Zune AReviews

Zune MP3 Player

 

My very first MP3 player was a Nokia 6681 cellphone three years ago.  As an audiophile I never really cared much for the lossy 15 MHz-constrained MP3 files a lot of teenagers are raving about with their mobile mp3 players.  I prefer to listen on CDs, SACDs and DVD's  in the quiet of my home using my Acurus system on  Mordaunt-Shorts speakers. Not the best of its kind, but certainly head and shoulders above anything you hear on MP3 players.  And using cellphone mp3 playback in stereo was just another one of those things I do while waiting in the lounge to catch my plane.  I certainly won't be caught dead with a cellphone in one pocket and an MP3 player in the other.  Just one mobile device would do.

But that was before I heard an iPod 30GB video on a premium in-canal earphone from Shure.  I was hooked when I did.  MP3 music now has its place in my spare time, and even while doing other things.  And lately, I discovered WAV files sounded even better on an 80GB iPod using even better earphones up in the Shure catalogue.  That was about Christmas last year.  Since then, I could never seem to take off that darn earphone off my neck and the iPod has always been a part of the things I put in my pocket, ball pen and a cellphone besides.

I never really took mp3 files seriously until then. My officemates seasoned in mobile gears were right. Good earphones really make a sonic difference.  Never again did I touch those stock earphones that came with my iPod.  Same with the earphones that came with my new Sony Ericcson walkman phones.  You just had to invest in really good ones.

I asked myself, what could possibly be better than that?

The answer came just last April.  It was a Microsoft Zune 30GB mp3 player.

A lot of my younger friends have been telling me there's life beyond the iPod.  I wasn't really that interested.  My iPod was doing just fine.  Why bother tinker with something that ain't broke?  Well, I guess they were right.  My kid borrowed a 30 GB Zune last April to hook up to his Xbox for reasons he wasn't about to tell me except to say he wanted to listen to some other music while playing his old games.  Out of curiosity I played with it on its own stock earphone.  And my jaw dropped.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I hooked up my Shure earphones and my jaw further dropped.  It wasn't really dramatically better.  It was just different.  It sounded cleaner and more full-bodied, louder and more dynamic.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  Now, I am a Zune 80GB user.

Those earphones that come with the Zune player really help.  You just gotta have those.  Of course if you already have those cool Shure and Bose in-canal earphones, you probably can throw them out as well.  But if not, they sure beat the hell out of any earphone that comes with an iPod.