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Topic: Ipod video vs. Zen Touch? (Read 3302 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

I've had the Creative Zen Touch for about 4 months now, can't really complain; it's a nice player that fitted my price range and it was well worth every penny.  But it's been dropped, twice, by my mother, and even though I couldn't hear any distinct 'clicks' during playback, I'm quite certain that some damage has been done to the hard drive.  And since I have some extra budget room right now, I thought that I'd go ahead and buy myself another player and give this old one to my mother instead.

It seems that I have 2 choices - to buy the same player - i.e. Creative Zen Touch, or try my luck with the new Apple ipod video...

My MAIN concern is the audio quality --> the zen touch wasn't bad although using my Sennheiser HD477 produced audio that was slightly lacking in bass (the same head phone hooked up to my Aiwa mini system XR-MN5 didn't produce the same bass-lacking audio, so it's the MP3 player most likely)...

So what do you guys think?  Which has the better audio quality?  Keep in mind that I listen mostly to rock, pop, and classical music (odd mix?)  So treble, bass, and clarity are all important.

Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

Reply #1 –
We have compared the sound output quality between the Applie Ipod Video (and Nano as well) to the Creative Line.

While obviously the first factor for either is the encoding, it was our opinion that the Creative Zen had a slight edge.  Some of the comments from our study were that the sound was 'fuller' and output was, in general, louder.  Keep in mind this was done with the exact same MP3 file to avoid confounding variables.

Additionally when tested the Creative line outlasted the Apple line on battery life on every test.  The form factor (the design and case) on the Ipods was the biggest plus and every model seemed to appeal more then any on the Creative side.

On a personal note I happen to love my Zen Micro, though I wish it had more than 6 gb.  I use it with a pair of Nike Skylon Flight headphones and find the performance and depth of bass on those headphones is far superior to the ones included with the Nano and several others.  Our focus group felt the same in regards to sound quality versus portability of all headphones tested.

I hope that helps you.

All the best,

Gene - Product Specialist
Keenzo Electronics
www.keenzo.com


Quote
I've had the Creative Zen Touch for about 4 months now, can't really complain; it's a nice player that fitted my price range and it was well worth every penny.  But it's been dropped, twice, by my mother, and even though I couldn't hear any distinct 'clicks' during playback, I'm quite certain that some damage has been done to the hard drive.  And since I have some extra budget room right now, I thought that I'd go ahead and buy myself another player and give this old one to my mother instead.

It seems that I have 2 choices - to buy the same player - i.e. Creative Zen Touch, or try my luck with the new Apple ipod video...

My MAIN concern is the audio quality --> the zen touch wasn't bad although using my Sennheiser HD477 produced audio that was slightly lacking in bass (the same head phone hooked up to my Aiwa mini system XR-MN5 didn't produce the same bass-lacking audio, so it's the MP3 player most likely)...

So what do you guys think?  Which has the better audio quality?  Keep in mind that I listen mostly to rock, pop, and classical music (odd mix?)  So treble, bass, and clarity are all important.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=363215"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

Reply #2 –
That's the weird thing, using my Sennheiser HD-477 along with the Zen Touch, I've found that bass is far too light, and the treble being slightly on the grainy (too sharp) side...is it the headphone's problem?

Quote
We have compared the sound output quality between the Applie Ipod Video (and Nano as well) to the Creative Line.

While obviously the first factor for either is the encoding, it was our opinion that the Creative Zen had a slight edge.  Some of the comments from our study were that the sound was 'fuller' and output was, in general, louder.  Keep in mind this was done with the exact same MP3 file to avoid confounding variables.

Additionally when tested the Creative line outlasted the Apple line on battery life on every test.  The form factor (the design and case) on the Ipods was the biggest plus and every model seemed to appeal more then any on the Creative side.

On a personal note I happen to love my Zen Micro, though I wish it had more than 6 gb.  I use it with a pair of Nike Skylon Flight headphones and find the performance and depth of bass on those headphones is far superior to the ones included with the Nano and several others.  Our focus group felt the same in regards to sound quality versus portability of all headphones tested.

I hope that helps you.

All the best,

Gene - Product Specialist
Keenzo Electronics
www.keenzo.com


Quote
I've had the Creative Zen Touch for about 4 months now, can't really complain; it's a nice player that fitted my price range and it was well worth every penny.  But it's been dropped, twice, by my mother, and even though I couldn't hear any distinct 'clicks' during playback, I'm quite certain that some damage has been done to the hard drive.  And since I have some extra budget room right now, I thought that I'd go ahead and buy myself another player and give this old one to my mother instead.

It seems that I have 2 choices - to buy the same player - i.e. Creative Zen Touch, or try my luck with the new Apple ipod video...

My MAIN concern is the audio quality --> the zen touch wasn't bad although using my Sennheiser HD477 produced audio that was slightly lacking in bass (the same head phone hooked up to my Aiwa mini system XR-MN5 didn't produce the same bass-lacking audio, so it's the MP3 player most likely)...

So what do you guys think?  Which has the better audio quality?  Keep in mind that I listen mostly to rock, pop, and classical music (odd mix?)  So treble, bass, and clarity are all important.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=363215"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=363516"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

Reply #3 –
Quote
That's the weird thing, using my Sennheiser HD-477 along with the Zen Touch, I've found that bass is far too light, and the treble being slightly on the grainy (too sharp) side...is it the headphone's problem?


I have a Zen Micro.  The output does seem quiet and lacking in bass.  I'm assuming it's an impedance mismatch issue or just a weak output stage.

Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

Reply #4 –
What headphones are you using for the Zen Micro?  As I said earlier, we found that the output with any of the headphones we tested with the Ipod found the sound to be 'tinny' and light on bass versus the Zen Micro.  Using any of the headphones we tested we found the bass to be quite 'full' on the Zen Micro.

I am wondering which headphones you use when listening?

Gene - Product Specialist
Keenzo Electronics
www.keenzo.com

Quote
Quote
That's the weird thing, using my Sennheiser HD-477 along with the Zen Touch, I've found that bass is far too light, and the treble being slightly on the grainy (too sharp) side...is it the headphone's problem?


I have a Zen Micro.  The output does seem quiet and lacking in bass.  I'm assuming it's an impedance mismatch issue or just a weak output stage.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=363559"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
 

Ipod video vs. Zen Touch?

Reply #5 –
It's fairly early days yet (only 3 days of intensive use) so my opinions might change over time, but I think I have got a handle on the Zen's sound pretty quickly.


My main portable phones are Sony Qualia 010, Ultimate Ears UE-10Pro and the Sennheiser HD25. The comparison to date has been done primarily with the HD25 and the Qualia so far, with a few others used briefly, the longest listen of which was with the  Audio-Technica ATH-ES7. Comparison music was 256K / 320K MP3's and Apple Lossless/WAV. Volumes were matched using a VU meter for the purposes of listening to a complete test album each, but I'm getting quite good at this and I found that even when I was going portable, my quick guesstimate volume-match of players has been more or less perfect (sub-0.5db variation in set volumes between each player) on later checking.


By that I mean the screen is more vivid when facing the ZVM directly head-on, but for example tilt the the player back a bit (typical in a portable situation) and the display goes into that LCD inverting thing that old-style displays did too soon. The iPod doesn't have this problem. The controls are also to me a mess. You have to thumb the four buttons surrounding the touchpad quite forcefully because they're on the same moulding, click the left/right clickers normally and give the touchpad a featherlight tap. The four buttons are also on the extreme edges of the player which forces your thumb to stretch a lot, or use the player two-handed. It requires a lot of dexterity to do something as mundane as navigating a player. The iPod on the other hand has a very consistent click-and-spin feel and there's no inconsistency of movement or tactile feedback that the thumb has to accomodate. The voice recorder's pickup is fairly poor, the radio has mediocre autoscan and surprisingly I don't seem to be able to spot any USBOTG option or news of any proposed dongle for that purpose. It still has that weird 'reserved UMS space' and manually-triggered UMS mode in common with the other recent Zens, which is a slight restriction for those who like to move data as well as music. I think the contextual menus work better than the iPod though and with software like j.River Media Center which works great with the ZVM, I'm happy with the loading/playlisting. On balance I think they're pretty evenly matched, but it's clear that significantly more thought into the little details has gone into the iPod.