1st place.
Summary
Overall I'm quite happy. Whilst the sound quality doesn't match a proper hi-fi, it is good enough to stop me using cd's in the car or kitchen, and is at least as good as, or better than any other portable devices I have tried. Now that I've set it up, the software is quite painless, the device itself is very satisfying to use, and I'd be happy to recommend it.
My primary concern before buying was sound quality
1. Software - Used purely as a sync tool, once you know what to do, it is easy, reasonably quick, and does just what I want. I haven't tried the marketplace, or using it to rip cd's, but I'm sure these both work well enough.
I own a squeezebox, and as such already have all my cd's stored as flac on a pc. After some research and trial and error, I have transcoded everything to mp3 in a seperate directory, added album art, and setup the software to leave the files alone, and just take care of syncing, which it does quite nicely. It would be nice if it could transcode from flac on the fly as it synced - it can do this with supported formats.
2. Construction - The zune feels reasonably solid, and the screen seems well protected, the lcd being slightly set back from the window - it seems better than the ipod in this regard. This means I am confident enough to use it without a case, although I did get a clear film screen protector to prevent scratches ($15 what a rip).
3. UI / Display - This is nice, the screen is good and bright, and the interface quick and easy.
I didn't think the screen was important until I saw it, and now I regard it's album art display as a real bonus, it's also nice for pictures, but I don't (personally) think its big enough to watch dvd's on. Might do for some southpark episodes though (if I can figure out how to encode them).
Navigating around looking for tracks is very quick and easy, you can directly play something or add it to a 'quick list', which is a temporary playlist. You can navigate around, building up the 'quick list' or looking at pictures whilst music is playing, and if you are playing the 'quick list' then it will continue to play the newly added songs. FF/RR also works well for me.
There is a small gap between tracks though (only tried with mp3), which is a minor annoyance. I would like to see that fixed, as well as the addition of the ability to save the 'quick list' as a play list, and a search feature for when I can only remember part of an album/artist/song name (aka squeezebox). Adding those 3 features would make it just about perfect for me.
4. Sound qualily. It sounds good, but is a consumer rather than hi-fi device.
I don't have an ipod, or any other hdd based player to act as a comparison, however, on it's own, I can say that there are no obvious flaws (unless you count the playback gaps), and I can believe it may outperfom any similar devices.
Headphone output
I have used it with some sony mdr ex71's, some shure E4c-n (these are new too, and I'm not yet familiar with them), and some sennheiser HD650's. It seems to work well with both sets of earbuds, but its flaws are more obvious with the large sennheisers.
Basically, with the HD650, and playing mp3's compared to my higher end fixed setup at home playing flac's, it has some muddying of bass and loss of clarity, giving music a slower, more relaxed feel, but removing some of the energy and interest for me.
Volume is not a problem, but controlling the bass is (a slight one). This of course should be taken in context.
It also makes me listen at a higher volume to compensate, even so, volume at around 2/3 is plenty. If I amp it, it seems to go half way to matching a higher end source - the most noticable effect is more controlled bass.
Used as a line level source
I don't have a dock connector, so have used the headphone out into:
A car cd/radio (a rental chevvy cobolt) - it didn't quite match the cd player, but suprisingly did outperform the build in car radio tuner - it actually had slightly better reception, and much better apparent bandwidth / clarity.
A teac mini-system in the kitchen - again doesn't quite match the built in cd player. I haven't tried the radio in this setup yet.
A pair of powered speakers (e-mu PM5) via a pre-amp. I enjoyed this setup, and (without doing any critical testing) didn't notice any loss in sq when switching from a laptop or a dvd player as source.
The pre-amp may be helping to level things out - one possible issue with both the car and kitchen setup is the cheap cable going into a cheap line-level input, verses an internal (much more direct) connection.
I have to say though, that the convenience of having all my cd's at the tips of my fingers far outweighs any sound quality concerns, and I'll happily now abandon all use of cd's. It won't be replacing my squeezebox + dac anytime soon though, and I may yet look into getting a 2nd squeezebox for the kitchen.
5. Other
The battery life is long enough for me (supposedly ~10 hrs). It lasted me over my 16hr trip back from the US, and typically I'm not going to use the thing for more than a few hours a day. Not having a stand alone charger in the box may become an incovenience when I go on holiday though, when I won't have regular access to a usb port.
There aren't that many around at the moment (especially in the UK), which means accessories are likely to be even more of a rip-off than they are for the ipod. I didn't appreciate spending $15 for a tacky backed bit of plastic for the screen protector, which can't have cost more than $1 to make and package, and I daren't even look at the cost of a mains adaptor.
I've almost filled the 30Gb already, and I'd regard 20Gb as an absolute minimum. I don't want to constantly swap songs on and off it - I'd much rather only have to plug it in when I get new music, and I'd like to compress things as little as possible. 128k-anything is a definate no-no. For the moment I've settled on 200-250k vbr mp3's. Ideally I'd like to keep flac's on it, but I don't see that as realistic until the storage gets up to at least 150Gb.
I like the fact that it's something different to an ipod, but it does leave me feeling like a geek if I tell someone I just bought a "zune" (a what?). Even "mp3-player" sounds geeky compared to ipod, although if you're worried about sounding like a nerd, you should probably avoid bringing up the subject in the 1st place.
Summary
Overall I'm quite happy. Whilst the sound quality doesn't match a proper hi-fi, it is good enough to stop me using cd's in the car or kitchen, and is at least as good as, or better than any other portable devices I have tried. Now that I've set it up, the software is quite painless, the device itself is very satisfying to use, and I'd be happy to recommend it.
I'll give Super a go.
