recommendation on portable digital jukebox (1 Viewer)

[Wilson W]

I am planning to buy a portable digital jukebox that is hard drive based so that I don't have to carry several CDs all the time.

In order to get the highest quality of sound, I wish to get something that can play uncompressed wav files, with a minimum hard drive space of ~10 gig.

Sound quality is my main concern here, I would rather have a few hours of good uncompressed sound rather than 5000 hours of mp3.

Any thing out there that fits my needs? Owners of such devices please post your thoughts. Thanks.

 

[KeithH]

Wilson, I am not an expert in this area, as I don't own such a unit, but the Creative Labs Nomad jukeboxes have always gotten good reviews from what I have seen. I have considered getting one myself. I would use it with .WAV files instead of MP3s, which the Nomad can handle.

 

[Wilson W]

thanks Keith, I have checked on the nomad line and found 3 candidates:

nomad jukebox 2, jukebox 3, and zen

recording function is not very important, but I wonder if any one knows the playback sound quality of these 3. are they using the same electronics and are essentially the same?

also, the headphone amp on these units, anyone might know what they are rated? are they the same? even their website wasn't clear.

 

[KeithH]

Wilson, no problem. Unfortunately, I can't help you with regard to sound quality of the Nomad jukeboxes. You should be able to find them Best Buy and Circuit City if you want to take one home for a test. You could always return it.

 

[JohnnyG]

I bought the original Nomad Jukebox with a 10GB drive in August and recently upgraded to the new Jukebox 2. The sound quality is very good and, as far as I know, the 2, 3 and Zen all have the same audio quality. The Jukebox 2 does not have a line-out, but the headphone jack works just fine and a couple ticks below maximum volume seems to generate a normal line out level.

Before deciding to use WAV only, do some listening tests with various levels of compression on both MP3 and WMA codecs - I'm confident you'll find a level that you can at least live with.

 

[John-Miles]

I agree with JohnnyG the MP3 compression is usually acceptable when considering its portable and the quality headphones most people use.

That said I have a nomad 6Gb and i love it. the recording function though seems to suck, i only tried it once with a cheap creative mic that i owned and it picked up nothing.... oh well it was only cause iw as bored.

the only problem i have found with the nomad is that it tends to lock up at the end of songs if it is bounced around while you are moving. its not the movement that causes this, rather the impact of it tapping things. for example when i put it in its carrying case and hang it from my belt it will bounce a bit agianst my leg as i walk, this causes problems(i have ot cut power and reset once ot twice an hour like this) however if i toss it in my backpack its fine yes it gets shaken up there, but ti dosent bounce off anything there.

hope this helps.

 

[Keith_R]

I have the Nomad Jukebox 6GB and I like it as well. I have had the player freeze on me once or twice but it is real easy to reset it, ease of use is also very good.Sound Quality is pretty good as well. I've never really tried the recording function so I can't really comment on that aspect.

 

[John-Miles]

Keith when it freezes on you how do you reset it? the only thing that works for me is to pop out a battery.

 

[Wilson W]

thanks guys for the input. it seems there aren't a lot of hard drive based machine that played wav files, and jukebox appeared to be the better ones out there.

and you are probably right, on some music, mp3 might not make a big difference. but with a larger HD, I can always mix mp3 and wav together.

zen right now looks the most attractive, guess i need to wait for it to go on sale.

 

[BenK]

And bringing this thread back to life can anyone recommend a good set of behind the neck headphones for portable mp3 players? I'm going to be picking up a Nomad Zen and wanted to optimize its sound quality.