Big Kev said:
They do lack a little in the bass department, otherwise I think they're superb.
Would you think I'd appreciate the Vision M, after the H140, because the Divx option does seem attractive to me, although I'd miss the remote quite a lot, even though I think you can get one, it's not LCD though.
I just keep the dock connected to the usb cable at all times so Its not an issue with me. The Zen remote seems a good piece of kit and can both change from mp3 to radio etc as well as all the useral stuff.
My honest opinion is that you may miss the bass punch of the iRiver. I just cant get the same level of bass out of my Zen as I can get with my iRiver. But I am talking about extreem bass boosting.
How does the ZVM sound? It sounds exactly like a good PC sound card! Better than my SoundBlaster Live, but on par with the Nforce sound systems and Toshiba laptop I own. The Vision:M has a big warm wide open sound (bigger than the iRiver) - esp if you use the US firmware it will go very loud. Im just dissapointed that bass when pushed on bass heavy tracks distorts a bit. Un-EQ’ed, it sounds better than most mp3 players out there. It sounds very warm and big, but almost too “loud”. However, the bass seems to be a little lacking (even on my UM2’s). Creative have added a “Bass Boost” and an “user EQ” – both can be used at same time. The bass boost seems a bit odd as its mostly upper bass, but with some songs it works very well – others it destroys! Its best to keep the "bass boost" off. The EQ is 5 band -/+ 12 db’s.
If you add “Bass boost” and EQ at same time what you get is unforgivable for a player in this day and age. Have you ever heard one of those £20 hifi systems you can get – turn up volume and mega distortion! That’s what the ZVM sounds like! It’s a bit of a shock considering how good the rest of the sound is! This distortion is audible at any volume so it nothing to do with the amp in the Zen (which is very powerfull if you have non EU firmware) – but the pre-amp in the chipset. It is set too high! If you record music, you want to set the recording volume a bit lower – so if there’s any sudden dynamics it wont distort. If you set it higher you may get a more impressive sound, but at times it will sound clipped. Same with HiFi’s. Good amp’s have a lot of reserve power so that it can cope with sudden dynamics. This is the main problem with the ZVM – its pre amp is too loud – there’s nothing in reserve in case of sudden dynamics. Everything sounds on the wire with the ZVM – congested at times – if only creative lowered the pre amp it would allow the Zen to “breath” more.
I still think the best sounding mp3 player I have is the iPaq 4150 (uses the same audio chipset as H140) but it just sounds so much better. It can produce so much *undistorted non boomy bass* that my my UM2's move in my ears and my eyes wobble
bliss BTW im a trained classical musician if your wondering lol
My advice is to keep the iRiver for music - and get a PMP for video's dew to larger screen.
However the Vision:M is not a bad buy, For most people they will find it fantastic. The unit is not as thick as it looks. I have no problem with thickness - It holds well in the hands.
BTW the Zen is drag n drop out of the box - no drivers or software needed if you run Win XP.
Apart from the occasional “terrible” sound, the player is impressive - I would like it to have more "deep bass grunt"!– I personally like file-tree navigation better. They video top notch – I watched 2 films back to back yesterday on the train and found the small screen not to be a problem.
