Creative Zen Vision:M

[DSP]

well guys,

As promised. Here´s my short review in the Creative Zen Vision:M and a comparison between this and the NW-A1200 and NW-S703.

Sorry for the delay and the bad pictures. These pictures are taken with my Phone.

I´m not goin to sum up all the specs of the device. I advise you to look them up here, at creative. They can do that much better

*KLIK*

first of all a side by side comparison so you can see the dimensions and get an idea of their sizes etc.

And here´s what the screen looks like. I can ensure you that it´s awsome!

General

The Zen is a very nice looking DAP. Actually, it´s a PMP´cause it plays videos and photos, has an FM tuner built-in and a Voice recorder.

The screen is absolutely fantastic! It´s crisp, vivid and very sharp. The player supports many video formats right away. So no fuss with converting and everything. The software to transfer your media is surprisingly simple and fast. It does everything you want without all the hussle and is very easy and comfy to use.

In short: It´s truly a wonderful device to work with. the controls on the player are realy easy and very intuitive. I must say that I´m surprised with the way I like this device. I truly love it, and I never thought that I would ever love something else but Walkman. And I can ensure you that it´s not the talk from some-one woh tryes out an other brand for the first time, I have had many DAP´s reaching from earlier Creative´s to Ipod´s to Samsung´s and so on. But this one really stunned me.

Sound quality

For the SQ comparison I used this track:

- Lou bega / Mambo No. 5

ripped from an original retail cd in MP3 (LAME 3.98) @320 KBps CBR 44.1Khz.

I used on all devices the same Sennheiser CX300´s.

- Flat

Well, If you turn all 3 players flat. So no EQ, no bass boost or anything (on NW-S700 clearstereo was on) you´ll get the best impression of what the sound processor and sound technicians really have to offer. I was very surprised with my results.

The one wich lost is the NW-A1200. It sounds really good on itself. But compared to the other two it just fell short. It wasn´t crisp and detailed enough sometimes. it gave me the felling that it left something out. When on Lou Bega´s mambo No. 5 the intro stops and the song really gets on it seems to muffle it a bit and take the ´´life´´out of the song. It doesn´t sound as vivid as on the Zen. Dunno how to say this right, but it sounded a bit supressed or sober. Muffled.

The NW-S700 sounds very good Flat-out. Compared to the NW-A1200 it´s crisper, clearer and more vivid. The soudstage sounds (to me) a bit nicer and perhaps wider.

However, it does have the same problem as the NW-A1200 has. Taking the life out of the Lou Bega song right after the intro. All in all the NW-S700 sounds fairly good and You can clearly hear the improvements between it and teh NW-A1200. It just sounds better.

The Zen however, it really surprised me. Yes I know how many times I´ve said that the Zen surprised me, and no I don´t get paid by creative to do so .

It sounds very clear, crisp and extremely vivid from the start. i think the 97 Db SNR has something to do with this too, I really notice it and it´s sweet! The intro is so vivid. Really beutifull. I get the idea that I hear things I didn´t hear on the sony´s.

But the big point: It doesn´t drop back when the intro is done and the song starts. It just stays Nice and vivid all the time. it sounds brilliant. You can really feel the excitement in the song.

So I can say, that Flat out The Zen really sounds best. NW-S700 comes close. But not close enough. NW-A1200 just falls short.

- With adjustments

Most people play around with the sound settings ´till they have the sound they want. I do this to. So I´ll compare them a bit more realistic now, setting the players´ sound settings exactly the way I like it.

After playing around with their settings, I compared the players again. And I´m very sorry but NW-A1200 still ranked last. It´s EQ just isn´t good enough. It doesn´t really adjust the sound. It stayd the same sound but with a bit more bass or treble or whatever you´ve set. It just disappointed me a bit.

The Zen and the NW-S700. The NW-S700 has more possibilities to adjust the sound and the Zen has a stunning 97Db SNR. I´d mind you that I didn´t use NC on NW-S700. After a good 40 mins. of comparing I come to the conclusion that the NW-S700 wins. Allthough it lost the ´´Flat-out´´ test, you can twak and adjust the damn thing so much that you´ll get your sound eventually. The Zen has an EQ, but it´s not very effective in my opinion. Somehow the same story as NW-A1200´s EQ.

It aslo features Bass-boost but it´s useless. It only Muffles the sound. keep off! Í´ve set the Zen Flat for this test, ´cause it just sounds best that way. The NW-S700 has a very clear bass and a good soundstage. It´s still not as crisp as the Zen though. The problem of the lack of vividness is NW-S700 can be solved by playing with the EQ for a while. just set the higher tones a bit up and you´ll get some vividness.

- Final Conclusion:

After some hours of testing and comparing, playing with settings and concentration I can say that NW-S700 wins.

NW-S700 has a very nice bass, you can get it a bit more vivid and it´s a bit warmer sometimes. But please realise that I had almost chosen the Zen as winner!

They come ver close to each other, because the Zen has a very bright, vivid and Clear sound. But NW-S700 has just a little edge with it´s clear-bass and VPT.

Flat out it really lozes from the Zen so it´s not a victory NW-S700 can be proud of. Remember that the Zen sounds best when it´s flat. Son EQ off, and bass boost off, and smart volume off (it suppresses the sound somehow)

I must say that (yes again) creative really surprised me. Some of you might know that I´m a big sony fan. Especially when it comes to Walkmans. I´ve had walkmans my whole life! But this little machine really got me numb. It has a very, very good soundquality.

BUT remember. Soundquality is and will always be a subjective matter. So one could feel totally different. I just want to share my thoughts. It might be helpfull.

I hope you guys find this a bit usefull. I don´t do reviews very often, so I hope it´s good enogh.

greetz

[dura_]

Anouk, André hazes...a fellow countryman from Holland!

Thank you DSP for this informative interesting and somewhat surprising review.

What amazes me is that you seem to find the A1200 a little bit lacklustre.

Owning an A3000, I absolutely love the way it sounds.

But appearantly to your ears it can be bettered (I suppose that the A1200 and the A3000 sounds the same, haven't tried that myself)

OTOH there are differences, I use ATRAC 256 kbs and Shure e4s as headphones (those are truly excellent to my ears).

And I've heart ATRAC sounds better then MP3 on the sony walkmans.

What's your experience, do you think ATRAC, WMA and MP3 sound different on the Sony devices?

[DSP]

haha, landgenoten

well Dura,

I can assure you that those Shure IEM´s make a big difference. But pure theoretically you should get a good comparison from the devices´ sound if you use the same headphones. But they can shure make a difference. But the players stay the same.

I Must say I LOVE atrac´s soundquality. I´ve been using it for years now and all my music is stored in atrac. On my Sony DAP´s I use ATRAC3+ @ >192 Kbps.

I really don´t notice much difference between MP3, WMA, AAC and ATRAC on the walkmans. Atrac does sound better to me than MP3 and WMA (don´t use AAC that much) bit it´s not a hge difference. Since the Zen can´t play Atrac I´ve tested it with MP3.

Interesting question could be: How would they compare if the zen could play atrac?

I suspect it would be the same. Because they would all benefit the same from the better codec. You just take SQ on all three a tad higher.

I could test it with MP3 on the Zen and ATRAC on the walkmans, but that´s not fair because the walkmans would have an advance then.

But I can give it a go just to see if ATRAC drastically improves SQ on the walkmans.

BTW: ken je Beef niet? Reggea/Ska band uit eindhoven

And no thanks. It was my pleasure

greetz

Edited February 19, 2007 by DSP

[dura_]

ha DSP,

Beef, nee, ben ik te oud voor als veertiger denk ik ;-)

You got a point about the ATRAC giving the Sony's an advantage; if people have a large MP3-lib they won't take the trouble to rebuilt their lib.

OTOH, starting anew you want the best sound from your device, so why not use ATRAC if it's there?

But you say the difference isn't large, which make the Creative an interesting device...

[DSP]

Je bent nooit ergens te oud voor. Je bent zo oud als dat je je voelt

ineed. If you´re starting a new Lib you should go for atrac if you own a walkman. But on the other hand....

The difference between the sound of atrac and MP3 isn´t that big. WMA and atrac even less. So I use WMA on my Zen.

You´ve also gotta look at simple things.

Zen has incredible soundquality but doesn´t play ATRAC wich imo is the best codec around. But is that really such a problem?

If you look and see that the Zen has 30GB, very good video support, photo support, wonderfull colour screen, FM radio, voice recorder etc etc and costs roughly the same as my NW-A1200? (The Zen costs 229 euro @ mp3shop.nl)

If it comes to what you get for the price, the Zen wins hands down from the Walkman.

If I where sony, I would ensure that MP3 sounds as good as atrac on their devices since half the world uses MP3. Otherwhise they won´t earn a dime.

BTW dura, do you have experiences with other DAP´s besides your NW-A300? If so, wich DAP´s?

greetz

Edited February 19, 2007 by DSP

[dura_]

Hi DSP,

momenteel voel ik me erg oud, zware dag op het werk.

You're probably right about the codecs; advantage of Atrac is that it sounds good and uses less power on sony walkmans, disadvantage is that you can only use Sony players. I got an Atrac-library, but if I had to start again, who knows, it would have been MP3. And perhaps a creative player.

I used walkmans for as long as they exist, back to the first Sony cassette players. Had a lot of cassetteplayers and portable CDPs, all kind of brands. then I went to MD, a Sony player (forgot the type) that lacked treble but had a nice full sound. Then DAPs became interesting.

First I tried a ipod mini, which had an unpleasantly flat and sharp sound to my ears.

Trying friend's ipods, they all seem to sound like that to my ears; probably something to do with the bass rollof from the headphone-out, that apple uses to disguise the limits of their amps. Pity, I would love to have a 8 gb nano 2G, they look nice.

Then tried an iRiver 799, 1GB flasplayer that costed e450, 3 years ago. The sound was nice but too dynamic to my ears. Use normal level and the percussion would be too prominent compared to the rest, turn it up and proportions became normal but the sound then was simply too loud for my ears. Finally Sony came with the NW/HD1.

Bingo! I had the first one sold in the netherlands, according to Sony Overtoom. Very good sound, the best I heart yet form a portable.

And beautifully made and good batterylife.

Last year I also bought a A3000, which together with the Shure e4 is my daily combo, with which I´m very happy.

But I´m still interested in a flash player, an 7xx or that new one perhaps...I wish Sony would make a 16Gb flashplayer working on a AA battery. I would buy it, no matter what it would cost.

Edited February 19, 2007 by dura

[DSP]

Damn... you poor guy, Ipods are just Crap. Sorry that you had to experience it´s disgusting sound. I can´t get myself to say soundquality,´cause there´s absolutely no trace of quality.

NW-HD1 was indeed an awsome player. Don´t get me wrong about NW-A1200. When I bought it (it was my first ´´MP3 player´´, I used to use good old MD) I loved the sound, allthough I think the sound on my MZ-NH900 was somehow better. But NW-A1200 was great. Great menu, great battery, great design. Just perfect! But time goes by and sony is pissing me off right now. They seem so idiot. They could easily make the best DAP ever. They have all the ingredients for that spread randomly over various of their products. So I went and gave the Zen a go. With no regret at all.

So I´m curious to the NW-A800. Hope it´s good. Otherwhise, sony will have to try hard to concvince me again.

I´ve been a BIG sony fan for many years. but they have to get their things right now, ´cause they´re just losing the battle now.

A big capacity flash player would be nice, but I don´t really care about that kinda things. HDD or flash, It´s all the same to me.

I care about SQ. so things like VPT, HD digital amps, SNR, EQ, output power etc.

greetz

[biozet]

Hey guys,

I have been reading your review,and the following replies between you and Dura.

This is why i like ATRACLIFE.

Great storys about product design and sound quality between people who love ATRAC and DAP's.

keep up the good work everyone

[ceres]

Damn... you poor guy, Ipods are just Crap. Sorry that you had to experience it´s disgusting sound. I can´t get myself to say soundquality,´cause there´s absolutely no trace of quality.

NW-HD1 was indeed an awsome player. Don´t get me wrong about NW-A1200. When I bought it (it was my first ´´MP3 player´´, I used to use good old MD) I loved the sound, allthough I think the sound on my MZ-NH900 was somehow better. But NW-A1200 was great. Great menu, great battery, great design. Just perfect! But time goes by and sony is pissing me off right now. They seem so idiot. They could easily make the best DAP ever. They have all the ingredients for that spread randomly over various of their products. So I went and gave the Zen a go. With no regret at all.

So I´m curious to the NW-A800. Hope it´s good. Otherwhise, sony will have to try hard to concvince me again.

I´ve been a BIG sony fan for many years. but they have to get their things right now, ´cause they´re just losing the battle now.

A big capacity flash player would be nice, but I don´t really care about that kinda things. HDD or flash, It´s all the same to me.

I care about SQ. so things like VPT, HD digital amps, SNR, EQ, output power etc.

greetz

Hi DSP,

very nice review you wrote up. I used to own the A 1000 and really liked the interface, although the OLED back in the days was rather coarse. With the recent advancements in this field, I expect Sony to produce something great with the 800. A combination of the 700s sound quality and tuning options along with A 1200 interface w better display would make for a great device at least hardware wise. The real problem of course is software. As much as the latest Sony devices trump the iPod on sound quality SonicStage is still an absolutely dismal offering. It´s poor on features, unstable, clunky and in general a dead end. Sony needs something entirely new.

[DSP]

thx for the positive replies guys,

@ ceres:

I doubt if NW-A800 will have the SQ and tuning options of S700. It seems very logical, but you never know.

SSCP is very good as it is. But it could be much better.

What I meant by ´´They have all the ingredients for that spread randomly over various of their products´´ is the same with their Software.

look at PSP. It has Drag n drop suport. So why the hell can´t they enable that on their walkmans too? It would save them some time and money, and would prbably earn them some money too ´cause it would make a lot of people very happy.

greetz

[dura_]

Hey guys,

I have been reading your review,and the following replies between you and Dura.

This is why i like ATRACLIFE.

Great storys about product design and sound quality between people who love ATRAC and DAP's.

keep up the good work everyone

I enjoy this too, and this threat inspired me to start a spinoff thread about our portable audio history here.

[DSP]

well guys,

i´ve been playing around with the Zen for two weeks now.

i can now give a real final conclusion. after all, time always tells!

The zen has proved itself a great companion for on the road.

A said, it´s soundquality really amazes me. It beats NW-A1200 easily! hands down.

It´s much clearer and a bit wider I guess. It´s somehow more natural too.

It´s a real good DSP creative put in there. Also the ease of use is fantastic. All in all really great device. Freat replacement for my NW-A1200.

But...

There´s still some little shiny stylish looking thing lying right beside me at the moment...... and if you get things right and take the time...it blows you away.

Yes, I´m talking ´bout my NW-S703.

At first I thought NW-S703 and Zen came very close to each other for SQ. If I test it for a whole week, comparing with Files and settings and everything...

I have to say that NW-S703 is just many leagues better. It´s just that Zen has very clear and comfy sound. The Zens 97 Db SNR is really an advantage.

It´s the ONE AND ONLY THING I miss on NW-S703.

I know it sounds weird ´cause I said they were close at first, but I guess I was surprised about Zens clear and natural comfy sound.

let me explain in other ways:

The Zen gives You optimal SQ when you´re in daily business, doing stuff, traveling, at school, at work, during work-out etc..

It´s just you every day companion. And it will always deliver A very, very comfortable sound!

So the zen is like an enjoyable busy week.......When you enjoy the things you´re doing, and lead a pleasantly busy life.

The NW-S703 on the other hand ives you that special sound. Wide sound image, With deep feelings and a very peacefull experience.

You wanna crumble away in a little corner of the room, away from everything.. and You´ll be left with just a world of music. Your own music. It´s everywhere, nothing but your music. Close your eyes and drift away...

So NW-S703 is in that case more like a rainy sunday morning in mid-winter..... When you wanna stay in bed together with your wife or girlfriend the whole day.. doing nothing, just loving each other and don´t think about anything. Just leaving life as it is for a moment...

Thee are my final feelings about them tow DAP´s.

Hope You can understand it a bit......

greetz